Women's contributions on Route 66 remembered

Katrina Parks, project director for the Women on Route 66 project, listens in as Chris Ervin speaks during the panel at the end of the special presentation. Ervin is with the Mojave Desert Archives. The presentation focused on oral histories about women’s experiences on Route 66.

By JENNIFER DENEVAN
Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — Those interested in a bit of a history lesson heard some interesting tales from various women who knew what it was like to travel and live along the Mother Road.

The presentation of “The Women on the Mother Road in Southern California: Route 66 Oral Histories and Screening and Discussion Program” focused on learning how women played major roles in life on the historic roadway. While Needles wasn’t directly discussed, Andrea Arizaga Limon, who has many local ties, is one of several women Katrina Parks interviewed and is part of the project. Her story was included in the presentation at the El Garces on Sept. 23.

Parks, project director, used a couple of quotes to explain why she focused her project on women. The quotes discussed how history tends to focus on men such as Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady motoring along Route 66; but women also did a lot to contribute to the stories.

Parks said women are frequently sidebars in historical works. When researching, there are unconscious biases and the tendency is to look up information on men instead of women and so certain assumptions are made, she continued.

While it may appear that women didn’t own property or were adventurers or contribute much, Parks said, when someone digs in, the experience by women is more complex and varied than led to believe.

Parks discussed some of the women she’s talked to or has researched about for her project. She pointed out how some of the women experienced various hardships such as discrimination for being women. Some faced racial discrimination and segregation, abuses and despite obstacles saw many successes as business women, entertainers and more.

Some of the presentation included Parks’ work with other individuals also working on similar projects and how it connected to her own. Parks’ part of the presentation included three of her finished interviews, including Arizaga Limon’s, for the audience to hear.

Chris Ervin, of Mojave Desert Archives, shared some human interest stories focused on a particular woman who lived in Ludlow. Her name was Venus Pendergast.

Many of the stories shared by Ervin and Parks brought some laughter and insight to an era gone by. While some of the stories are better known, such as Bobby Troup’s “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” the fact his first wife, Cynthia, was the one who came up with that particular line is not as well known.

Parks provided thanks to those who’ve supported her project and to Jan Jernigan, of the Needles Downtown Business Alliance, for helping making the local presentation happen.

A panel at the end allowed members of the audience to talk about their own experiences and what life in Needles, in particular, has been like through the decades.

Warren family excavates 19th century homestead

Mark and Sylvia Warren stand in front of the homestead they built in Morongo Valley in the 19th century. (Stacy Moore, Hi-Desert Star)

By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star

MORONGO VALLEY — “We have pioneering in our blood,” Mike Arnett told his family, and the proof was right before them: a new monument marking the spot where their ancestors Mark and Sylvia Warren built a homestead in 1885.

The Warren homestead is on San Bernardino County land a short walk from Covington Park. The building is gone, destroyed by a 1929 fire and simply the work of passing time, but the Warrens’ descendents recently found out where it had stood and began a restoration project.

Larry Turner spearheaded the project. The grandson of Lela Warren Arnett, the youngest of the Warrens’ 11 children, Turner organized his family into a labor force to excavate the footprint of the old homestead, clear away brush and clean up the footpath leading to the site.

“It’s been a project of love, saving this place for history,” Turner told his family when they gathered Saturday morning to see the fruits of their labor.

The family placed a concrete and granite monument that tells visitors the story of Mark and Sylvia Warren and their homestead. The guests of honor for the monument unveiling were the Warrens’ three surviving grandchildren: Lois Arvicson, the daughter of Ed Warren, the first of the children to be born at the Morongo Valley home, and Mary Ellen Grimes and Marion Arnett, the daughter and son of Lela Warren, the youngest of the 11 children.
“Grandpa raised cattle and Grandma raised kids — 11 of them!” Grimes said.

Turner also thanked Donna Muñoz, general manager of the Morongo Valley Community Services District, Mike Lipsitz, who facilitated permission for the project when he was field representative for county Supervisor James Ramos, and the Morongo Basin Historical Society, which also helped.

The San Bernardino County Fire Department provided a 14-man crew to help tear out brush.

Couple met when wagon train stranded

The story of Mark and Sylvia Warren is tale about making a paradise in a wild land, the power of hospitality and the human spirit, but it begins with a truth uncomfortable in today’s America: When Mark Warren first met Sylvia Paine, she was 12 years old. They were married two years later, in 1866. He was 35 and she was 14.

Chuck Warren, an emigrant from Maine who made a living driving a freight wagon, first saw Sylvia Paine as he drove from the Port of Los Angeles to Prescott, Arizona, Arnett said. Encountering a wagon train lost near Baker, he gave them directions and went on his way. When he returned, he found the Paine family was still there,
stranded in the desert on their months-long migration from Texas to California because of the death of their ox. He loaded them into his wagon and took them to his San Bernardino ranch, where they lived for two years.

Chuck Warren at first wanted to marry the oldest daughter, but she was promised to someone else. Instead, he married Sylvia.

Arnett gave his perspective on Sylvia’s age to his family members.

“This 14-year-old had endured privations,” Arnett said. “She knew how to survive on the meagerest provisions. She knew how to take care of her family.”

The two remained married for 51 years, until Chuck Warren’s death in an automobile accident in 1917. Sylvia bore 11 children, living some of the time at the Morongo Valley homestead and other times in Banning and Yucaipa so the children could go to school.

A sound home where strangers were welcome

Chuck Warren found the land for his Morongo Valley homestead on one of his freighting trips, describing it as a beautiful oasis.

The stream ran year-round,” Arnett said, gesturing to a ravine behind him, now dry. “This was a lush area.”

Around the house, built with adobe brick, the Warrens created a ranch that provided amply for their children and the miners and cattlemen who passed their way.

Arnett quoted his grandmother Lela’s words: “The family never suffered any real hardship for there was a sound, protective house for them to live in and always an abundance of food,” she wrote.

With cattle, crops of vegetables and sugar cane, fruit orchards, chickens and a hog, the Warrens lacked for little.

“There were beautiful alfalfa fields, apple trees with red apples peeping through the leaves and grass covered the ground everywhere,” Lela Warren wrote.

In the winter, they could depend on an abundance of wild game, including rabbits, quail, dove, ducks and deer.
“Whoever came by was always asked to eat with them,” the pioneers’ daughter remembered.

“Pioneering isn’t so bad when everyone works together and for the good of all,” she told Arnett. “Mark and Sylvia were not great as most people value men and women, but their greatness was in their goodness.”

Diaries describe 19th-century life for Arizona women

Elizabeth (Lily) Benton Frémont, the daughter of
John and Jessie Frémont, kept a diary while
living in Prescott. (Courtesy: Sharlot Hall Museum)

By MARY MELCHER
Special to the Daily Courier

Women's diaries, journals and letters provide a fascinating glimpse into the lives of Arizona's pioneer women, their families and communities. From reading diaries like these, we learn of Arizona women's experiences, as well as territorial and state history. These writings also help us understand the history of our own region.

Margaret Hunt Mc-Cormick, the young bride of Territorial Secretary Richard McCormick, kept a journal describing her trip from New York to Arizona in 1865. After moving into the Governor's Mansion - now part of the Sharlot Hall Museum campus - she wrote letters to her brother describing the mansion's layout. Unfortunately, her writings were cut short when she died in 1867 after the birth of her stillborn baby.

Elizabeth (Lily) Benton Frémont, the daughter of John Charles and Jessie Benton Frémont, also kept a diary while living here. She described social gatherings in Prescott and at Fort Whipple, as well as political events. She illuminated territorial life, describing the sheriff's funeral in this passage: "Tuesday 7th (January 7, 1879): Woke to a howling snowstorm which had already covered everything some inches deep, but cleared off cold and bright about 2 p.m. Mother slept till near noon and had a comfortable day. Father devoted himself to letters except for the brief interval of attending the funeral services at Mr. Bower's house.

Frank went on with the procession to the Masonic burial grounds; it was quite a long & imposing procession being led by the Masons on foot & closed by men on horseback, many varieties of vehicles including the Post ambulances filling in between. There is no hearse, so one of the larger express wagons was draped with black and used; the flags were half-masted & the bells of the school house and court house tolled alternately. Mr. Bowers had been for four years sheriff of the county, doing his duty fearlessly in the days when to have his horse shot under him whilst pursuing desperadoes was not uncommon. Both the Supreme Court and the Legislature attended the services at the house." ("The Arizona Diary of Lily Frémont, 1878-1881," edited by Mary Lee Spence.)

Diaries provide an unfiltered view of an individual's experiences. Sharlot Mabridth Hall, Arizona's poetic first woman territorial historian, was also a diarist and writer. She kept a journal of her 1911 journey through the remote Arizona strip, north of the Grand Canyon and south of Utah's state boundary. During the 1890s, several unsuccessful bills had been introduced into Congress calling for Utah's annexation of this area. Hall's goals for her trip were to see this isolated region, completing her tour of the territory and then to apprise others about it. She hoped for and believed that informed Arizonans would block Utah's annexation of the strip.

Hall traveled by wagon for 75 days with an experienced guide. Through her diary she highlighted the area's history, its people and resources, as well as its beauty. This passage describes land near the Grand Canyon's North Rim: "I walked all the morning, far ahead of the wagon, alone with the mountains; when I grew tired, I lay down in the grass and rested, and thought that it would be lovely to be buried in such a serene and yet majestic spot, the flowers dancing above and the quakenasp leaves tinkling like little silver bells." ("Sharlot Hall on the Arizona Strip," edited by C. Gregory Crampton.)

Although Hall had traveled throughout Arizona Territory, this diary is the only published record of her journeys. It drew attention to the strip, and in 1914, scientists employed by the state surveyed the region's agricultural value.

To mark Women's History Month, University of Arizona professor Dr. Judy Nolte Temple will discuss these diaries, plus the writings of Mim Walsh, a plucky Irish immigrant who wrote a 50-year-long journal revealing her experiences on the frontier as an Irish immigrant - and a great deal more - during a lecture at the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives on March 22 at 2 p.m. This free lecture is sponsored by the Arizona Humanities Council.