The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., January 5, 1939, page 1

PIONEER TEACHER IS 89

     A little old lady named Mrs. Jennie Whitney, who 73 years ago began teaching in a one room territorial school, absurd for eighty-ninth birthday last Thursday, Dec. 29, in the quite seclusion of her home.
     One of Klickitat county's oldest residents and easily its oldest living school teacher, Mrs. Whitney is a member of a family prominent in the early history of the Mid-Columbia area.
     Born in Massachusetts in 1849 during the California gold rush days, Mrs. Whitney came to the Pacific Coast a girl of 15. The Civil War was just drawing to a bloody close when she left her New England home with her parents and crossed the Isthmus of Panama to board a ship bound for California.
     With her parents she came up the Columbia river to The Dalles in 1864. Her father, Griffen Chamberlin built a sawmill near what is now Goldendale. Jennie, the daughter, remained in The Dalles to study at a missionary school.
     The following year, though she was still a mere girl of 16, Mrs. Whitney began her career as a school teacher. In the years since that autumn in 1866 Mrs. Whitney has witnessed much of the progress that has carried Washington from a few scattered pioneer communities to the state of a million and a half population.
     Partially paralyzed now, and her memory somewhat dimmed by time, Mrs. Whitney lives in Goldendale with her daughter Miss Mabel Whitney in the same house she built here 50 years ago

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