By Dorothy Chafin
(Dorothy Chafin has recently written a multi-part account of her life. We will be publishing pieces of that over the next few months)
My family moved back to Arizona during the year I was attending the University of Denver; they moved to Prescott and the Grounds family moved back to the Kingman area. I've been forever grateful that we came back to Prescott rather than the Mohave County location. My family moved away, little by little, but I had no desire to leave.
One afternoon I came home to find my father visiting with a large dark skinned Indian; without warning me in any way he introduced this man as Kate Crozier. I was polite, but I am sure my face revealed my amazement to meet this Indian with my last name. After he left my father explained that the Indians often adopted the name of the person they worked for, as a matter of convenience, for native names were hard to pronounce and hard to spell. For the rest of my life I was sorry that I had probably revealed my astonishment, and hoped that he understood and forgave rather than being offended.
The second year of college I spent at Fresno State because my Aunt Effie and Aunt Jettie generously offered to take me for that year, my parents had sent my Aunt Effie to Stanford. They lived in the Grounds family home, which was by that time apartments . Aunt Effie took one of the apartments for a tea shop, she had been principal of a school for the disadvantaged, but resigned to try her hand at this business; she was a wonderful cook with lots of creative ideas. I was allowed to help in the shop which I am sure added to her problems. My aunts lived in the other downstairs apartment and my room was the only room on the third floor which suited me well. The two apartments on the second floor were rented.
Fresno State was not at all comparable to the University of Denver, and neither were the students. Although it was a teacher's college the outstanding courses were art courses. This, of course, was exactly what I wanted. And the strange part of it was that the courses that I took just because they fit into my schedule time-wise were the ones I used the most in real life: Sewing, taught by a teacher who did not care what the inside seams looked like; costume design which proved very useful the next few years when making my own and my sister's dresses. During my first year the same was true: I took a course in political science because it was the only thing that fit into my schedule: it influenced me the rest of my life; the professor was one of those who put up with no nonsense - the kind that makes you learn. He announced during the first day of the class that he wanted us to read the Christian Science Monitor, not because he was a Christian Scientist-he wasn't-but because it was the best newspaper for real, unbiased news. I thought my family took the Monitor because we were Christian Scientists!
Because of the depression that was the end of my upper-level education. I found a job at home that required only typing; I took instructions in short hand from a teacher who was not really a professional; however, I learned enough in her class to start using it at a low level. That I continued to do for a few years, including my first year of marriage. We built a home in a good section of Prescott and were getting along well until Pearl Harbor. The day after Pearl Harbor my husband and my brother enlisted. So I knew I needed to look for a job that would pay me enough to make payments on our house, our furniture, and the car. Not knowing what I was getting into, I applied for a job in the best accounting firm in Prescott - The Harmon Audit Company. I had kept accounts receivable for one business for a short time, and I just thought bookkeeping was surely about the same, to say nothing of accounting! The only reason they hired me was because the men were being called into the service. After six month keeping a ledger and the six journals that went with it, along with lots of other types of ledgers, it still did not make sense to me; I just tried to do what I was told. So I went home one night deciding that I would resign the next morning, after all I was not really doing the job. I did not know where I could get a job that would pay me enough to meet our obligations. My husband was paid $50.00 a month as a radio technician in the air force; I had been putting that $50.00 in a bank account so that he might have something to start whatever when the war was over. That night I prayed about it; the next morning I did not resign; instead I did some work on one of my accounts, and it all started making sense. Within six months I was checking every tax return that went out of our office!
Dorothy Chafin moved to Prescott in 1933, and is active in the local arts and music association in town.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (pb150f1i12). Reuse only by permission.
Dorothy Chafin shows off her town in this photo taken in about 1956. Chafin was educated at both the University of Denver and Fresno State. She found work during the war at "the best accounting firm in Prescott."