San Mateo County CA Archives Biographies.....McGinn, Mrs. Elsa S.
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Regina Gualco rmgualco@yahoo.com and Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com August 11, 2006

Author: Author: S. J. Clarke (1928)

MRS. ELSA S. McGINN

   Mrs. Elsa S. McGinn, one of the brightest stars in California's constellation 
of women, has generously given her services for the public good and San Mateo is 
honored by her citizenship. She has exerted a strong influence in political, 
civic, philanthropic and cultural affairs and belongs to that class of women 
whose executive force, combined with broad humanitarianism, have made them potent 
factors in the attainment of that higher civilization for which the world is 
constantly striving.

   Mrs. McGinn has inherited the rich mental and moral fortune accumulated by a 
long line of worthy ancestors and has added thereto the interest of her own 
individuality. Her mother, Laura Catherine (Redden) Searing, achieved 
distinction as a writer of poetry. This gift was bestowed upon her at birth 
and she was known to the literary world as Howard Glyndon. In early childhood 
she was deprived of her hearing but instead of allowing this misfortune to 
hamper her progress she transformed it into a blessing. Born in Somerset county, 
Maryland, February 9, 1840, she traced her lineage through her maternal 
grandfather to Sir William Waller, one of the original proprietors of that 
commonwealth. He was a descendant of Edmund Waller, who was a leader in the 
long parliament and a celebrated wit and poet during the days of Cromwell and 
the restoration. Mrs. Searing's ancestry was in close collateral line with that 
of the "great and good John Hampton" and her poetical inspiration and patriotic 
fervor came to her from direct sources. During her childhood the family 
migrated to Missouri and soon afterward she began writing verse, producing many 
poetic gems which have been published. At the age of nineteen she turned her 
attention to editorial work, becoming associated with a religious paper of 
St. Louis. She also contributed poems and miscellaneous articles to the St. Louis 
Republican and concealed her identity under the nom de plume of Howard Glyndon. 
She was chosen as the Washington correspondent of the Republican and her articles 
and war poems were later published by Messrs. Hurd & Houghton of Boston. During 
her stay in the national capital she met many notable personages and was esteemed 
as a friend by President Lincoln, Generals Garfield and Grant as well as several 
distinguished statesmen of that period. In 1876 Laura Catherine Redden was married 
in New York city to Edward W. Searing, a prominent lawyer of that metropolis, and 
to their union was born one daughter, Elsa.

   Miss Searing was married April 20, 1904, in Nome, Alaska, to John L. McGinn, 
also a talented attorney. He was born February 26, 1871, in Portland, Oregon, to 
which state his father came with the pioneers of 1854, and his public school 
education was obtained in the Rose city. He prepared for his profession in the 
University of Oregon, from which he was graduated in 1893 with the degree of 
LL. B., and formed a partnership with his brother, the late Senator Henry E. 
McGinn, who later became judge of the fourth judicial district of the state of 
Oregon and whose memoirs are duly recorded in the Oregon State Reports in 
Vol. 112, page 713. The brothers practiced together for five years. In 1898, 
at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, John L. McGinn went to the 
Philippines with the Second Oregon Regiment and gallantly served his country 
for thirteen months, participating in twenty-two engagements and skirmishes. 
After his honorable discharge he resumed the work of his profession and practiced 
in the Philippines from June until November, 1899. He returned to Portland in 
January, 1900, and in the spring of the same year went to Alaska. For a time 
he engaged in prospecting for gold along Saturday creek and on October 15, 1900, 
was appointed assistant United States district attorney. On July 12, 1901, he 
was placed in full charge of that office and during the term of court held by 
Judge Wickersham in the second judicial division he went to Dutch Harbor. 
Mr. McGinn secured the conviction of a murderer named Hardy, the first man ever 
hanged in Nome, and also prosecuted the celebrated riot cases. After the 
selection of Colonel Grigsby as United States district attorney Mr. McGinn served 
as one of his deputies until January 22, 1903, when he resigned, and in April of 
that year Judge Moon appointed him as acting United States attorney during the 
absence of Colonel Grigsby from the district, to which he returned in the spring 
of 1903. Mr. McGinn then opened an office in Nome and the prestige which he won 
as a public prosecutor soon brought him a large and lucrative practice. He has 
been identified with much important litigation and is regarded as a formidable 
adversary in forensic combat. His evidence is presented with the skill and 
precision of a military commander and his arguments are strong, logical and 
convincing. He has always followed the course dictated by conscience and honor 
and stands deservedly high in his profession.

   Mr. and Mrs. McGinn have become the parents of two children: John W., who 
is attending the University of Santa Clara; and Laura Edith, who is a medical 
student at the State University of Washington.

   Mrs. McGinn came to San Mateo in 1916 and has since been a leader in every 
project for the advancement of the county. During 1917-18 she was president of 
the Girls' Welfare Home in San Francisco, chairman of the San Mateo county 
woman's committee of the State Council of Defense and a member of the state 
committee of the National Council of Defense. In 1919 she was chairman for 
the county in the third, fourth and fifth Liberty Loan campaigns and 
represented the state woman's committee in a similar capacity. As county 
chairman she had charge of the government thrift and savings campaigns of 
1919 and in the same year was a director of child welfare work in San Mateo 
county under the supervision of the United States department of labor; 
chairman of the woman's land army, organized to aid the farmers and fruit 
growers of the county in the labor shortage during the war period; chairman 
of the first welcome home committee for the county for the veterans of the 
late war, and also of the first county armistice day celebration, the largest 
of the kind ever given in this section of the state. In 1920 Mrs. McGinn was 
named by Governor Stephens as chairman of the San Mateo Community Service and 
elected a member of the city board of trustees, receiving the highest vote of 
any candidate. She was also commissioner of public health and safety for the 
city. She filled the latter office for three years and had jurisdiction over 
the police, fire and health departments. Under her direction a La France fire 
engine was purchased and this branch of municipal service was greatly improved. 
In 1921 Mrs. McGinn was named a member of the executive board in charge of 
Americanization work in the county and appointed one of the trustees of the 
San Mateo public library. In the same year she served on the Red Cross 
committee for the control of influenza; was president of the San Mateo County 
Federation of Women's Clubs; vice president of the San Mateo County Peace 
Officers Association and first vice president of the Peninsula Bureau of 
Chambers of Commerce and Civic Associations. In 1922 she was appointed a 
member of the district board of the California Federation of Women's Clubs 
and in the same year was made commissioner of public works for San Mateo 
with supervision of parks and boulevards. During her term she succeeded in 
floating ninety thousand dollars worth of bonds for the purchase of the old 
Kohl estate, which has been converted into a beautiful park and extends from 
Fifth street to Ninth. In 1924 Mrs. McGinn was appointed chairman of the public 
health department for the San Francisco district of the State Federation of 
Women's Clubs and in the following year she assumed the duties of secretary of 
the Presidents' Council of Northern California, an adjunct of the same 
federation.

   Mrs. McGinn exercises her right of franchise in support of the republican 
party and in 1926 was a candidate before the primaries for the state legislature 
from San Mateo county, coming in second and defeated by a very small majority. 
She acted as mayor of San Mateo during the illness of Thomas Brady and has 
filled with ability every office to which she has been called. She was one of 
the first and has remained one of the most ardent advocates of a bridge over 
San Francisco bay for the purpose of providing the residents of San Mateo 
county with adequate transportation facilities, which can only be accomplished 
by supplanting obsolete statutes with modern legislation.

   Mrs. McGinn became a director of the San Mateo Philharmonic Society in 1926, 
and is largely responsible for the success of the San Mateo Woman's Club, of 
which she has been the executive head for five terms, and has recently been 
elected for a sixth term, also serving as president of its Clubhouse Association. 
She is a member of the National League for Woman's Service, the Peninsular 
Avenue Parent-Teachers Association of San Mateo, the Presidents Assembly, the 
Burlingame Woman's Club, San Francisco Center of the California League of Women 
Voters, the California branch of the National Woman's Party, the executive board 
of San Mateo County Chapter of the American Red Cross, the San Mateo-Burlingame 
Exchange Club, the San Mateo Chamber of Commerce, the San Mateo Business & 
Professional Women's Club, the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals, and the board of directors of San Franciscans Consolidated. 
A deep student, Mrs. McGinn is fearless in her defense of the right and a 
tireless worker in behalf of the cause which she espouses. Her activities have 
touched the general interests of society to their betterment and her career 
should prove a source of inspiration not only to her own sex, but to all who 
aspire to a high level of accomplishment.

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY
OF
SAN MATEO
COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO, ILL. 
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1928

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanmateo/bios/mcginnes.txt