FLAGSTAFF PUBLIC LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Betty Dickinson Kent
Interview number NAU.OH.28.25

Mrs. Betty Dickinson Kent, who was born in Flagstaff in 1924, and lived in the area ever since. Interview conducted by Joe Meehan for Susan L. Rogers on January 11, 1976. Transcribed on October 25, 1998. Transcriber: Nancy Warden.

Outline of Subjects Covered in Taped Interview

Tape 1 Side 1

Born in Flagstaff, 1924

House born in

Parent’s background

VanDeren, Dickinson

Mother’s maiden name, Smith, from Camp Verde

Town’s lived in (moved a lot in the area from one to another)

Early schooling

Emerson School

Laura Kinsey, mentioned

Camp Verde schooling

Mother’s illnesses

Schnebly Hill Rd., father worked on

Clarkdale schooling

Marriage to Walter Kent

Moves around Flagsstaff area

Corey’s Corner, mentioned

Continental Club Rd. (Old Cliff Rd.)

Al Beasley and Alfred Dickinson

Measuring land on McMillan Mesa they owned

Oak Creek frontage owned by grandfather

East Flagstaff potato patches, trestle

Greenlaw farm, mentioned; own farm south of this

Sunnyside name for East Flag

Difference between Sunnyside and Greenlaw

Made ward of court because of parent’s divorce

Bess Siler, Joe Kellum

World War II

Indian Miller of Canyon Diablo

Singing coyote, murder

Floods in Middle Verde, Sedona, Oak Creek, Cottonwood, areas

Tape 1 Side 2

Cowpunchers that she knew

Dan (Granville) Fain, sheep and cattle

Hashknife Outfit, mentioned

Bill Graham, cowboy

Mildred Fain, cousin, carrying thousands of dollars in a silk purse as a young girl

Ben Marshall, outlaw

Tex Singleton, gun slinger

Maude Goddard

Her own experiences at riding horseback and herding cattle

Charles Stemmer, postmaster, received post from Theodore Roosevelt

Bootlegging, mentioned

Strahand boys, mentioned

Different families of area, mentioned

Different jobs she had, writer, secretary

Different cowpunchers, mentioned

Owned slaughterhouse near Jerome

Farming

Different ranches the family worked

Louise Lincoln Kerr, mentioned, worked with Flagstaff Symphony

Her children

Work as waitress

Riding school, teaching people to ride horses

Nackard children

Tape 2 Side 1

Horsemanship class at NAU

Taught Beth Castro, governor’s daughter

Different responsibilities in Arizona State Horseman’s organization

O.T. Gillette, mentioned

Billy Switzer

Philosophy about treatment of women, then and now

Stepfather and gambling

JOE MEEHAN: This is an oral history interview with Mrs. Betty Dickinson Kent, who has been in Flagstaff since she was born, off and on. It is conducted on January 11, 1976 at her home in McGuireville by Joe Meehan, representing the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Library.

JOE MEEHAN: When and where were you born?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: I was born in Flagstaff, July 17, 1924 on, let me think now, I think it was Birch Street right where the Pima Savings building is presently located. The house next door belonged, belongs to my cousin, Lois Dickinson, and her family was living there, and my family was living in an almost identical house right next door to it.

JOE MEEHAN: Can you tell me a little bit about your parents' background?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: My father was born in Flagstaff. His name was Walter Edwin Dickinson. His mother was Ida Mae VanDeren Dickinson. His father was Alfred Dickinson. I never did know my grandfather's middle name, if he had one. And they were married here in the Verde; the courtship took place here in the Verde. They came to the Verde in 1875. And this year, they and their descendants were honored at the Verde Valley Historical Pioneer Association picnic at Montezuma Well, which I was lucky enough to attend. My grandfather was one of the children of the second marriage of Samuel Bushman Dickinson and his wife, Nancy. His previous wife was her cousin, and there were children by that marriage that are related to us, inter-related. And my grandmother, Godfrey (?) Van Deren (?), I believe was his name, and we have incidentally, Joe- I have and will provide if you are interested, access to the entire VanDeren (?) history, who they married, who they inter-married to and so forth. If would be more interesting to perhaps Cottonwood, this- (?) Verde, but the people extend all over Arizona now. And my cousin in Cottonwood has it and it goes up to the birth of my own first two children, from 1875. So I can get this and have it verifaxed (?). I'll get you a copy if you like. (Response unclear).

JOE MEEHAN: Okay. Do you remember-?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: I didn't tell you about my mother.

JOE MEEHAN: Oh, okay.

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: I forgot to say (?). My mother was Margaret Opal Smith. Her father was George W. Smith. Her mother was Johnny Randolph Smith. They came to Camp Verde in 1903 and spent the first night in the Verde Valley at the- what is now- well it's been, at that time the Benedict Farm. It's the Riddell (?) place now, right there at the bridge. She grew up in this area; was one of Arizona's first beauty queens. I have the clipping on that or my stepfather has the clipping on it. Divorced my father when I was two; re-married Logan Lee Langdon when I was six, and that's the only other sibling I have is my half-sister, Norma Langdon Boullier (?), who is presently living in Camp Verde. And that's about the family.

JOE MEEHAN: Okay. Now you were born in Flagstaff, did your family move or were you there from then on?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: I was born in Flagstaff, and up until I was two when my mother and father divorced, we lived back and forth in East Flag and Flagstaff proper. They say you can't remember that far back; I can remember living in East Flag. I remember two or three small incidents that I can give you no date on. And I know they're not something someone told me, the things I remember. And I remember when I was about four, I guess, three or four; my mother took me to Chandler, and she worked down in that area. I remember parts of that from actually knowing one or two incidents; of having a puppy crying by my bed at night, or something like this, that I can remember. And then I returned to Flagstaff when I was five to be put in kindergarten. And I have the honor of being the only member of my family that I know of that was expelled from kindergarten. Because my aunt, Alma Dickinson, who is now Alma Knoles and my Uncle Loren Dickinson were practicing at Normal School there in Flagstaff, NAU now, to be teachers, and they practiced on me. And so when we'd go to school, the teacher would say, "Now, who wants to hear about 'Little Bo Peep '", and I would go, "Little Bo Peep" And she'd say, "Shut up." And finally she took me home and said, "I can't have her there, because she already has been taught what I am teaching. Please keep her home." So I was ejected from kindergarten, and the following year I went to the first grade there. I went to Emerson School where my father had gone to school. Mrs. (sic) Kinsey, Lura Kinsey, who Kinsey School is named after, was the principal at that time and had taught my father.

JOE MEEHAN: What year was that that you were-?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: That I was to school there? I was six years old, it had to be '30, and she, I went to the first grade; I did quite well. And then when I went to the second grade, I remember very, very vividly being taken by the hand and taken into the Principal's Office. And everybody having a very hurried conversation and being ejected from the second grade, the way I'd been ejected from kindergarten and put into the third grade. And I spent those two years at Emerson School, and then I went to live with my mother.

My mother, as I say, had remarried when I was six. And I spent the next year out of school. I left school at the end of my second year, and I did not return that summer, that winter, nor the following summer, and the following winter I went to Camp Verde, and was in my own age group and the fourth grade. There was a Mr. Pela (?), Dick Pela, who was principal there, and had a very profound effect on me, because he took a liking to me. After that I used him as a reference, because my mother had Parkinson's Disease; started out with a paralytic stroke, and apparently, we didn't know at the time, but during World War I, they had an epidemic of encephalitis, and it came along with that killing flu. And they thought they had the flu, and my mother had had a light case of it, and they found that people who'd had light cases of it quite frequently went into this Parkinson's Disease. And it took effect when my baby sister was born. She'd had problems with it prior to that, but it was, at the time my baby sister was born I was nine, and it took very bad effect then, so I was my own mentor in school.

I put myself in and out of the various schools I moved to. I went to the fourth grade in Camp Verde and the fifth grade in Cottonwood. And fifth grade we moved from Camp Verde to Cottonwood; from Cottonwood to Sedona; from Sedona to Cottonwood; from Cottonwood back to Camp Verde, no wait, back to Sedona, excuse me, and from Sedona to Crown King.

My stepfather at that time was working for the United States Forest Service as a road construction. He widened the old Schnebly Hill Road and changed only a small portion of it, he tells me; and we were discussing that the other day. I was very interested, because that ride down it made me ask him a lot of questions about it. And that was the year he had completed the widening of it. And we went to Crown King where he was working, and that is the year he decided that that was no life for a child to be jerked out of school six times- well every six weeks. And he quit the Forest Service and went to work for Phelps Dodge, and I spent the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grades at Clemenceau Junior High, well Clemenceau Elementary and Junior High. Went to Clarkdale High School; completed there in '42, '41 - '42, '41 I guess and went to work.

I worked various jobs around there. I had worked since I was nine years old at baby-sitting and so forth, so jobs were no new thing. I continued to support myself almost completely from the time I was sixteen. And my stepfather- he did not require this of me. He treated me as if I were his daughter, but I was always conscious of the fact that I didn't quite belong. And it was nothing he did, precisely, it was just that I had two families, and you know that sort of thing.

And I went from- I married Walter Kent who lived at the Haskell Ranch, the old Haskell Fort place in Clarkdale. He had entered the Verde Valley in 1924 down Schnebly Road. We used to consider that quite an oddity. And I married him in March the fourth of '43 and lived in the Verde until Daniel was two years old. Now the dates on that, I'm not sure. He's what, twenty, he'll be twenty-two this year so it would have been basically twenty years ago when we moved back to Flagstaff.

We moved to Flagstaff, first to Garland Prairie and stayed there with Dorothea Thomas, then moved from there to Black Bill Park, which is east of Flagstaff, and from Black Bill Park we moved to the Kester (?) Place it was called. Floyd Copeland owned it, and it is now… I believe Lonny Wilkerson owns it, it went through Jack Bird and O'Malley and several other real estate deals. But it's now right at the cloverleaf of Continental Country Club highway. We lived there for several years and went from there to Ft Valley; stayed in Ft Valley about four years; moved to Winslow for six months to work for Michael Harkel (?), which didn't work well at all. We were on the, what they call "Cory's Corner" in Ft Valley which is right where you turn to go to the Snow Bowl, there's an old barn there. There really should be something, you know, to designate it as "Cory's Corner"; they're going to lose that. It's been Cory's Corner for so many generations. Incidentally, Continental Country Club road when I was a child was "Old Cliff Road". And I think it's a lovely name for it, but they've lost that. They're going to lose a lot of these names if somebody doesn't at least so designate somewhere- they're not going to know where these things happened, that they talk about. And we lived on Cory's Corner for four years, and then, as I say, went to Winslow; then returned from Winslow back to the old Kester place. From there, that's when Lonny Wilkerson bought it, we had kind of a bad time there, from that to the Harold Ranch, Felix Harold's place; from there I bought the sheepman's state lease section, quarter section, where I still have. I'm currently in the process, I hope, of disposing of, so I could stay down here and not have to worry about what's up there for awhile.

JOE MEEHAN: You came back to East Flag, do you remember any neighbors or-?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Any what?

JOE MEEHAN: Any neighbors out where you lived?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Well yes and no. I remember that my grandfather was in business with Al Beasley. And I remember that Al Beasley was a very short man, and my grandfather was quite tall. And he and Al Beasley were in business together. You see they owned McMillan Mesa at one time, too, in their real estate. And I think it might be an interesting thing for you to check out. If you'll check with one of the title companies there, I think it's Transamerica, on some of the old deeds, you'll find that it says the land was sold seven steps this way, eight steps that way and so forth. And they'll have underneath it signed by either Alfred Dickinson or Al Beasley. And one time one of the people there told me that they knew the precise number of feet and inches my grandfather stepped, and the precise number that Beasley stepped. Because the difference in their height, they had to go back and compute how far these men stepped to know exactly what corners they were talking about today. And I think it's a really funny thing that a little short man and a big tall man would go into business together and step stuff off. And they had to go now by- well that's an Al Beasley step or that's an Alf Dickinson step. Speaking of which at one time my grandfather owned some land in Oak Creek, creek frontage, just gravel, and his neighbor thought he'd bought it. And granddad didn't see any sense fighting over just a chunk of creek bed and gravel; he gave him a quit claim deed to a quarter section.

JOE MEEHAN: Ouch!

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Ouch! Yeah, I've thought of that many a time. Ooh, Granddad, how could you? But he was an honest man, that was probably one of the things that can be said of him that he never cheated a person, you know, accidentally, well on purpose. If he did it accidentally he would go back and make amends in some manner. And I think that's rather a good thing to say about a person. But go over in East Flagstaff, there was a trestle, and I believe it still is in effect. It's right close to Western Hills, just past Western Hills Motel, and I remember driving under that in an old Model T or Model A or Studebaker or something and digging potatoes across the railroad tracks.

JOE MEEHAN: South of the railroad tracks?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Yeah. So the potato field was south of the railroad tracks under a trestle. And I know there is either a culvert or a trestle there now, but it had been filled in a great deal by erosion and, you know, building. But I can remember driving under that to go dig potatoes. And I remember living- we lived what has to be now- Greenlaw was north of us.

JOE MEEHAN: The old Greenlaw Mill?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Yes. Greenlaw Mill is named for the family who owned the farm, the Greenlaw farm. And I didn't know them, I met her after, gee after the kids were grown, and she told me that she remembered me as a child. She was a little older than I, or quite a bit older than I. And she remembered when we lived there. But I remember living- it had to be to the best I can gather, it had to be there behind Pennie's General Store (ED: Fourth Street where the Farmer's Market is now) and slightly back toward Flagstaff. We had a ranch house, a farmhouse and a big barn, and I can remember the man that visited my parents. There was a Uncle Paul and Aunt Dorothy I called them, and they were no relation, and I cannot remember his last name. And I can remember Uncle Paul holding me up to the window and showing me the pigeons flying off the roof of the barn. And I can remember sitting out in the rabbit pen feeding the rabbit lettuce out of my hands. And it was a large cement slab with hutches around the side and a centerpiece where all the rabbits could mingle. I don't know whose idea of a rabbit hutch it was, but I would go in the middle and sit there with lettuce, and they would all come out of these hutches, which were really wire cages that you could close off one and close off the other. And these rabbits would all come out and eat out of my hands. Those two memories are real vivid in my mind. The- unfortunately I left East Flagstaff, which we called "Sunnyside". It was, hearing it called "East Flagstaff", in fact up until about ten years ago, "Sunnyside Cafe" was a remnant of the old "Sunnyside" name, and it is now "Zig-Zags" or something of that. I think George Nackard was the last person to use the name there of "Sunnyside Cafe".

JOE MEEHAN: Do you know what year it changed from "Sunnyside" to "Flagstaff"?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: No I don't. When I first went up there, they were referring to it as "Sunnyside" or "East Flag". It wasn't a-

JOE MEEHAN: Automatic.

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Automatic change over that I can remember, because twenty years ago, you could say, "Well I'm going out to Sunnyside", and everybody knew where you were going. And Sunnyside and Greenlaw were two very distinct and different places. They were just as different as Flagstaff and Williams in everyone's mind. If you said, "I'm going to Greenlaw", you were going to upper East Flag, up where the schools are now, you know, and if you were going to Sunnyside, you were going down on Highway 66.

JOE MEEHAN: Huh. Now you left East Flag when you were ten. Where did you go from there? Did you just move back into Flagstaff?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Oh no, no. I left East Flag when I was eight.

JOE MEEHAN: When you were eight.

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Yeah. Actually, that's not true either. I was- when I was seven and eight, I lived at the Pine Hotel. See my parents had divorced, and my mother and my father had fought over the custody so badly, that I was made a ward of the court and given six months visitation to each parent. In other words, at any time, the court could step in and refuse visitation to either parent because they felt that the fighting had gotten too bitter and out of hand. In these days they always awarded the- well they still do in Arizona, custody to the mother unless the mother's character was proved blemished. And this made my mother very angry, because they could not prove a blemished character on her, but the fighting got so bitter that they were afraid that I would be the- what, rubber band between them. So, I think Judge Russell, I believe he was, told my mother that I would be ward of the court, and that I could do nothing without the consent of the Flagstaff court, Coconino County area. And that my father was to pay fifty dollars a month child support to my mother while I stayed with her. And if I did not stay with her, he was to award it to my grandmother with whom I would be presumably, be staying until he remarried or whatever, and at such time, he would, again, review the case. As far as I know, the case was never reviewed. I lived with my grandmother during the six, nine months of school when I was six and seven. That was my first, second and third years I told you, and I stayed with my mother in the spring and summer. And then on my eighth year, I moved to my mother's home, and I never left it to return to Flagstaff. Except, well my grandparents, you know, as I told you, they came to the Verde, too, when they were first here, and when they sold the Pine Hotel to Bess Siler- I'm not so sure about this.

Bess Siler and Joe Kellam got into some kind of a deal where either Bess bought it, or Joe bought it, and the other had a second mortgage on it, but it ended up with Bess Siler owning it, and her family still has possession today. No! It was sold a year and a half ago, two years ago, to somebody from the coast. But up until then she had it. And this is interesting to me, because Bess Siler's daughter, Marjorie McDonald, Anne Siler as we called her, Marjorie Anne. Came to the Pine Hotel when she was about six years old, and I was about six, and we started a friendship there that carried us through high school and many years passed. She lived in Cottonwood, and when I came to Cottonwood in my sixth year, we became girl friend, best friends, you know, and it remained that way well up past graduation. And she was a really fantastic person, just a nice person to know. And Aunt Bess was one of the original "Harvey Girls" that came out here to settle, so knowing them was one of the nice things of growing up here, too. And I think that Bess Siler has probably one of the best historic backgrounds of any woman that I can think of. I'd love to do her biography, her autobio- you know her biography one of these days if I can get enough time and energy to do so.

JOE MEEHAN: Do you remember any earth shaking events that happened in Flagstaff or the Verde Valley, any, oh, either local or world wide, like World War II?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Well I can very well remember the declaring of World War II, sitting around the radio listening to that. I was in Cottonwood at the time. Earth shaking events, the only thing I can think of off hand was, you know out of the ways, the people I knew. I, when I was very small, I can remember Indian Miller and you may be familiar with Indian Miller when he had Canyon Diablo out there, you know. We visited him and his wife. And I remember their singing coyote, which was a wild coyote, caught and chained by the neck in their front yard, and would sing on command for his wife. And when he killed the fellow that- he was playing around with the guy's wife, and he killed a man. I can remember some of the things that happened about that time. I have a rather vivid recollection of several floods that we had here in this area that were, they weren't world wide, but they were cotton pickin' earth shaking.

JOE MEEHAN: What years were-?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Oh boy, you know I'm very bad at years, when Norman was three, no, no, no, he was about two, just two or three years old, the bridges, all the bridges washed out down Oak Creek. And the Verde River and we were, that year we were living at Middle Verde, and we were on the Dr. Creighton place, just temporarily doing some work, everything washed out. I mean every ______ Richards (?) just had a field leveled and planted, and it looked like somebody had been- had just taken a heavy, big-toothed harrow and gone through it except the harrow had to have had blades six, four feet wide, and just the erosion was just absolutely horrible.

And I can remember the year I was in Sedona, which had to be my fifth year in school, fifth grade, standing on the old bridge and having Mother scream at me because of trees were scraping underneath the bridge, and the bridge was starting to go out. Eventually it did go out; I was in Flagstaff when it went out. But that bridge would stand and shake under Oak Creek being up this high.

And I can remember the Verde River. The flooding occurring in Cottonwood so bad, that we were living at the head of what is now Main Street, up across from Cottonwood Fuel and Feed and seeing water, having water rush up against our house and roll back like a tidal wave, you know, and whirling and going down Main Street. And I think it's the Purple Sage Saloon now, was under two feet of water, right down and through the jail house, the old jail house that was at the foot of the street. They had to get the prisoners all out and march them somewhere else because the water was just whooshing through a place and off into the Verde River. This was odd country, because if Flagstaff gets a real heavy late snow and a warm rain, well we catch it. Anything below, can I say Leroux Springs, catches it.

And I can remember Margaret Purcell telling me about her father, Andy Matson who had the Antelope Hills housing development now and a dairy. And he had a- she said that she could many a time remember seeing the cows being brought up to high ground because all of that, all of that was under water. And when I think of the houses that are there now, and I know that there has been no flood control program, it can happen. It doesn't happen every year, it happened once every twenty years, or once every what? It can happen this year or next year. And boy the insurance companies are going to scream like heck. But it will happen again, when- some day. I was trying to think of earth shaking things, you know, that had happened-

END TAPE 1, SIDE 1, BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE 2

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: I think perhaps it isn't so much the things that have happened, it's the people I've known that have impressed me the most. Because I was privileged to, not know him well, but I talked with Andy Matson and knew him, and some of the old timers that really, quote, "had it rough".

JOE MEEHAN: Could you name some?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: If I were to go back and start I would have to tell you about Dan Fain(?), who married my cousin Mildred Beck, and, his name was Granville incidentally, not Dan. He thought Granville didn't sound right so he changed his name to Dan. At one time, he was one of the youngest; he was the youngest foreman Hashknife outfit ever had. He told me that he was probably one of the shortest-lived foremans because he didn't do the work very long, but he was for awhile. And he was a sheepman and a cowman here in this area.

At one time- see when you spoke of the Verde in Flagstaff, you spoke of it as a unit, because most of the people here in the Verde took their stock to Flagstaff or surrounding areas in the summer and came back down here in the winter. And if you lived in one place, you lived in the other. So the over running of the families back and forth was just synonymous. You didn't say, well, he's from Flagstaff or he's from the Verde Valley. He wintered and summered in this area. And, there were, when you talk about Dan Thane, you talk about a whole era of cow punching.

And, when I was married to Walter, I rode with Dan, and I think one of the prize remarks of my life was he rode up beside me, and he said: You’ll do to ride the river with. You know? Lots of things. And, okay, this was during a round up, and at the old time cowboy phraseology, this meant that I could do the job; that I could get the job done. Why I didn't even need a horse to carry me; I floated for several days after that.

I rode with Bill Graham, a cowboy out of Texas that came through New Mexico, and who had known the Morleys, and had ridden with the ones who had- Agnes Morley Christopher who wrote NO LIFE FOR A LADY, that won the award for American Life in Drama. He spoke of them the way you'd speak of knowing Fritz (?) and kids, you know.

And of course, Mildred Fain, who was as I say my cousin, and the stories she told of riding through the stray (?) country. We're sitting in- carrying thousands of dollars in a small silk tassel bag, the whole payroll, the cattle money, and riding alone as a little girl, carrying it.

And I can tell you about Ben Marshall who was an old outlaw who was one of my very dear friends. He served his time in Florence and came back quote "an honest man". I knew Tex Singleton who was an old time gun slinger in this area. I don't know if he was as tough as his reputation, but he had a pretty tough reputation. And I remember Dan telling me one time that Ben Marshall's reputation was bad enough that he went on one, quote: "swing of lawlessness," where he left here, went into New Mexico, went north, and made it all the way up to Idaho, Montana, back through California and Arizona; changed partners five times and all five of his partners were dead. He made it back alive. And none of them were exactly limp wrist type, you know? So he must have been quite a boy in his age, too, if you like the desperado type, you know?

And Frank Zolaske (?) who married my cousin Edna Zolaske (?). Edna's mother, Anna Gray Scott, was Anna Van Deren. My grandmother's sister started the Flagstaff Dairy there where Pinedale is now. And the Zolaske's had that as a dairy for a long time, and when they left there, they went to ranching, and I guess Edna was about as good a hand on horse back as you could find.

I've heard talk about what a cowgirl Sherry (?) Osborn (?) was, and I don't take a word away from it. I think Sherry was pretty good, but she's a little bit younger than Edna, and I think Edna was right in there with her. And I know darn well that, I knew Maude Goddard.

I can remember Maude telling me that, she said- "You know", Maude Goddard incidentally is a kissing cousin of sorts. "We're inter-married with the Goddards." And she said, "well, your grand mother was a lady; she rode sidesaddle." (With expression.) But she said: "I was the tom-boy, the little one that nobody wanted to associate with, because I rode straddle with my brothers, back in the days when ladies didn't." (With emphasis.) And she said, "I can remember coming off of these rim rocks hopping horses off of them and going like the mill tales of hell off of them." And she said, "That wasn't even nice to say, was it?" (Whispers.) And I have ridden, as you know, and punched cows from Lonesome Valley with Norman Fain, who was Mildred and Dan's son, over across Squaw Peak on to the Diamond S range, which is down by Camp Verde up through all of this area. Now I missed this particular area I'm in right now, because I went up Oak Creek, worked with Frank Eyberg (?); worked with Emory ________, all the way up with Frank Owenby and, oh dear, what's Frank Owenby's brother's name? Frank Owenby married a cousin of mine, but his brother is the one that offered me so much for my little bay horse, and I can't think what his name was right this moment. But he was one heck of a cowman and he worked clear up into Sedona.

So, actually you can say that I have punched cows in this area back before it was settled, from Sedona to Prescott, over Mingus Mountain. I made a trip, incidentally, all the way from Cottonwood over Mingus Mountain one time. We made it in a day on horseback.

JOE MEEHAN: All the way to Prescott?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Oh no, just into- I went into Yeager Canyon, and at that place Walter changed horses with me and rode my horse on into Mayer; the Dewey/Mayer Ranch there of the ______ Evans (?), which Norman owned. And the next day, I rode that same horse that he rode in holding herd, so we didn't kill our horses getting there. They were- but we made a long trip; it's a good ride.

JOE MEEHAN: Is there anyone else that you can think of? You mentioned at one time that you knew Charles Stemmer.

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Oh I knew Charles Stemmer very, very well. He was my next door neighbor. And I- he and his wife Bessie were very, very good friends. People that I spent a lot of time talking to, visiting with. In fact I worked for Charles Stemmer. I worked for the Cottonwood Post Office for a short while. And enjoyed it tremendously. He was a- as you probably know from your reading, he was a very heavy believer in reincarnation. He was the first person who ever told me what it was about. And he and Bessie had had some rather amazing stories to tell. And if you read his book and read the story of his life, you'll also know he had a rather hard life. And he received his appointment from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I believe, as postmaster in Cottonwood. And that was one of the big things he had hung in his front room, signed. He'd retired, he was, you know when he quit his job, he was retired, and it was a big thing for him to have been recognized by a president. Of course, I even had a letter from Herbert Hoover one time, so, a nice one, but I remember Charlie, Charles, he told me one of those previous reincarnations he'd been a pirate off Madagascar. And things he'd tell you, you know he was fascinating person to be around. And I really enjoyed him.

Jess Siler, Bess' husband, I knew him well; I knew Joe Hall, who was her brother, and one of the most fascinating bootleggers on earth. He came out here as a bootlegger, but he made his money when everybody was, you know, bootlegging, and when he went honest he turned around a pool hall, and he was a pretty nice old guy, you know. Uncle Joe was somebody else. And, I'm trying to think of some of the names of the people who were around at that time.

My stepfather had gambled during the depression, prior to marrying my mother and a lot of our friends like Case and I can't think of his first name. Huh! It's funny. His daughter's name was Harla (?), she was a good friend of mine; she's dead now. The Strayhands (?), I was a good friend of all three, all of Alton, Myron and Harry, the Strayhand boys, and had gone with Myron a little bit dated Alton and Harry each once or twice. And then found from my grandmother that she had dated their great grand- my great grandmother had dated their grand father. And I said, well what caused you to break up with him. "Well", she said, "I just couldn't, I just couldn't find myself getting that excited over a damn Yankee." (In southern dialect.) When I told Myron this, we had the worst fight, and really we were going together and damn if we didn't break up over it. (Laughs.)

But, it was kind of funny, you know I mean how you get families tangled up in this country, because they've been here for so long. And I meet people, and I'll say, "Oh well you're married to so and so, and so and so", "well I didn't know", "well that's my", and the next thing you know you're cousins, you know?

Another one, a bunch a family that has been, you know, woven with ours are the McCauleys (?). Doc Lavoy (?) and Albie (?), I just met their quote "fourth down the line" sister the other day, Mrs. McDonald. And I had never met her before, and yet I feel I know these boys well enough that when Doc says, "Why you're family." I feel it, and yet there are sisters of theirs I've never met. And I consider Doc at one time as fine a horseman as I've seen in ages.

There was a- Grant Smith's father, oh dear, Jess Smith? I think it was Jess, that had the reputation of being one of the finest horseman that ever rode in this area. And he lived up at Munds Park, ah, Mormon Park right next door to Sally Hallerman (?)'s outfit. Sally Hallerman's outfit used to belong to one of my cousins. And when he sold it, well he sold it to Sally. In fact he just recently was home from- he's up in Washington now, came home and married Buddy (?) Jones widow. Buddy (?) Jones had the ranch just north of Rimrock, so we're still doing it; they're still getting them tangled up here. You'll never know what will happen next.

JOE MEEHAN: You worked with horses and cattle most of your life didn't you, at least recently.

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Well, you know this is really odd, because I started out, my biggest ambition was to write. And I really did some fairly decent work and got published, believe it or not, when I was quite young, but I took a business course in high school, and that's as far as I went in high school. And I worked for Phelps Dodge as a secretary, a stenographer, and I worked as- I have worked as a- we ran a slaughterhouse at one time. My husband, when I married him was in the cattle business. And up until then, I had just been a horse crazy kid. I'd ridden, oh, with Ben (?) and Carol (?) Bruen (?), Carl (?) Goddard, when they were breakin' horses, I'd ride them after they'd got the worst bucking out of them, you know. And I rode with Will ______, just playing around (?) town. But I roped goats with Port (?) Parker, who became head livestock inspector with the state of Arizona, and, I say with him, that's like "John Jones" saying, "And I played in the movie with Elvis Presley," you know? I was there when he was there, but we were in the same general area at the same time, enough that we were speaking acquaintances.

And, oh my, Enoch Walker, who was the champion bronc rider for the United States, went with a girl who was slightly younger than I was, that was one of my very dear friends just after I was married here in the Verde. So see, I mean it isn't- I can't say, "Well I knew", but I knew them, but they weren't friends. They were the kind of person I'd go up and say, "Hey, Hi!" and " How are you, how's your folks?" but not, "Come on, Buddy, and have a drink," or something like this.

And when Walter and I started working together, I started punching cows with him, and we punched cows all the time he was in the navy, we'd come home and work his outfit. And we came home, then we sold the Double Darts (?), which was his brand, to Norman Fain, who in turn sold it to- I'm going to do it again, I'm not going to be able think of that man's name. And he's holding it today. I'll think of it in a minute. Anyway, when we sold the Double Darts, we bought the Yavapai MeatPacking Company, which was the old slaughterhouse below Jerome. And we were there about three or four years. It took us that long to get absolutely, fantastically broke, because you see the government at that time had controls. And they told you how much you had to pay for beef and how much you could sell it for. And they told you how much you had to pay for wages. They told you everything except how you were going to live on the little margin that was left. And we survived four years, and I mean that literally.

And I met at this time- remember I said I knew Fred Boyd (?). Well that's when I met him. He was a butcher in Ash Fork, and he'd come over and buy meat from us. And Vaudrey (?) Dickinson, my cousin was a butcher, and he would come. Bill Farrell would come. And all these guys because they knew that the government pinch was so bad, and Walter wouldn't take the black market money that so many other people were taking. The butchers around the area would come, and we would hold calf-skinning parties on Saturday. They'd come in and scout their own calves to save us labor costs so that we could survive. And a good third of them, again, were my cousins. So I guess you could call it a family deal. And we went broke there.

Went from there into farming. Walter brought the first self-propelled combine into the Verde Valley and did custom work all over it. We lived on, oh we started out, when we first went really bad broke we moved into Clemenceau, and from there we went to Cottonwood. Emo (?) Mongini, the man that I'm trying to buy this land from now, tried to sell us a house, which Walter didn't want to buy, and I did. But nonetheless, we ended up not buying it. We lived in it for quite awhile and paid rent. And I consider, really, the Monginis are old-timers here in the area. They had the UVX dairy. And the Selmas in Jerome have written their own history. They are a family that, well, should have records made of them.

And we left there and moved out to, I think to start with, we went to the Taylorestes (?) place, which is now the Four Leaf Clover Ranch down near Camp Verde, near Middle Verde. And we lived there, worked for Taylorestes awhile, and then leased the Mac Davis place that Mrs. Davis had, that is still part of the Four Leaf Clover outfit; they bought both places. And after we leased that and worked it for awhile; wanted to buy it terribly. Walter wanted to buy it very badly, but he couldn't get enough financing.

And we moved from there to the Carl Fuller place at Cornville, where Sherry started to school. And when she went into Cottonwood School, it's funny she'd never seen that many children before in her life. We'd always lived so isolated that she just couldn't fathom that many kids her age and she sat for a whole six weeks and just studied every single one of them, and then went to work and made very good grades.

And we left Cornville and went to Louise Lincoln Kerr's ranch up on Spring Creek, which we stayed with her, and she's, oh she's a beautiful woman. We were over and talked with her here about three weeks before I came down here, Sherry and I. And she's not well. They gave her up for dead twice, I guess, and she refuses to die. She has very indomitable, and she's an artist. She played the viola, and has done very much for this area and Scottsdale and music. Also she wrote the "Grand Canyon Suite" or financed the guy who did, and I'm not sure which one it was, and helped with the Northern Arizona Symphony. So she's one of these people that made her own quiet history here, no big thing.

And we left her place and went over to the Keller on Point Willow. Again, I had a lease with an option to buy, and again it didn't please Walter to do so, so we moved to Garland Prarie. I was on Point Willow when Danl was born. And as you haven't mentioned the fact, I have four children, my daughter Sherry Lee Kent Seaburger (?) is the oldest, my son Norman Walter Kent is next, he's the one that's the geologist. Goody, goody, I get to brag a little, Charles Henry and Danl William. And Danl's name is not "Daniel" it's "Danl", D a n l. It was misspelled on his birth certificate so he's having it changed back legally, the way it was originally, "Danl". And it's amazing how many people make it "Dan L", and it's not, it's just "Danl". And the two younger boys are in Tucson right now, or supposed to be. And with them, you never know, going to school. I adopted Travis Albert Kent, and he's ten years old at this time, living here with me, the joy of my life. And my grandson, Logan Walter Seaburger, is here with me. So that is our immediate issue, and I don't know if it's ever going to be important, but I'd kind of like to think they will be, you know.

JOE MEEHAN: Now you recently just, you know (?), retired is the word, from teaching riding. How many years did you do that?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Well I guess I taught riding a lot more years than I realized. I started out riding my own horses and enjoying it. As I told you, I was a horse crazy kid. And I learned to push the right buttons almost by accident, because we didn't have the right kind of books, the kind of things you can buy now. And I studied and worked and studied and worked, and I talked to every old timer I could. I won't tell you how many street curbs I've sat on and listened to horse stories, and I won't tell you how many mothers have looked at me and said, "Umm, you're really not supposed to do that." But I did collect an awful lot of knowledge, and surprised to find how much of it worked.

So when I went to Flagstaff, we took some of our horses with us. I had three head when we got ready to go, and I had two head when I got up there. And, my husband gave away my top horse, which made me very upset with him. And later made it up by finding my black horse for me. And, we moved up- I guess we moved to Ft. Valley. I found that I was spending more time, either showing my neighbors how to ride; breaking my neighbors horses, schooling them, teaching them; milking my neighbors' cows, teaching them how to milk cows, etc., etc., etc- than I was enjoying my own horses.

So, when we moved away from there, I went to work. I was working as a waitress at the Gables (ED: where Fiddlers is), I spent a lot of time working as a waitress. I was working as a waitress at the Gables when George Nackard came up to me and informed me he had seen my daughter ride, and he wanted me to teach his children how. And I told him that I would be "damned" if I would, that riding was my release, and that I didn't intend to baby sit for free for anybody. And we had- George, I have to tell you is, to me, a very wonderful person. I like both him and his wife and think that Lenore and George are just top-notch people. I worked for George for several years. Anyway, in this exchange, he informed me that he would pay me to teach his daughter, Rosemarie, Rosie, and Nyla, and his son, Joey, how to ride. And I said I wouldn't do it for less than two dollars and fifty cents an hour. I didn't care what he said. And so we finally agreed on two-fifty. And it seemed that Joey wasn't as enthusiastic, so I started out.

The first week I was going to have Nyla and Rosie. But then, Nyla had a little friend, Kathy, oh dear, Olson and Lynn Clark, whose father was Command at Bellemont, at that time, decided they were coming, too. Well, from two, I went to four students, and that was before I got started. And from four I went to six, eight, ten, and before I knew it, I had about sixteen students. And I was waiting tables five to eight hours at night, farming, and taking care of- we had some pigs, and we had some cows, and we had chickens; I had an egg route. And I had fourteen riding students.

(Yells, "Hey! You over there". Excuse, that's horses misbehaving as usual). And ah, this continued and continued and changed hither and yon, and before you knew it, I had something like thirty students, rotating in and out. And I had not only George's children, I had Victor's children; I had Fred's child, in fact the Nackards really put me in the horse teaching business, if you want to know the truth. There was enough of them, and all of their friends and relatives. And the next cotton pickin' thing I know, I have a school going. And the school got to be such an oddity, because I refused to teach everything on horseback. I believe that you have to have a certain base knowledge, so we called it "clinic, clinic knowledge". And I would refuse to teach riding to anyone who didn't go to clinic, which meant learning all the names of the parts of the horses, etc., etc. Things that now everyone accepts, "Well doesn't everyone?" you know. At that time, people looked at me and said, "but there's not that much to it." And the more we learned, the more we found there was to learn.

And I- Monica Nackard arranged for me to teach my first extension course at NAU; no credit. And I remember, and I will not name him because he would blush at that, one of the administrators saying to me: "I can't see there's that much, you just get on a horse and either pull them this way, that way, back or whack them to go. And I can't find that much to teach."

And in my very first extension service class, I remember a woman who has since become one of my very dearest- I don't see her anymore, she's in Connecticut now, but this is still her Arizona home. When she gets around to coming back to it, walking up to me with a very exaggerated swagger, and saying: "Well I have ridden horseback and had lessons since I was two years old, and what do you think you can teach me?" And I was left there standing wondering just what I could teach her, because I wasn't that much sure of myself, and not being a very nice tempered person, I turned and I said, "Well I hope at least some manners." And she said, "Well, that's a start." And she not only stayed with me during the extension course; she stayed with me for several years past that. And, at one time, she married a fellow who was a professor up there whose name was "Kelly", and she was married to him at the time, archaeologist, and they were divorced. But while they were married, she told me that we should start our own enterprise and call it, "Kelly and Kent Incorporated", or "Kent and Kelly Incorporated", and she didn't care which. I wish now, kinda, that I'd done it, because she's a very, very wonderful person.

Anyway, I kept teaching my own private school until I moved to the Harold Ranch and past that. When we moved to the section, state section, Dr. Charles Minor's wife, Mary, introduced me to a Dr. Donald Harvey, and he wanted to ride English. I had already decided with Lloyd Stockton to try to put in something with a little more money and a little more behind it. And Lloyd and I were going to incorporate and put in a trail riding and cookout thing that I'd been doing anyway, but I needed more money and more help.

END TAPE 1, SIDE 2, BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE 1

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Okay, since Dr. Harvey decided to go "English", well it was due to partly to his help, because he really understood college politics, and he helped me put together a class prospectus and all that sort of thing, which I would never have known how to do. And we applied to NAU for a Horsemanship Class in their P.E. Department, which I still argue. I still feel that horsemanship is only partially physical education that it should be under the arts, because it is as true an art as painting is, when it comes right down to it. But this would really get us in a lot of difficulty and inter-departmental politics, so I guess I shouldn't even say that. But we got the class, thanks to a Dr. Hamilton, Hamblin, H A M B L I N, who was leaving, and he pulled it off very slickly, when it would have taken me another year, simply because there could be no kick back on him. And he threw it into Dr. Foster's lap, and Gordon Foster helped me get it going good. They told me if I could fill it, fill the class with ten or more students, they'd make it. We had three days before registration; we put posters all over both campus (sic) and came up with thirty-five students.

JOE MEEHAN: What year was that?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Hmmm, I don't know. I guess we- I could look in my records.

JOE MEEHAN: About how long ago?

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: It's been about six years ago. And, six or seven, and it went from thirty-five; our highest was ninety-nine in one semester. And it was quite interesting, the fact that I had not only absolute rank beginners who walked out and cried in fear and tried to hide it, to people who had taken championship jumping in California, to people who had shown professionally.

My very first class, I had the president of the University, Dr. Walkup's daughter, I had Dr. Foster's daughter, I had the candidate for governor's daughter, Beth Castro when she was- I think that was the following year, I'm not sure. But none the less, I mean we had had our samplings, and Beth Castro, incidentally, had shown professionally. And I received from her, from her mother, at the end of the course her mother told me that had she known that such a thing could be done as that course put together, she would have saved thousands of dollars on her daughter's horsemanship schooling. Because she had received there what had cost her thousands of dollars. Which was quite a compliment, considering that the whole price of the course was forty-five dollars to the student, except for registration, which was I think, either fifteen or thirteen or something.

And they wouldn't allow me to charge for broken tack nor for tack rental or usage. All that came out of that forty-five dollars plus food for the horse and my wages, if I was lucky. The only thing that saved the blamed (?) thing from going bankrupt was the fact there was so many of them. During that time, we listed at one time Fred Simmons as an instructor. And it was rather amusing, because Fred Simmons had to be briefed ahead of time to know what we were teaching, but we had to have extra help according to the University. And, now this was strictly departmental at that time, not administrative.

Anyway, my daughter taught for me and my sons at various times taught for me. When we were finished, when I walked away from it, and I really haven't even done it formally, which I must do, Miss Feldon was helping out, Miss Feldon was helping me. I have had one girl, I won't even be able to think of her last name, Holly is all I can think of, who left us to go to the Horsemaster's Course in England. And we have had a sampling of some pretty cotton pickin' good and bad riders that came out there; we had our share of both. And I'm- I have never had, I would say a full two- percent of our riders leave there anything but satisfied. And that's not too bad, considering the number that we handled. And we had some pretty far-reaching effects on it. I was real pleased with the way the course shaped up for the most part, but it got to be too much of a strain, which as you know, is one of the reasons I gave it up so abruptly.

I would like to add here that I am the charter and founding president of the Northern Arizona Horseman's Association. I was on the advisory board for the Arizona State Horseman for fourteen years. And I had, oh dear, with the Arizona State, Northern Arizona Horseman the first meeting was held in my kitchen with an old timer named O.T. Gillette, who tried to push it on the radio for us. And O.T. Gillette was, he was the, one of the best showman that you could ask for, and I don't mean this derogatorily, to be such a- not really their cowboy. The cowboys did not consider him much more than a darn good cook. And he would tell you stories of his cow punching days, and ah, w e l l, maybe, you know? But he did have a good memory, and he told his stories and told them well. And some of his stories are really true. Some of them were hoaxes pulled on him simply because people loved to. He was gullible and a very sweet person. I have to tell you that as he grew older, I got to know him quite well.

I knew Billy Switzer, Uncle Billy Switzer quite well, who worked with the Arizona Historical Society in northern Arizona. And I can't begin to tell you what a fine person I thought he was. He- we got along sometimes, and we quarreled sometimes. You can't work with people, who are of a forceful character and not quarrel with them, if you have anything of a forceful char- I think I may have. But nonetheless, my admiration and respect for him is tremendous. And I think he did a darn good job with what he did. Incidentally, he told me a story about himself one time, in which he spoke of working in the woods as a lumberjack, and he told me that one of the finest compliments he was ever paid in his life was paid to him on that particular job. And I'm trying to remember who told me, who he told me about this, but you know, he was really- the things that we think of him, you know, when he owned the hardware store, was really later in his life. It was in the younger days that someone should really go back and do some research, because he had some fantastic experiences then. They were really wonderful.

Of course, oh dear, isn't it funny, I guess I'm getting old, I can see their faces, but I can't think names. Dura Tovrea's mother, Dura Majestic's mother is- and I know her better than I know Dura, was in the society with us at the time. And just really the kind of people- you don't want to use the phrase "salt of the earth" because it's been over-used to the point, you know, to where it doesn't have the meaning it should have. And you certainly could never call her a "diamond in the rough". There's nothing rough about her. She's a lady from the way back.

But these people- I think the thing, really Joe, that I'm trying to say, I've talked about knowing desperados, I've talked about knowing very polished people, people who had money and people who didn't have it, and I think the thing that I miss the most is the word "breeding". The time was when it really didn't matter if you had money or you didn't have money, you had family; you had family pride. Almost, it sounds almost oriental when you say it, but it was a known fact that a man that would curse, spit, fight, raise cain wouldn't say "durn" in front of a woman. I mean that was an insult to his own breeding to his own upbringing his own mother. And the, the phrase, "well maybe she's somebody's mother" was not a joke. And any "straight girl", as she was called, could walk into any bar and never be insulted. There could be a killing over an insult to a straight girl. You just didn't do it.

And I'll tell you a very funny thing that happened. I told you my grandfa- my step father was a gambler, and after he married, he'd gamble for fun. He is a tremendously good poker player, I say for fun. I can remember when a month's wages wasn't much over three hundred dollars, and I'd seen him bring it home in one night, but I've seen him lose it, too. We never went hungry; he never lost more than he could afford to. He had- he was smart. We never went in debt over it, but on the other hand, he did it because he liked to, and he was good. And one night late, very late, my mother was worried, and she'd been ill, and she says, please go get Daddy. So I went down, and I walked into Lee Birkett’s (?) bar, which is there, Purple Sage, I think they call it now, and I started back to the back. There was no law that said you had to quit at one o'clock like there is now. And as I started toward the back, I must have been oh, fifteen, sixteen years old, just, and not a bad looking girl. And obviously it was late, obviously I was young, and I started toward the back, and a drunk turned away from the bar and reached around and stepped in front of me. And when he did, the bartender, who had been a childhood playmate of mine, Bud Birkett (?), Leroy his name was, put his hand on the bar and vaulted it, and he just reached over and touched the man on the shoulder, and he said, "Uh uh, that's Bum’s (?) daughter." And the guy stepped back, and he said, "Pardon me, ma'am", turned around and walked to go back to the bar, and I walked through completely quote unnoticed. They didn't even turn and look at me. And I would go to the back room and stand behind my step father's chair and wait for him to pay attention to me, and tell him: "Mother wants you to come home now." And then we would go home.

And you think of the things that the girls are saying today and the treatment that is accorded women, of their own asking. Compared to that. You can see what I say when I say that the biggest change I see is in the fact that this just was not done, period. And that is, I think, one of the biggest social rev- and I'm not sure it's good. I mean I don't think that women should be denied the right to make a living if they need to work. I don't think they should be denied the right to vote. I'm not a women's libbist, and I am definitely an individualist. But my grandmother told me when I was about six years old, and she repeated it often enough that it sure didn't slip out easy, "you can go anywhere and you can do anything and you can stay a lady if you want to. And you can sit home and be a tramp. So you go on out and do what you have to do, but you be a lady." And when you realize that this was taught by her generation, somewhere we slipped something. Because there is no reason that says a women should have to out cuss a man to prove that she is capable of driving a car, or making a vote, or doing anything else; or driving truck if she wants to. And, that sounds kooky coming from me, 'cause I have picked some pretty bad language, you pick it up being exposed to it. But you wouldn't be exposed to it if you didn't ask to. And I must have asked to, some way. Do you have any questions you want to ask?

JOE MEEHAN: No I think that’s pretty good (?).

BETTY DICKINSON KENT: Okay, well why don't you go through this, listen to it, and then come back and we'll go some more if you want to, 'cause maybe I can think of some more people.

TAPE ENDS