Tobi Taylor's Journal

First, let's start with Dave's obituary, from the White Mountain Independent:

I heard my first "Dave Gregory story" about fifteen years before I actually met him, after he'd been fired from yet another archaeological project. Dave was what people in marketing call "a strong flavor" -- you either hated him or loved him, but no matter what, he made an impression on you.

Around 1998, when I was the editor of KIVA, Alan Ferg, Dave, and I discussed, via email, Dave's long-anticipated report on Fool's Hollow Wash, a highway salvage project, that was ready for publication -- figures were drafted, tables were typed -- except that it was missing the conclusion. For a while, I received weekly emails from Dave, telling me I'd soon have the completed manuscript. It took me only about a year to figure out that it was never going to happen. "Typical Dave," said one colleague at the time. "He didn't finish his dissertation, either."

 I finally met Dave in early 2002, after I'd begun editing Archaeology Southwest for the Center for Desert Archaeology. I've been fortunate to come in contact with a number of incredibly bright people, in academia and otherwise, and Dave was among the top five -- he was a visionary,  a big picture guy, what Kent Flannery would call a "grand synthesizer."  And despite all the horror stories I'd heard over the years, I found Dave engaging to listen to, and easy to deal with, as a colleague as well as a contributor to Archaeology Southwest. He was always gracious about our efforts to render his complex insights about Southwestern prehistory into a form that laypeople could understand. I just wish he'd written that ending to Fool's Hollow Wash!

I'll miss you, Dave.

At the recent Arizona Historic Preservation Partnership Conference, in Flagstaff, Alan Ferg was honored with the 2010 Professional Archaeologist Award by the Governor's Archaeology Advisory Commission.

In Ferg's award nomination, his colleague Al Dart wrote that

"Alan Ferg is well known to many southwestern professional and avocational archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and historians for his outstanding knowledge and research on prehistoric and historical cultures of the American Southwest, and for his willingness to share his unparalleled knowledge and experiences... I first met Alan when he and I were hired for the Arizona State Museum’s Salt-Gila Aqueduct archaeological data recovery project of the early 1980s. I quickly learned that he was an invaluable font of information about southwestern prehistoric artifacts and rock art, and about historical Apachean, Pai, and Mormon material culture, and that he is intense in his efforts to research and publish on these topics. Just one outstanding example of Alan’s research intensity and thoroughness is his early 1980s studies of 'Hohokam T-shaped stones,' which led archaeologist Dr. David Phillips to name these curious artifacts 'fergoliths' in Alan’s honor.

"Perusal of Alan Ferg’s curriculum vitae shows that his archaeological and curatorial experience dates back at least to the early 1970s, and that as of early 2010 he has published 116 scholarly and popular articles and books on topics including Apachean/Pai archaeology and history, the history of playing cards, Mormon archaeology and history, prehistoric archaeology, and miscellaneous topics. However, well over half of Alan’s 116 CV-listed writings are products of his own personal research and his willingness to share his knowledge. Among these are the books Western Apache Material Culture: the Goodwin and Guenther Collections (editor, 1987, University of Arizona Press) and Playing Cards of the Apaches: A Study in Cultural Adaptation (2006, with Virginia Wayland and Harold Wayland, Screenfold Press)."

Archaeology Southwest, Vol. 23, No. 4, looks at the history of Arizona's Casa Grande Ruins, its designation as the country's first archaeological preserve, and the proposed expansion of the Casa Grande National Monument, which would encompass many more archaeological sites in need of protection. I contributed two articles to this issue: "The Nation's First Federally Protected Site," which reveals that Benjamin Harrison, known as "the White House iceberg," was a preservationist perhaps in spite of himself, and "The Perils of Pageantry at Casa Grande Ruins," where I tell how Superintendent Pinkley's bright idea for bringing visitors to the ruins went awry.

Not long after the issue's publication, Dr. Bill Doelle, President and CEO of the Center for Desert Archaeology and the guest editor for this issue, went to Washington to testify in Congress in support of the expansion of the Casa Grande National Monument. He said, in part,

The monument plays a unique federal role in the National Park System: it is the only unit that preserves and interprets Hohokam culture for public education and enjoyment. This purpose has brought 70,000 visitors to the Coolidge-Florence area each year. The Monument is the leading driver for tourism-related economic development in the Coolidge-Florence area. Efforts to protect the few remaining significant examples of Hohokam material culture off of tribal lands are essential if we are to preserve a portion of cultural legacy of this remarkable civilization as well as bolster economic development through heritage tourism.

HR 5110, introduced by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), is currently in committee.

 

The Winter 2009 issue of Journal of Arizona History features my article "'A Landmark in Scottsdale -- A Hallmark in the Arabian World': Ed Tweed, Brusally Ranch, and the Development of Arabian Horse Breeding in Arizona. Readers will learn about Tweed's role in the founding of the Arabian Horse Association of Arizona and the Scottsdale All-Arabian Horse Show, as well as his ever-evolving breeding program and its influence on today's Arabian horses. It also includes photographs of the stallions Skorage, Czester, Faraon, Orzel, Zbrucz, and Brusally Gwiazdor.

This article is adapted from the first chapter in my book-in-progress on Tweed. If you would like a copy, please contact the Arizona Historical Society at www.arizonahistoricalsociety.org or 520.628.5774.

The tiny border town of Naco, Arizona, made the news a few years ago because a historic cemetery there was going to be destroyed in advance of construction of an RV park. I was doing research on Naco for an issue of Archaeology Southwest when I happened upon a list of the people interred at the cemetery that had been compiled by historian Robert Silas Griffin (www.mycochise.com/cemnaco.php). To my surprise, one of the names matched that of my maternal great-great-grandmother, Trinidad Lopez, about whom little is known.

Our family lore has it that, as a young woman in Tucson, Trinidad bore three children by John Rhodes, a cattleman from Texas who fell in with the brothers Ed and John Tewksbury, two of the major players in Arizona’s Pleasant Valley War. This feud, also known as the Graham–Tewksbury War, lasted about a decade and was responsible for the deaths of between 30 and 50 men.

In 1888, a year after members of the Graham faction killed John Tewksbury, Rhodes married Tewksbury’s widow and within a short time relocated his and Trinidad’s children from Tucson to Pleasant Valley. In 1892, Rhodes and Ed Tewksbury ambushed Tom Graham (the last of the Graham men) in Tempe, near the still-standing Niels Peterson House, at the intersection of Southern Avenue and Priest Drive. Rhodes was quickly arrested and put on trial. While in the courtroom, Rhodes was nearly killed when his victim’s widow attempted to shoot him. Rhodes was acquitted, and after that he seems to have become a more-or-less model citizen: he signed up at age fifty-six as an Arizona Ranger, and in 1907, he became the Pinal County Livestock inspector.

There is little direct evidence for the course of Trinidad’s life after Rhodes took their children to Pleasant Valley. But when I discovered her name among those at the Naco Cemetery, and then was able to obtain a copy of her death certificate (http://genealogy.az.gov/), various pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. From the 1864 census (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cenfiles/az/1864/jd1/dist1-pt04.txt), I had already placed her year of birth sometime around 1854–1856, and she appears to have grown up with a younger brother or cousin named Rafael Lopez. Interestingly, years later, when Rhodes was on trial, a Rafael Lopez corroborated Rhodes’s claim that he was nowhere near Graham’s property at the time the latter was killed.

The Trinidad Lopez buried at the Naco cemetery died in 1920 at age 65, indicating that she was born in 1855. On her death certificate, she is listed as a "widow," but her parents’ last name is the same as hers. Although it is conceivable that she had married a man with the same surname (and Lopez is an admittedly common name), it is also possible that the use of the term "widow" was a way of getting around the fact that she had three children out of wedlock. Family tradition suggests that Trinidad was not born in Tucson, but instead somewhere in Sonora. Both the census data and her death certificate bear this out.

Even though it is unclear what Trinidad was doing in Naco around the time of her death, we do know that she had various relatives in southern Arizona, including a cousin or uncle, Jose Lopez, who homesteaded a ranch in the San Pedro valley, her brother or cousin Rafael Lopez, a sister or cousin Josefa Lopez, as well as Trinidad’s children — Clara, who married Frank Acton and lived on the Acton Ranch near Mammoth, Juan Francisco (Frank), who was killed during construction of the copper mill at Hayden in 1911, and William (Billy) Rhodes, who worked on the Carlink Ranch, near Redington.

It is ironic that it took the potential destruction of the Naco Cemetery to bring so much attention to the individuals who have been interred there for so many years. Thanks to the residents of Cochise County and other interested parties, Trinidad Lopez and the other people at the cemetery can continue to rest in peace —que en paz descanse.

[A different version of this essay appeared in Archaeology Southwest in 2006.]

Last Saturday, I was at Santa Anita with 58,000 other racing fans watching Zenyatta’s sublime performance in the Breeder’s Cup Classic. Many of the articles I’ve read in the past few days have insisted that Zenyatta be named Horse of the Year, but they seem to be forgetting about Rachel’s stellar year. I hope the Eclipse award voters will take more than Zenyatta’s last race (albeit an amazing performance) into account. Let’s look at the data:

Rachel Alexandra

Age: 3
2009 race record: 8 starts, 8 wins
Surfaces run on in 2009: Dirt
Number of tracks run on in 2009: 7
Classic wins: 1 (Preakness)
Wins against males: 3
Wins against older horses: 1

Zenyatta

Age 5:
2009 race record: 5 starts, 5 wins
Surfaces run on in 2009: Synthetic
Number of tracks run on in 2009:  3
Classic wins: 0
Wins against colts: 1
Wins against older horses: 1

I’m thrilled to have seen Zenyatta run the race of her life, but when it comes to the statistics, I think Rachel’s got her beat—with a Classic win and three victories over males (including her win in the Haskell against older horses). What do you think?

Birders have life lists. Travelers have “must-see” destinations. For years, I wanted to meet a Beatle. This was no idle whim. According to the Popstrology website, I was born in "The Second Year of the Beatles,” and "I Feel Fine” was the number one song the day I was born, January 7, 1965 (which happened to be the twenty-first birthday of Paul McCartney’s brother Mike). I grew up surrounded by Beatles music (the original canon, my parents’ easy-listening versions, and songs by other Apple artists, like Mary Hopkin and Badfinger). As a teenager, I frequented the swap meet at Phoenix’s Greyhound Park with my pal Lisa. While she snapped up movie memorabilia, I found Beatles singles and EPs. Two of the EPs had sleeves printed for the Spanish-speaking market and bore literal, if inelegant, translations like "No Me Molestes" (aka "Don’t Bother Me"),  "Una Dura Noche" ("A Hard Day’s Night"), "Abrazame Fuerte" ("Hold Me Tight"), and "Las Cosas Que Dijimos" ("Things We Said Today"). Later, a cousin gave me a butcher-cover Yesterday and Today, and a comic-book pal dubbed a bunch of bootleg recordings onto cassettes.

In 1979, one of my eighth-grade teachers traveled from Phoenix to Tucson, to the newly opened Canyon Ranch resort, where she saw, and spoke to (albeit briefly), John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The same year, a friend took me to visit the painter Hildred Goodwine, known for her portraits of horses. When we entered Goodwine’s small house/studio, she had a painting of an Appaloosa on her easel. Noticing that I was admiring it, she handed me a letter she’d received from the people who had commissioned the work — Paul and Linda McCartney. Goodwine was understandably pleased that the piece, which depicted Linda’s own Appaloosa, was going to be shipped to the United Kingdom.

And then in December 1980, John Lennon was shot. I’d grown up hearing stories about where people were when they’d heard President Kennedy had been killed, and for my generation, this had the same time-freezing effect. After that, it was neither fun nor funny to contemplate meeting a Beatle (especially after George’s passing in late 2001). That didn’t mean, of course, that I wasn’t still keeping tabs on their solo careers, or buying new CDs of remastered Beatles albums. In 1998, I even managed to get a story published in an anthology about the Beatles called (in my case, ironically) In My Life: Encounters with the Beatles, which featured work by Tom Wolfe, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Donald Hall, and various other lesser lights (myself included).

In early 2002, I relocated from Phoenix to Tucson. As I drove through my new hometown with my last load of moving boxes, I had to laugh when "Drive My Car" came on the radio. What a welcome! I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had moved to the most Beatles-centric city this side of Los Angeles. Need some proof? Here are a few examples:

Tucson appears in the lyrics to "Get Back": "Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, for some California grass..."

Linda McCartney briefly attended the University of Arizona, and while in Tucson married her first husband (Mel See — possibly the "Jojo" in "Get Back" — who killed himself there in 2000) and gave birth to daughter Heather in 1962. In 1979, the McCartneys purchased a ranch in Tucson. It was here that Linda died in 1998.

George’s ex-wife Patti Boyd Harrison married Eric Clapton in Tucson in March 1979.

Ringo Starr and wife Barbara Bach checked themselves into Sierra Tucson, the well-known substance abuse treatment clinic, in 1988. Reportedly, they’ve both been clean and sober ever since, with (evidently) no need to return to the city.

And George's song "Miss O'Dell" (B side of "Give Me Love") was written for longtime Tucson resident Chris O'Dell, best friend of Patti Boyd Harrison Clapton; the godfather of O'Dell's son William is Ringo Starr.

It seems that the longer I live in Tucson—which has a population of more than one million—the more people I meet who have some connection to Paul McCartney. A couple of years ago, a guy who made a delivery to my house casually mentioned that he’d done some wrought-iron work on the McCartney property on the east side of town. Another person told me about the archaeological sites on some land east of Tucson that is owned by McCartney. Someone else said he'd seen Sir Paul at a local Mexican restaurant, Casa Molina. My hairstylist told me that some cycling friends riding on the east side of town had seen Sir Paul getting the mail one morning. And just last week, a friend stopped by and said she'd met two elderly horses owned by McCartney, which are boarded at a stable where she’d just given some lessons.

After all these years, I still couldn’t help myself. "These sound like two horses that I need to meet —and maybe it's time to start eating at Casa Molina…"

In the spring of 2008, my husband and I, my Center colleague Linda Pierce, and a group of other like-minded travelers took a Kino Missions tour to Mexico, sponsored by the Southwest Mission Research Center (www.southwestmissions.org). While visiting the mission at Caborca, we met Gloria Santini de Vanegas, who was involved with restoring the mission in time for its two hundredth anniversary in May 2009. It was then that Linda and I hatched the idea for an issue of Archaeology Southwest about the Kino missions.

Thanks to the issue's guest editors, Dale Brenneman and Diana Hadley, of the Office of Ethnohistorical Research at the Arizona State Museum, we have a new issue (Volume 23, No. 2) that contains the following articles by a stellar lineup of authors:

Preserving Missions in the Pimeria Alta (Brenneman and Hadley)
A Brief History of Preservation at Mission San Xavier del Bac (Bernard L. Fontana)
The Santuary Lions of San Xavier del Bac (Fontana)
San Xavier's New Lions (Gloria F. Giffords)
San Xavier del Bac (Fr. Stephen Barnufsky)
The San Xavier District (Austin Nunez)
Preservation of Tumacacori, Calabasas, and Guevavi Mission Ruins (Jeremy Moss)
Missions of the Pimeria Alta: A Sonoran Perspective on Preservation (Jupiter Martinez and Abby Valenzuela)
Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (Martinez)
Nuestra Senora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocospera (Martinez and Valenzuela)
San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama (Irene Ortiz Gastelum, Leonor Elvira Ortiz Romero, Lucrecia Ortiz Gastelum)
The Mission Church of La Purisima Concepcion de Nuestra Senora de Caborca (Santini de Vanegas)
Intangible Colonial Artifacts: The Example of Oquitoa (James S. Griffith)
Connecting with Mission History: SMRC and the Kino Mission Tours (Brenneman)
Following in the Hoofprints of Father Kino (Enrique Salgado)
Music of the Missions (David Shaul)
Mission 2000 (Donald T. Garate)
Old Adobe Building, Speak to Me! (David Yubeta)
TICRAT Model: A Binational Adobe Workshop (R. Brooks Jeffery)
The Kino Heritage Fruit Trees Project (Jesus Garcia)
Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Barb Horses (Marjorie Dixon)
Father Kino's Cows (Hadley)
Telling the Native Side of Mission History (Brenneman)
Resurrecting Tucson's Mission San Agustin (Hadley)
Back Sight (William H. Doelle)

I was contacted last week by Leonard Lusky, of Secretariat.com, Big Red's official website, overseen by Penny Chenery. They're interested in putting one of my articles about Statesman on the site. Watch this space for more details. In the meantime, take a look at www.secretariat.com

 

In my ten years as editor of the magazine, Autumn 2009 -- on Southwestern silver jewelry -- is probably the most visually stunning issue we have ever produced. It includes articles by:

• Christina Burke on the Eugene Adkins jewelry collection
• Tricia Loscher and Diana Pardue on humor in Southwestern art
• Dexter Cirillo on design motifs in Southwestern jewelry
• Cheri Falkenstien-Doyle on silver jewelry in the collection of the Wheelwright Museum

For more information, go to www.aiamagazine.com