About Mary Becker Thompson

I've been hanging around Glendale for 58 years. I grew up in Wyoming, but attended Church at the First Presbyterian Church of Glendale on East Fountain Avenue. I am the third generation of my family to belong to the Presbyterian Church.

My paternal grandparents, Henry and Minetta Becker, started church there soon after their marriage in 1916. The Presbyterian Church was relatively close to their farm on County Line Road, which is now Crescentville Road. The farm like Glendale is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It was once home or summer home to Judge John Burgoyne who was the first judge in the United States to declare the fugitive slave law unconstitutional. He presided over the famous case of the slave who murdered her children rather than see them returned to slavery. (The Garner Fugitive Slave Case)

Judge John Burgoyne c. 1845

Judge John Burgoyne & the Becker Farm House

My father Charles and his siblings, Frederick, Marie, and Carolyn all attended Glendale School and later Wyoming High School. When my parents were married in 1942 they continued attending church in Glendale and as our family grew my brothers and I did too.

Mary Becker Thompson