Marjory J. Sente
Mother of six, career woman and volunteer par excellence, Etta Oliver would have set a high standard for today’s women and definitely was a mover and shaker ahead of her time during the 36 years she made Prescott her home.
Etta Julia Vaughn, daughter of Arvilla Mary (Mitchell) and Charles Edward Vaughn, was born in Colorado in 1876. She was a young girl when her family moved to New Mexico. In 1893 her Albuquerque High School graduating class numbered six. Two years later, she was one of four women graduating from the University of New Mexico’s Normal School.
After receiving her teaching certificate, Etta was hired by the Albuquerque Indian School as an assistant teacher making $480 a year. There she met William J. Oliver. They married in 1900. Six years later, William was named superintendent of the Zuni Reservation. In 1912 William took a position with Phoenix Indian School. They moved to Phoenix with four children. Etta did clerical work in the school office and was praised for mastering the federal government’s accounting system. During their tenure in Phoenix, the family grew by two more children, and Etta joined the Maricopa Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
The family moved to Prescott in 1921 when William became the Director of Vocational Training at Fort Whipple. Etta taught at the Whipple school and stayed involved with the DAR, becoming the organization’s state treasurer in 1922. She served on the Arizona State Historical Commission, which collected information about Arizona’s pioneer women.
Etta helped organize the General George Crook DAR Chapter in 1927 and was its first historian. She served twice as chapter regent and as Arizona state regent from 1940 to 1942.
A member of the Monday Club, she was president in 1929-30. Fond of flowers, Etta was a charter member of the Prescott Garden Club, founded in 1931. In 1941 she helped to found the Writers League. The Prescott branch of the American Association of University Women was organized in her living room on March 12, 1949. She served the First Congregational Church as clerk and led numerous women’s activities.
In addition to her volunteer work, Etta was an editor for the Prescott Evening Courier for more than 20 years, starting as society editor in 1926. A tribute marking her 75th birthday in the August 24, 1951 Courier noted that she held every job in the newsroom at one time or another, especially during World War II when staff was sparse. In 1951 she was filling in as the Courier’s editor.
Besides writing for the Courier, she wrote “Mystic Dances of the Painted Desert,” published in 1926 by Travel magazine. In the article, she detailed and illustrated with photographs the prior year’s Smoki dances. For the Yavapai Cow Belles’ book Echoes of the Past — Tales of Old Yavapai in Arizona, she contributed a chapter on “Prescott’s Big Fire,” giving an account of the 1900 fire that destroyed Whiskey Row and most of the town’s businesses.
In 1957, a month after celebrating her 81st birthday, Etta was killed in a fire that broke out in her home.
At her memorial service, her pastor, Dr. Charles Franklin Parker, stated, “Her’s was a life devoted only to worthwhile things. She gave more to me in her kindly, thoughtful and devoted life than I was ever able to share with her. She was the most kindly, considerate, tolerant and forgiving woman that I have ever known. Quiet to a point of almost silence she was given only to charitable thoughts and deeds.”
Etta and William are buried in the Mountain View Cemetery.
“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 www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.