One of Prescott’s early lady pioneers was Alvina Rodriquez Bennett. She and her family migrated from California in 1876.  Descended from distinguished Spanish colonists, Alvina’s ancestors were the Vásquez family, who as members of the notable Anza Expedition arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1776.  In 1839, Alvina’s grandfather, José Tiburcio Vásquez, received a 4400-acre land grant from the Mexican Government.  Today, this land is part of Golden Gate National Park.

Alvina was born at Half Moon Bay, California, in 1853.  At the age of seventeen, she married Charles Bennett, a young settler from Iowa.  A few years later, Alvina and her husband moved to Arizona.  By 1878, Alvina and Charles settled on a mountain ranch, now covered by Goldwater Lake.  In a dictated oral history, their son, Grant Bennett, referred to the homestead as “my dear old mountain home.”  He remembered the poplar trees his parents planted - - one for each member of the family.  Ultimately, Alvina and Charles had ten children.  Grant was number eight.

Grant talked about the irrigation system his father developed using water from Banning Creek for the poplar trees, an orchard and his mother’s garden.  He recalled, “She used to raise lettuce, carrots and radishes.  Things that was available in those times.” He continued, “She had a little spot there, wasn’t very long, and there’s where she planted her potatoes.  And she raised enough off of a little ol’ spot 10 feet wide and 20 feet long to last us all year long.”

Grant said his mother shopped in Prescott, buying enough supplies for a month or better, “especially in the winter time because it was always hard to get back and forth.”  She bought sugar and flour by the hundred-weight, and lard in 10-pound buckets.  She also bought large quantities of “Mexican pink beans” which cost “maybe 3 to 5 cents a pound.”  With the milk and cream from their “good milk cows” she made butter and cottage cheese.  Adding the produce from her garden, the family was well fed.

Grant described the ranch house as a simple structure with a front room, one big bedroom and a kitchen off to the side.  He said the walls were papered with newspapers.  “To learn something all you have to do is just look at the old walls.”

At some point a small rock building was built for Grant’s older brother and the cowboys who periodically worked on the ranch.  Grant said the bunk house was called “the boys’ room.”  He slept there too starting when he was five years old.  When he was alone, his mother would put him to bed with the door latched on the inside.  She waited outside until she saw his candle go out.  One time when he was seven, he had just settled into bed before noticing moonlight shining on something large and yellowish in the corner. “I started a hollering and a screaming and a crying.  ‘Mother, Mother, there’s a wild-cat in the house!’”  With the door locked on the inside, Alvina had to pry the latch off to see if her son was about to be devoured by a wild animal.  Upon entering, she discovered the wild-cat was actually a yellow coat she had hung up in the corner by the wood heater.

There were no neighbors close by; the nearest lived down the creek.   One day while Alvina was alone, working in the grainery on a hill above the house, two men -- possibly Apache Indians -- approached asking for food.  She agreed to cut them some meat, but one of the Indians grabbed her while the other took over slicing the meat. Mad and frightened, Alvina hollered “girls, girls, bring the 22.”  She kept yelling even though her daughters weren’t home. Finally, the natives left.

A few days later when Grant was home, Alvina told him “now those Indians are gonna come back, son.”  She was right.  Grant was guarding the hill above the house when he saw someone put a hat on a stick and hold it up.  He held his fire until he saw the Indian stand up and put the hat on -- then he shot it off.  That, said Grant “put an end to the Indians bothering us for a long time.”

What stories of early ranch life might have been told if Alvina could have been interviewed herself?   She and Charles moved away from the ranch sometime after 1900.  The stalwart ranch wife and devoted mother passed away in 1923 in Pomona, CA.

“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at https://sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles.l. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org. Please contact SHM Library & Archives reference desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 2, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.