John Douglas Tennant was born in Maryland to Scottish parents who immigrated to the US in the late 1800s. He came from a family of miners, but sought out a different life for himself. John started working at Long-Bell Lumber in 1900. He became friends with the owner who had a pretty daughter, Lola Bell Sweet, and they soon married in Missouri. John and Lola had a son and a daughter, Florence Emma, my namesake, in Louisiana. The family moved out to the company’s headquarters in Kansas City, and in 1920, he was promoted to vice president of Long-Bell. 

 

Soon after, the company sought to expand its reach out West. The company’s president, Robert Long, planned to build the largest lumber mill of its time in the Columbia Valley. Long did not simply want to build a mill, though, he wanted to build a sophisticated city. The Tennants moved out to Washington and John helped construct the town of Longview’s new sawmill. John was given land and he built a nice, 13,000 square-foot home on a hill, which he called Rutherglen after the Scottish town his family was from (McClary). A smaller house was built nearby where the Tennant family lived. 

 

Their daughter, Florence Emma grew up with a love for sports. She became a PE teacher and taught at Stanford. She was offered a position as director of athletics at a university on the East Coast; however, her father, John, did not allow her to take it. She landed in Yakima, Washington teaching PE. She walked her students past the Coca-Cola plant in town. That is how she met her future husband, William Hutchinson Parks.