These words rang true to my ears as I put together my family history, precious photos, and memorabilia on the pages of a Creative Memories album. I found the original and personal letters typed and signed by Governor Hunt to my grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Turner Calder, who lived in Phoenix, and to my dad, Jack Turner, over the period of years during and after World War I. I had heard my grandmother's stories about meeting Governor Hunt on the train. 

These letters were treasured, saved, and passed on to me by my dad with his own handwritten notes about his mother traveling by rail to Camp Funston, Kansas, to visit him when he was stationed there in 1918. It was on this trip that she became acquainted with W. P. Hunt, the first governor of Arizona. It was by chance that they had both boarded the train in Phoenix and were headed to the same destination. 

I imagine that she stepped onto the train in a happy and anticipatory mood, anxious to see her only son who had left for camp in uniform in the early fall. Christmas had come and gone and now it was a few days before Easter. She planned to arrive at Camp Funston and spend some time with Jack. She knew from his letters that his asthma was causing him some problems. Maybe she could lift his spirits and find out, for herself, how he was doing. Besides, it was on her way to Newport News, Virginia, to see her husband anyway. 

She carefully removed and folded her duster coat, took off her hat and smoothed her graying hair before settling her tall, slender figure on one of the well-worn seats in the Pullman car. She opened her notebook and added some lines to the rhyme she had been working on, "Spring in Arizona": 

"Spring comes dancing, laughing, tripping, 
leaving footprints everywhere; 
O'er the windblown desert skipping, 
Trailing gorgeous garments there." 

She had always enjoyed writing poetry and as a young woman had a job with a greeting card company and had written verses for the decorative cards. 

The train moved slowly out of the Phoenix depot and across the desert, then north to the town of Ashfork in northern Arizona, where they would be hooked up with bumps and lurches to the main liner headed for Chicago. The trip would take three days to Kansas so she had purchased a ticket with sleeping car accommodations. In his book, "The Railroad in American Life", George H. Douglas says, "The minute one stepped on board the train one could be renouncing one life and taking up another. One part of life's experiences would be in the past, another, eagerly awaited. The Pullman section sleeping car always had about it a tincture of democratic conviviality, since it converted into an ordinary, if elegant, coach with a center aisle in the daytime..at night converted into upper and lower berths, with dressing rooms for men and women at opposing ends. Often the brunt of Pullman jokes and comical indiscretions, but the majority found it to be safe and proper. The open center in day allowed passengers to wander up and down aisles and visit with the other passengers." 

Tired of writing, Mary Elizabeth picked up her knitting. Perhaps she could finish the socks she had started for Jack. She worked for a while. "Knit one, purl two, knit one, purl two," she said to herself in time to the chugging of the engine. She tired easily from just sitting and needed to get up and stretch a bit and perhaps find someone to engage in conversation. She picked up her knitting bag, put it under her arm, and walked up the aisle, smiling and nodding until she found an empty seat across the aisle from four well-dressed passengers. She noticed that one was a distinguished looking gentleman with a party of a woman, a man, and an officer in the army. The gentleman was portly and dressed in a light colored, vested suit. He looked up through his eyeglasses, as she greeted him. She saw a twinkle in his eye and he smiled through his walrus moustache at her. There was nothing unusual about him, except the fact that he was busily knitting a sweater. 

"Good morning," she said. 

"Good morning madam," he replied and continued with his knitting. She took her seat opposite the quartet and took out her own knitting. She remarked that she was making a pair of socks for her son, Jack, stationed at Camp Funston. It was then that they introduced themselves. The woman was a secretary, the man from the Red Cross, there was the Adjutant, and the portly man introduced himself as George Hunt. 

"My," she said to herself, "That is why he looks so familiar. George Hunt is the governor of Arizona"! 

Knowing my grandmother to be a delightful conversationalist, I am sure she had many talks with the governor as they rolled along through New Mexico the next day, about his work in Arizona, her son Jack, husband Joe and, of course, about their knitting! 

Their first stop was in Gallup, New Mexico, where they disembarked and had breakfast of pancakes, bacon and eggs, at a Harvey House conveniently located at the train station. Harvey Houses were located in larger cities along the Santa Fe line. The meals were good, served by uniformed waitresses, and gave the passengers a chance to stretch and to walk around. When they stopped for lunch in Albuquerque, they must have seen the colorfully dressed Indian women gathered in front of the station peddling jewelry, baskets and rugs. 

From Albuquerque, the line veered north to Trinidad and La Junta, Colorado, while the governor and my grandmother chatted and knitted the hours away. They talked about Arizona and some of the problems he had in steering the state. She told him about her son, his asthma and about what it would be like after the war. After she saw Jack, she would be going on to Newport News, Virginia, where her husband, Joe Calder, was working temporarily in the shipyards. 

Sometime during the next day spent traveling across Colorado, my grandmother ran out of yarn and the good governor loaned her some of his, as his letter of May 1, 1918 indicates. On the third day, they traveled mile after mile of flat land in western Kansas. They finally arrived at the station in Kansas City where the huge stockyards were located, second in size to those in Chicago. This was their destination by train and my imagination tells me that they bid a fond farewell and felt friendship and respect for each other. 

The governor went on to Camp Funston with his party: the secretary, the Adjutant, and the Red Cross man. Perhaps Mary Elizabeth checked into the Muehlbach Hotel for a steak dinner and a night's rest. At any rate, when she arrived at Camp Funston the next day, Easter Sunday, to see Jack, she was greatly disappointed. He was not allowed to leave the camp. She mulled this dilemma over in her mind. "Should I? Should I not?" Finally her mind was made up. She wired Governor Hunt inside Camp Funston to ask for his help. His letter indicates that he immediately went to Colonel Yule, who granted a forty-eight hour leave for my dad! 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po0741p)
Reuse only by permission.
First Arizona Governor George Hunt (right-center, second row, sporting a fedora and mustache) taking in the rodeo at Frontier Days, c1930.