b"more arduous job than it was. Despite the currency inwords of the oldest surviving member of each pioneer the East of stories like that of the Oatman massacre,family. It is not a professionally written work; it is not despite the well-known rigors of the journey ofthe product of the pen of a typical TV scriptwriter. It thousands of long miles in wagon trains, despite theis an assemblage of accounts of the pioneer familys persistent dangers of Indian attack, sickness, drought,fear of rabid skunks. It is a collection of stories of the and famine, families flocked to the West long beforedifficulty of making do with what you had when there the convenience of rail transportation was available. was no convenience market around the corner. It tells about the Indian attack in much the same vein as it In Arizona today there are still many living memberstells about rounding up the cattle. It tells about the of those pioneer families who have heard firsthand theproblems of building churches and schools.accounts of what their forbearers endured and why they endured it. After the Civil War, people were sickEspecially schools. One of the real problems back in of death and destruction and difficult loyalties suchthe sixties and seventies was keeping teachers. Not as war demands. Men wanted to be free to do theirgetting teachers. Keeping them. It was well known in things, just as a much later generation is demanding.the East that a lot of young men after the Civil War They wanted their own families, their own land, andhad set out for the West to find their fortunes and it their own right to succeed or fail according to theirwas reliably reported that a reasonable percentage own abilities.had succeeded. That, of course, did not escape the attention of the single girls in the East.The West offered the golden opportunity. There was land enough for everybody. There were mines toA large number of those figured that what was good be found, farms to be cleared, stores to be opened,for the goose was good for the gander. By one means ranches to be run. There was a need for doctors andor another, they found out where there were openings lawyers, for engineers and merchants, for soldiersfor teachers in the West, and by correspondence, they and preachers, for teachers and mechanics, forgot themselves jobs. With singular self-reliance, too169 E Wickenburg Wayanyone who wanted to live and die in the true highestoften unrecognized, these young ladies made their tradition of America. Thats why they came. Thats way to the end of the railroad, then by stage acrossWickenburg, AZ 85390why the women willingly gave up the security ofmountain and desert to their destinations. They 928-684-6123hearth, home, and family and braved all of the well- were housed, of course, most properly in the home of known perils of the wilderness. They were well aware,one of the leading families in the community and theyOpens at 11:00am DAILYmost of them, all but the most nave, that there were duly chaperoned but that did not prevent the would be heartbreak along the way. They knew thereeligible bachelors from lining up to meet them and to would be infants that died for lack of medical care.squire them to whatever social events there might be.Sharlot Hall, journalist, poet, historian and the first woman to hold an office in the Arizona Territorial government, wrote about the first white woman married in Tucson and how it was the focus of the town's attention. There are no reliable statistics available but all indications are that the period of single blessedness for these girls was so short that most of them didnt finish the first year of their teaching contract but that was alright with the good folks of the community. The entire world loves a lover and women especially love brides.The first white woman married in Tucson, according to Sharlot Hall, was Mrs. William Kirkland. She didnt fit the school teacher pattern described above because she came west with her parents but she didnt last long. She met Kirkland, was swept off her feet and her wedding became the focus of the towns attention. Miss Hall describes her as a tall slender girl, who They knew they would have to rock the cradle withmust have been like a tall eastern lilac bush in the one hand and work a grub hoe with the other. Theystrange surroundings. There was a great to-do about knew that their men would earn self-respect ifher wedding dress. The piece of pretty flowered nothing else, and that their children would inheritlawn that had been imported from Sonora was not courage and vision and that was what mattered. enough to make a skirt as full as the current fashion demanded but like true Arizonans, they made do. Fortunately, many of the stories of these courageousThe wedding was solemnized and Miss Hall reported early families have been preserved. One source isthat the young people, .went to live on one of those the book, Pioneer Stories of Arizonas Verde Valley20-acre farms near town that had been allotted, as was published in 1954 by the Verde Valley Pioneerthe custom, to some Spanish soldier a hundred years Association. The title page says these are storiesbefore, and cultivated more or less ever since. Mrs. as told by themselves and compiled by the bookKirkland made one of those homes typical to early committee. In this book, each story is told in theArizona, where friendly welcome and kindness and continued on page 22ArizonaRealCountry.com January 2021 21"