By Carol Powell
"Ma Hutch" died in her sleep in Tucson, AZ at the age of 98 on February 19, 1991. She was a tough-minded Democratic Arizona legislator who fought "for the poor, the little people," a blackjack-packing child of the frontier who was the third woman ever to serve in the Arizona House of Representatives. "Ma Hutch" served nine terms from 1953 to 1972.
She was born Etta Mae Olmstead on August 6, 1892 in Weed, NM, six weeks before her family moved to Cochise County in southern Arizona Territory in a covered wagon. Her grandfather, Samuel Baldwin Olmstead, was born in Otsego County, NY in 1810 and in early manhood migrated to Pennsylvania where he married Lucy Howard and then moved west. He became a "mover and shaker" of his time who was very active as a Democrat in territorial/state civic affairs first in Iowa, then Minnesota. He was an active member of the territorial conventions that framed the constitutions of both Iowa (1846) and Minnesota (1858) and was elected President of the Territorial Council in Minnesota in 1855. He was a farmer, rancher, politician, hotel owner and lumberman.
Samuel Baldwin Olmstead established a large dairy farm on the west side of the Mississippi River "cross the river" from Fort Crawford which was near Prairie du Chein, Wisconsin, settling there about the same time that the government was rebuilding the fort in 1829-31. The family realized a handsome profit from the ready-made market for their butter and cheese at the fort. They were also involved in trade with Indians and trappers. Baldwin was involved in politics and worked hard to bring about statehood for Iowa in 1846. By 1849, things were changing and forts were being closed because they were no longer needed. Baldwin had the foresight to realize that Fort Crawford would be closing so he moved his family north near another active fort along the Mississippi in Minnesota. Fort Ripley was on the west side of the river and Baldwin settled on the eastern shore in Crow Wing County. He built a hotel, began farming and ranching and continued his supply business to the garrison at the fort. He became involved in politics and served in the Minnesota House of Representatives beginning in 1850, working hard there to bring about statehood in 1858.
Etta Mae’s father, Samuel Baldwin Olmstead, Jr., was born in 1851. He became a farmer and grew up working with his father in his vast operations. His father and mother were the first white settlers there in Crow Wing County and his mother, Lucy, was the only white woman in Crow Wing County for several years. By the time Fort Ripley closed in 1857, his father was pursuing a booming lumber business in addition to his farming and ranching. He bought more land to expand his businesses. With the Indians now on reservations, settlers were moving in and business was good. Their location was very ideal because the main road from St. Paul to Pembina was on the east side of the river where they lived. (Pembina was the first settlement in the Dakota Territories and the first trade link from the Mississippi River at Minneapolis/St. Paul.) His father was politically instrumental in building the road between St. Paul and Pembina, North Dakota.
After having spent a great portion of his life in public positions, Baldwin, Sr., at the age of 56, like so many others after the Civil War, moved to Burnett County, Texas. Many of the children followed him there, including his son Samuel B. Olmstead, Jr., Etta Mae’s father. Baldwin, Sr. died in Texas. After his death some of the family left Texas to follow the Indian wars into New Mexico and Arizona. Etta Mae’s father moved from Texas to New Mexico and then to southeastern Arizona. The Olmsteads scattered across Arizona. Ma Hutch’s Aunt Clara Miller (her father’s older sister) and her family settled in Prescott, Arizona. Clara Olmstead Miller named one of her sons, Baldwin O. Miller. after her father and brother.
Although Etta Mae Olmstead never knew her politically active grandfather, she must have had some politics in her blood. In 1911, at age 19, she campaigned diligently for George W. P. Hunt, the first Governor of Arizona, and traveled in a flatbed wagon from Cochise County to Phoenix to attend his inauguration on February 14, 1912. It was a journey of one week each way from her home near Turkey Creek in southeast AZ. In 1911, she married William "Bill" Dalton from Kansas (a son of one of the famous Dalton brothers) and moved to Tucson. Their daughter, Esther, was born there in 1912. Her husband, reportedly drunk and passed out on the railroad tracks, was struck by a train and killed in 1915. The following year she married Oril O. Hutcheson, a conductor for the Southern Pacific Railroad. They had a son, Frank, in 1928.
A longtime volunteer in the Democratic Party, Etta served eight years on the Pima County Welfare Board during the 1930s. 1949 was a year of great personal loss when her husband, Oril, and daughter, Esther, died within four months of each other.
In 1953, she was appointed to fill the vacant house seat of then-Rep. Larry Woods. She served on the Appropriations, Judiciary, and Public Institutions committees and chaired the Natural Resources Committee and the now-defunct Suffrage and Elections Committee. Affectionately named "Ma Hutch" by her peers, she believed strongly in the constituents of Pima County and she was fiercely loyal to her state and country. She considered her most notable achievements to be the funding for the creation of the University of Arizona Medical Center, water rights for Arizona and the advancement of women’s rights. She was proud to be one of the first women elected to the Arizona State Legislature and was especially pleased at being the first woman to serve as Chairman Pro Tem in the House.
"Ma Hutch" had only an eighth grade education. She was a "character," a stooped old lady with a quiet voice, a quick laugh and could "out cuss anyone." She was a rough-and-tumble person, but underneath there was an innate sense of refinement that shone through. To her family she was known as "sweetie pie." She believed you owe something to your country in return for the things you receive. When she sought re-election to her ninth and last term in 1970, Hutcheson, then 78, boasted that she had never been absent or tardy during a single day the legislature was in session in her 18 years of service. She retired, undefeated for nine terms, in 1972 for health reasons.
"Ma Hutch" is interred at Evergreen Cemetery, Tucson, beside her husband, Oril.
(Carol Powell is an historian for the Olmstead-Miller families.)
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy of the Hutcheson family) Reuse only by permission.
Etta Mae Olmstead shown here on the right with her sister, Lucy Olmstead, c.1910 at their home near Turkey Creek in Cochise County, southeastern Arizona.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy of the Hutcheson family) Reuse only by permission.
Etta Mae "Ma Hutch" Hutcheson, shown here circa late 1950s, was the third woman to serve in the Arizona House of Representatives, from 1953 to 1972.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Courtesy of the Hutcheson family) Reuse only by permission.
Ma Hutch" just before her retirement from eighteen years in the Arizona House of Representatives, c.1970, nearly 80 years of age.