JENNIE ADELE CURIEUX

Educator taught elementary school for almost 40 years

From age 17, Jennie Adele Gregovich Curieux devoted more than half her life to teaching in rural Nevada schools. She taught elementary school for almost 40 years.

Jennie was born July 26, 1881 to Emma and John Gregovich in Eureka, Nevada, and graduated from Eureka High School. She obtained her teacher certification on July 30, 1898, and began teaching in Little Cherry in Nye County, commuting 85 miles by buckboard from Eureka, a trip that took three days. She was paid $30 per month plus room and board. Her next teaching positions were in White River in eastern Nye County, Huntington in Elko County, Ruby Hill for three years, and Beowawe for two years.

At age 24, Jennie married Frank Curieux of Beowawe on July 12, 1905. Her husband owned a bar, store, and hotel in Beowawe and also had extensive mining interests. The couple had one daughter, Catherine, who was nine months old when Frank died in 1907 as a result of injuries suffered in a train accident.

Jennie and her daughter moved to Tonopah, where Jennie would spend the rest of her life. She taught in Tonopah elementary grades from September 1908 to January 1917.

Jennie took a break from teaching in 1916 to run successfully for the office of Nye County Recorder and Auditor, one of the first women in the state to win election to office after the Nevada Legislature passed a constitutional amendment in 1914 giving women the right to vote and hold county and state offices.

Jennie served two two-year terms as County Recorder and Auditor from 1917 to 1921. She was distinguished by receiving the largest vote on the county ticket, in spite of having an opponent in the 1918 election. In 1921 she returned to teaching in Tonopah and taught first grade from 1921 through the 1951 school year.

In professional activities, she was a charter member of her Delta Kappa Gamma chapter, the international honorary organization for women educators. Jennie represented Nevada in 1930 at the national convention of the National Education Association in Columbus, Ohio. She was county NEA director, Director and Treasurer of the Nevada State Education Association and a member of the state textbook committee.

Jennie died on December 23, 1961, at age 80, after a two-month illness.

Posted to website October 2017.