An Alvord Unified School District elementary school and adjacent public park are both named for early educator Myra Reynolds Linn.
Linn was born in New York state, the daughter of Baptist minister Rev. F.W. Reynolds. At some point after her birth, her family moved to California, where her father engaged in selling real estate for a time. In 1911, Reynolds took over the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in Corona and moved his family to that city. Linn was 19 at the time.
After moving to Corona, Linn met her future husband, Stanley Linn. They married June 12, 1915.
The article in the local newspaper about her wedding said Myra was a “young woman of much personal charm.” The Linns had three daughters. A year after they married, the couple bought property in the La Sierra area, where they built a home and engaged in citrus ranching.
During World War I, Stanley Linn and his father-in-law F.W. Reynolds, volunteered with the YMCA and went to Europe to assist American soldiers stationed there. Happily, both returned home safely.
In the 1930s, after the Linn daughters were grown, Myra Linn went back to school at Claremont College to get her teaching credential, which she received in 1935. She began her teaching career that year at Alvord School.
A year later, the Riverside Daily Press reported that Myra Linn “has a position as principal of a private school at Ojai.” According to the 1940 census, she was still principal of a private school. Meanwhile, her husband continued in the citrus business and was superintendent of a packing house in the Riverside or Corona area.
At some point in the early 1940s, however, Myra Linn resumed her teaching career at Alvord. By 1943 she was both principal of Alvord School and superintendent of the district. At that time, Alvord was an elementary school district only, and did not become a unified district, with middle and high schools, until 1960.
Myra Linn continued her own education and, in 1944, got her administrative certificate. Unfortunately, her husband Stanley died in 1945, but Myra Linn continued her teaching and administrative career.
Myra Linn retired in 1956. In 1957, a new elementary school built in the Alvord district was named in her honor. In 1980, the city of Riverside put in a neighborhood park adjacent to the school that was named for the long time educator.
Myra Linn died in 1974, but the name of this important person in Alvord Unified School District history lives on with the school and park.
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