The Family of Fanny Louise Sullivan Sine Henderson

Born in 1904 to Andrew and Lizzy Sullivan, Fanny Louise was the oldest of 8 children raised on the family farm in Marbury, Maryland. She attended Lackey High School and was a member of the first graduating class. She then went to Towson Normal School for Girls in Baltimore to be trained as a teacher. After being certified to teach after two years, she returned to Marbury and began her profession in a one-room school house not far from the farm. Fanny Louise eventually married John M. Sine and gave birth to a child of the same name (pictured). The new family took residence in Washington DC until several years later when Fanny was abandoned by her husband. With her small son, she returned to the farm in Marbury to care for her ageing parents. After taking on a verity of small jobs to assist the family’s welfare, she became the mistress of the Marbury Post Office, from which she later retired. She lived on the Sullivan homestead in Marbury for the remainder of her life (she died in 1995) happily married to her husband, Gilbert G. Henderson, a highly skilled cabinet maker. Fanny Louise Sullivan Sine Henderson was a woman persistent in her desire to care for her family against heavy odds. She valued education and hard work as a formula for success despite the enumerable personal problems she faced while struggling to nurse her ageing parents and raising her young son.