By Kristen Kauffman
There were no string lights then, so Esther Lee Cherry Henderson, in her oral history from the Sharlot Hall Museum Research Center, remembered candles on the huge tree, with toys hanging all over it and piled under. She was only four-and-a-half years old in 1915, but this rancher’s daughter remembered this Community Christmas Tree in Camp Verde. “Santa called each one’s name, and we had to go up front and get our gift. I got a cowboy doll.”
Esther was born to Jessie Lee and Norvel Cherry on March 16, 1910, in Camp Verde. In 1917 her father purchased JDK Ranch and moved the family to Cherry Creek along the Mogollon Rim. She started school at the new Cherry Creek Schoolhouse and, during her school years, lived with her family at their various cabins in Camp Verde, Bumblebee, Mayer and Clemenceau. She graduated from Clarkdale High School in 1928. A rancher’s daughter married a rancher, stock contractor and bronc rider, Perry Henderson, in 1931. She and her husband lived and worked in Dewey and later became known for giving back to the community and their efforts with Prescott Frontier Days.
Henderson remembered the 1915 Community Christmas Tree at a church, but the Community Christmas Tree was an event Camp Verde offered annually, though at different places and with variations. On December 20, 1899, the Camp Verde Christmas celebration began with a wedding. At the bride’s parents’ house, Mr. William Gilbert and Miss Anna Osborn were married by the Methodist minister, after which guests followed the bride and groom to Clear Creek or Eamon School in lower Verde for evening celebrations. About two hundred people arrived by wagon, horseback or foot to hear the students’ recitations, dialogues and singing directed by their teacher, Miss Louise Owsley. The Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner Jan 3, 1900, stated: “After the closing exercises the curtain was pulled aside and there stood one of the most beautiful Christmas trees ever exhibited in Verde valley, fairly loaded with presents for the children as well as for the grown folks.” This was a Community Christmas Tree with “ample toys and slippers” Santa Claus put on the tree.
In 1893 the Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner reported that “although times are corky Santa Claus has been fairly generous to all the little folks and many of the grown people as well.” The Miner’s editor may have believed “times were corky” because the same edition discussed stock dying from starvation in the area and the possibility of property lines shifting from land surveying of ten thousand acres of good farmland. Camp Verde was seeking Christmas cheer. In 1893 two schools combined; Miss C. A. Woods, the district three teacher, and Miss S. B. Hewitt, the district 24 teacher, merged classrooms for exercises, dialogues, recitations and singing. The Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner Jan 4, 1893, announced that their well-decorated tree was the focal point, “heavily loaded with presents for the young folks and many of the middle aged, and the old people were kindly remembered by their friends.” Also reported was how much the teachers were loved by their students and by “some who are not school children, (but for goodness’ sake don’t tell anybody I said so).” Christmas was on Sunday; on Monday, the young people of Camp Verde got together for a dance and banquet “at the old post”. The musicians played for thirteen hours.
In Henderson’s last days at the Arizona Pioneers’ Home in Prescott, she recalled a few things in her oral history. Jo Ann Yeager’s Arizona National Pioneer Ranch Histories. Vol. 11 records that she remembered Lonesome Valley as a majestic field with waving grasses, and she remembered that Community Christmas tree in Camp Verde. She said that “Christmas was always special.”
“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 alsoavailable at 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 atarchivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.