Lewis Mobley (154618) Lewis� parents, John (15461) and Ruth Mobley, moved from Maryland to Indiana in about 1817. Lewis was born in 1830 near Madison, Ohio which then was a small village on the banks of the Ohio. He was the eighth of twelve children. In 1838, in search of better land for farming and better educational opportunities for their children, John and Ruth moved the family a little farther north to Bartholomew County. As a family historian tells it, Lewis �turned to books and learning, from the time he was a stripling. And he studied late and early, so that he might be a teacher.� In 1854, Lewis married Julia Rohrer of nearby Decatur County. In 1859, Lewis� childhood efforts were rewarded when he became an instructor at Hartsville College. Continuing his education while teaching, he earned an MS degree from Hartsville in 1879. Until his departure from Hartsville in 1880, professor Mobley taught courses such as Chemistry, Natural Science and Geology. He died in 1902 in nearby Columbus, Indiana. His life might have been summed up best in a portion of a poem written by one of his nine children, Minnie May (the historian quoted above), in 1929. It reads as follows:

Those who knew Professor Mobley, held him in esteem and reverence,
For his honesty and kindness, and his courage of conviction.
Strict and stern his code of morals - but his heart was soft and tender,
And his children well remember, how he tended us in childhood,
When we had an awful earache, or a bunch of frosted fingers.
How he walked the floor at midnight - Sang the song of �Davy Crockett�
And the old clock spring he�d jingle, just to charm away the torture
And to soothe us back to slumber.

Darius Mobley (1546182) Darius was born in Hartsville, Indiana in 1855 - the first of nine children born to Lewis and Julia (Rohrer) Mobley. He grew up in a strict religious home. The daily reading and studying of the bible was an important part in his education and family life. He received an AB degree from Hartsville College in 1875. In 1876, he married Harriet (Hattie) Hessey who had been a ward of and was raised by the Reverend Daniel Shuck who had taught at Hartsville. In 1877, Darius entered the Union Biblical Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He graduated from the Seminary in 1879 and that same year he accepted a position as president of a newly created Woodbridge Seminary in Woodbridge, California. For three years, the seminary operated as a secondary or college preparatory school. In 1883, it incorporated as a college and renamed itself the San Joaquin Valley College. As well as being president, Darius was a professor of Mental and Moral Science teaching such classes as Homer, Tacitus, Logic, English Past and Present, Latin Reader, Caesar, Analysis, Sophocles and De Senectute et de Amicitia. Under his direction, the college reached the height of its success in the late 1880s and became known as the �Athens or San Joaquin County�. In 1891, Darius left the college to enter the ministry. However, circumstances dictated another course and he accepted a position on the faculty of the Stockton High School near Woodbridge. Later, he became principal of the school and remained in that capacity until 1903. In 1895, Hattie died of tuberculosis. She and Darius had nine children. Four and one half years later (1899), Darius married Mabel Barrows and in 1901, Mabel gave birth to Darius� tenth and final child. Darius� reason for leaving Stockton High School was to enter the ministry as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Fowler, California which is about eight miles south of Fresno. The Mobley family remained in Fowler until 1907 when Darius accepted the pastorate of the Westminster Presbyterian Church of San Francisco. He remained there until 1901 when he resigned to become pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Vallejo which is about 25 miles north of San Francisco. He remained as pastor of that church until his retirement in 1927 at the age of 72. Years after his death, he was remembered as loving but not demonstrative; dignified but with a sense of humor; and, one who never stopped learning. During his last year, when he could no longer drive, he would take a bus to the local library to check out the latest philosophical and scientific books.

Notes: Hartsville College closed in 1897 and Huntington College became its successor. The Union Biblical Seminary was later chartered as Bonebrake Seminary. The San Joaquin Valley College closed in 1897 due to declining enrollment and inadequate funding.

Photo Provided by: Vern Beckman [email protected] 8/22/05

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