Thompson, Celia Crocker, 1874-1965

Biography

Henry R. Crocker, who came to California from Michigan in 1853, operated a hotel on the Big Oak Flat route to Yosemite at Sequoia, Tuolumne County (ca 1870-1904). May Hall, a school teacher from Michigan, married Crocker early in the 1870s. Following Henry Crocker's death (1904), May Hall Crocker attempted briefly to run Crocker's Station hotel alone, but, finding the task too difficult, she sold out and moved to Lodi where she lived with her daughter and son-in-law until her death (1935). Perhaps the major event of Mrs. Crocker's final thirty years was a lengthy tripto Europe, financed by her daughter and son-in-law (1922).

The Crockers' daughter, Celia May (1874-1965), was raised at Crocker Station and subsequently educated at San Joaquin Valley College in Woodbridge (1894-96). There she met her future husband (1903), Wilson Henry Thompson (1868-1953), subsequently Vice President of the Citizens National Bank of Lodi and one of the founders of the Pacific Fruit Exchange. The Thompsons had one son, Henry Allen. Celia Crocker Thompson earned modest renown as a photographer through pictures she took while still a child of the Yosemite region (1890-1904). She subsequently gave the bulk of her work to the Lodi Public Library, where her husband served on the Board of Directors for over fifty years. In addition, Mrs. Thompson gave personal diaries and scrapbooks on local history to the Lodi Library. The San Joaquin County Historical Museum also holds approximately 600 of Thompson's original negatives.

From the guide to the Crocker (Henry R. & May Hall) Collection, 1863-1936, (San Joaquin County Museum.)