Edna Mabel Behrens was born January 30, 1883 in the home of her Grandanother, Mary Kountz to Charles Henry and Mary Kountz Behrens. In 1890 when her father leased the Empire Hotel from John Scott, he moved the family there. Edna had finished school in Shasta when her father became County Sheriff and moved the family to Redding just in time for Edna to enroll with the first class at Shasta County High School 1899, Edna went on to two years of study at the University of California and Stanford, She did not graduate but. taught in several rural schools -- Whitmore, Mountain, French Gulch, Junction, Sunny Hill and Coram -- achieving a life diploma.

Walter and Edna met at Coram. In 1913, they wed at her father's home in Reddlng and moved to Albany, Oregon where their only son, Richard Behrens Eaton, was born December 22, 1914. Soon Walter was County Surveyor for the newly formed Jefferson County in Central Oregon. In WWI, he was commissioned a first Lieutenant in the Chemical Warfare Service. He died in Cleveland, Ohio in the Great Flu Pandemic in December of 1918. Edna brought Richard to Redding to live with her mother and sister among people whom she knew. She worked in the Post Office, for the Red Cross and in, 1922 taught in Redding. She was elected Treasurer of Shasta County in 1922 and served from 1923 until she retired in 1939.

Edna was the last surviving founding member of the Shasta County Historical Society, contributing articles the to Covered Wagon and aiding writers and students with access to her historical library. She was also an early member of the Women's Improvement Club, fifty-year member of the Rebekah Lodge, a forty-year member of the American Legion Auxiliary, the American Association of University Women and an honorary member of Delta Kappa Gamma Society of teachers. She was active in those organizations as long as her health permitted, After prolonged disability, she died December 4, 1969.

Source: Shasta Historical Society - Aug 2002