Obituary for John Henry Oxford

Son of J.A. and Sidney Oxford, was born in Hardin County, 
llinois, March 13 1876.  He was one of a large family of 
children, only three of whom  now survive, two brothers and 
a sister.  His mother died about the time he reached manhood 
and his father remarried.  His one outstanding quality was 
his limitless devotion to his parents and to his step-mother.  
In his youth he was for some three years almost blind.  The 
blindness greatly hindered him in getting an early start in 
securing an education, but at about the age of ten he began 
to recover his sight and upon entering school he made very 
rapid progress preparing himself for teaching by the time he 
was about eighteen years of age.  He took up teaching at a 
life work and taught for a few years in the rural schools of 
his native county.  He was converted at an early age and 
became a member of Rock Creek General Baptist Church and he 
continued a faithful member of this Church the remainder of 
his life.  On June 3 1906 he married Lena Kennedy and they 
lived together happy and devoted for several years.  They 
both taught in the public schools of Cave-in-rock, Illinois, 
to which system he was called as Principal in 1903 and in 
which position he continued to serve until 1907.  In the fall 
of 1907 he was elected to the superintendency of the 
Elizabethtown, Illlinois public schools, which position he 
held till 1910 when he was elected superintendent of school 
of his native county, serving in this capacity four years.  At 
the expiration of his term of office as county superintendent 
he was selected to take charge of the department of scence of 
Oakland City College in which capacity he served with unusual 
ability for ten years.  His training was secured in Ewing 
College in the Southern Illinois State Normal School and in 
Oakland City College, graduating from the two last named 
institutions.  He was a great instructor.  He was more than 
that.  He was a great teacher combining in proper proportion
acdemic instruction and correct in his oral instruction but 
rather in the life he lived among his students, and thousands 
of them profited greatly from their contact with him.

On August 12, 1926, while he was going from one college 
building to another, his automobile was struck by a train and 
he was instantly killed.  In his untimely going the world 
lost a student, a teacher, a friend. 

On the front page of a book of poems written by John Henry 
Oxford 


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