Raymenton Travel Diary

Hewstone Knight Raymenton was born April 13, 1891, in Worcester, Massachusetts to William Hewstone Raymenton and Harriet Carroll Knight. Raymenton attended Yale from 1910 to 1912. He then started his career as a clerk in the Graton & Knight Manufacturing Company, which specialized in tanning and manufacturing leather and was owned by his grandfather. He later rose to be purchasing agent.

Raymenton married Hazel Forsythe Jennings in 1912 when he was 21 and she was 23. He served in World War I from 1917 to 1919. In 1933, the Raymentons moved to San Diego. Raymenton loved history and was an avid supporter of the San Diego Museum. He was a board member for a decade from 1940 to 1950 and was the president of the board in 1940-1941 and 1951-1953. He was the author of Forty-Seven Years: History of the San Diego Museum Association. Raymenton was also a collector of Native American textiles, especially of the Southwest, and donated these materials to the San Diego Museum of Man (now the Museum of Us). The museum also holds some 25,000 photographs of the Raymentons’ travels around the world. Raymenton died on January 17, 1972.

Hazel Forsythe Jennings was born December 12, 1889, in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. She was the daughter of a military family, with ancestors who fought in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. She attended Emerson College and was a member of the Phi Eta Sigma honor society. Hazel died in 1972 at the age of 80 in San Diego, California.