By Jan MacKell Collins © 2014

“She was really the one who raised us as Papa was away so much of the time.” So said Ruth Wallace Moritz of her mother, Cora Wallace. Ruth’s father Frank, a well-known Arizona cattle rancher, was often absent from home. Like so many others, Cora found being a ranch wife demanding. These hearty women spent much time alone, performing such chores as tending the garden, curing meat, pickling and preserving food, washing laundry, sewing, cleaning house, raising children, feeding livestock and more.

Cora’s decision to be a rancher’s wife was probably inspired by a love for adventure. Born on an Arkansas plantation in 1870, Cora was primarily raised by her grandmother in Arkansas and Texas, and attended a “finishing school” while there. By 1888 she was reunited with her widowed father, a farmer near Dona Ana, New Mexico. There she met Frank Wallace, a sometime cowboy working for Joe Nations. While herding horses to Albuquerque, Wallace spent the night but soon returned and married Cora. Two days later the newlyweds departed so Frank could work as a cowpuncher near Tenuca. Cora’s life as a ranch wife had begun.

Shortly after the first of eight children was born in 1890, the Wallaces relocated to Winslow where Frank worked for the Waters Cattle Company. Three more children were born in Winslow.  Cora also took in two young girls whose mother had died. “Mama took care of them as her own,” Ruth noted.  Frank was gone much of the time, and even more so after Waters sold out to the Aztec Land & Cattle Company whose Hash Knife brand was already famous in Arizona.

In 1898 the family moved to the Hash Knife headquarters three miles south of Joseph City. Ruth recalled the challenges her mother faced. “Her life as a rancher’s wife was not an easy one,” Ruth remembered. “During those years the ranchers had open land for their cattle, making it more difficult to gather them. They would be gone weeks at a time leaving their wives to take care of the children and keep things going at the ranch.”

In addition to her own family, Cora also boarded and fed numerous cowboys.  Cowpuncher J. Lon Jordan, later sheriff of Maricopa County, remembered that Cora “cooked more good groceries for hungry cowboys than any woman in Arizona.” Two more daughters were born at the Hashknife headquarters, yet Ruth remembered her mother as cheerful, generous and kind. Cora was also very proud to be a descendant of Presidents Zachary Taylor and James Monroe.

After the Aztec sold the Hash Knife brand to Babbitt Brothers in 1899, the Wallaces stayed at the headquarters as caretakers while running their own cattle. In 1905, the family relocated to Adamana, a desert whistle-stop east of Holbrook. The first family home was a tent along the Rio Puerco River. While there the family was flooded out, so they relocated to higher ground where Frank and his ranch hands built a two story home. “It was a desolate place,” said Ruth of Adamana, “and we depended on the windmills for water.”

Ruth also remembered the struggle to make ends meet since ranchers were regularly hampered by droughts, freezing winters and low prices for the beef they raised. At the mercantile in Holbrook, the family was forced to “sell their souls to the company store”, living on credit at a high interest rate. “Having no money was a fact of life and mothers made do,” she said. “We had very little money in those days but Mama gave of herself to all around her.  We never felt deprived.” Although occasionally securing a little extra money for store-bought coats for her children, Cora made almost all of her children’s clothing. Towels were sewn from flour sacks.  Scraps of material were saved to make quilts.

Seven children and two ranch hands kept Cora busy at her cook-stove. Ruth remembered that “Mama had a large kettle of beans on the stove and lots of home cooked bread. She cured the meat, made soap from scraps of pork so we had plenty. Our diet, with lots of stewed peaches and apples was sufficient.” Cora gave birth to her eighth—and last—child in 1912. She enlisted the help of her older children when possible, but the younger ones were sent to school. Ruth recalled trekking two miles down the railroad tracks to the schoolhouse.

Part Two of this Days Past story is scheduled for February 23.  Jan MacKell Collins is the great-great granddaughter of Frank and Cora Wallace. More about ranching life can be found in her newest book, The Hash Knife Around Holbrook. Ms. Collins will appear for a book signing at Sharlot Hall Museum Library & Archives on Saturday, February 22, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14, or via email atdayspastprescott@gmail.com for information.