Danville native Anne Gertrude Linney (1887-1969) was a Methodist missionary and teacher which led her to several states to get an education and work.

She was active in the old Centenary United Methodist Church, Walnut and South Third streets, in the early 1900s.

She graduated at Danville High School and in June 1910, she left for Richmond to take a course in pedagogy at the normal school.

Pedagogy is an approach to teaching and refers more broadly to the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the psychological development of learners.

After leaving the normal school in September 1913, she and her sister Maude, went to Mexico City, Mexico, where they taught at Mary Keener Institute.

Known as Gertrude, she left in 1913 for Kansas City, Missouri, to enter Scarritt Bible Training School.

She later taught in Flagstaff, Arizona, where her brother Hartwell Linney lived for a time.

Gertrude and John C. Potts were married in October 1922 in Los Angeles, California where they lived for many years.

The 1940 Census for Arizona lists Gertrude, age 52, with her husband, J.C. Potts, 55  and their children, J.C. Potts, 15; Joan, 12, and Edwin, 10.

Sister Maude

Gertrude’s sister Maude was also active in the United Methodist Church and its Missionary Society in 1912. She was active in and was grand chief of the Pythian Sisters.

She also taught at the Presbyterian Institute in Hot Springs, North Carolina in 1919.

When the sisters returned to Danville for visits they were entertained by friends.

In 1920, when they were home from a missionary trip to Mexico, Gertrude classified her work in three classes: The unchurched in the West; the Mexicans, and the Native Americans.

Their friend Allene Pearce, a missionary in Korea, talked about her work there before she returned home due to her health.

Allene graduated at Kentucky College for Women and did post-graduate work at Kentucky Wesleyan College in Winchester before traveling abroad. She also completed a two-year course in Scarritt Missionary Training School for Women in Kansas City, Missouri.

Father was businessman

Gertrude and Maude were daughters of Edwin Bruce and Sarah Belle Perry Linney of South Fourth Street.

Edwin was born on April 9, 1852, in Danville. He was the youngest of 11 children of William Henderson and Jane Ver Bryke Linney.

Edwin and Sarah were married in 1877 and had five children: Maude, Herbert, Hartwell, Joseph Edwin, and Annie Gertrude, the youngest.

Edwin was postmaster of Danville for 16 years from 1898 to 1914. He was later in business with his brothers, T.E. Linney in Linney Brothers Grocery Store.

He and his wife moved to Arizona in 1920 after his health failed. They later moved to Fresno, California, where two of their children lived.

He died February 27,1928. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Fresno.

After Sarah died, he and Hattie Hardesty of Lexington were married.

His son, Hartwell, a Centre College graduate, was a former assistant Attorney General of California and was speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives. He also served in World War I. Hartwell was married to Ethel Wood (1885-1957).