"[3] Henderson was born on August 31, 1903, in Elko, Nevada to one of the small town's leading families; his relatives were prominent ranchers, businessmen, professionals, and his ancestors were early settlers in the area.
His great-grandfather, Lewis Rice Bradley,[4] a self-made cattle baron, emigrated west from Missouri to become, among other disparate things, the second governor of Nevada, elected twice.
"[9] Although Henderson left Elko relatively early, the small town left a mark with him, possibly because of the eminence of his relatives; he once told a colleague, psychotherapist C. Jess Groesbeck, one time director of the Utah State Mental Hospital, that "his Elko heritage was so significant to him that it came up frequently in his dreams while in analysis with Jung.
"[9] After achieving fame within the field with his work on myths of initiation, a colleague dubbed him "the shaman from Elko",[10] and that later became the title of the festschrift in his honor edited by Gareth Hill in 1991.
[12] Maude Henley hailed from Red Bluff, California, where her father was a mining engineer,[5][13] but he died when she was young, leaving her an orphan.
[5] John Henderson was groomed to be a banker (having begun as a bookkeeper and worked at every job in the bank[14] and took over as president when his father died.
He also, with his brother Charles and a third partner, formed the Henderson-Griswold Livestock Company, which owned three cattle and two sheep ranches;[9] John acted as vice-president.
"[15] A significant part of Henderson's professional work would later deal with the symbols, rites and belief structure of the American Indian.