Josephine "Josie" Mullen was born March 28, 1883 in Shasta. She attended local schools and started teaching in 1906. At that time, she could have taught by passing a test and gone on with her own schooling at night and summer school, but being twenty-three when she started and her picture indicated that she graduated from Normal School first. She is tentatively identified in many pictures of groups of teachers at summer school or a Teachers Institute. Teachers Institute was a countywide gathering of teachers for instruction and inspiration from the County Superintendent and her staff. As do most teachers, she continued her own education; she is remembered in classes in the 1940s.

Josie taught at West Side Grammer School and Magnolia school in Redding where she taught second grade for over thirty years.

Her house was on the east side of Court Street in the 1200 block. Two of her cousins, Myra Mae Parks and Mabel Gardiner, sometimes lived with her. And sometimes another teacher might board with her.

Josie died of pancreatic cancer, June 18, 1950; she was cremated and buried in the family plot in Old St. Joseph's Cemetery.

Source: Shasta Historical Society - February 1997