By Marjory J. Sente
Born in Pine in 1907, Mary Isabelle Fuller Brown recalled that Arizona was only a Territory. “I was old enough to remember when Arizona was taken in as a state. I remember it was a great day for rejoicing when we got the word,”
Isabelle, the third of four sisters followed by five brothers, could ride, rope and shoot as well as any cowboy. She initially rode bareback. Then her father fixed up a pack saddle with rope stirrups and a sheepskin thrown over the saddle, making her ride soft. “I must have been almost out of grade school before I ever sat on a saddle,” she said.
Her family spent winters in Pine and summers at their ranch in Long Valley. When Isabelle was 12, she decided to learn to play the organ. So that summer she rode to Pine to take lessons.
“I went by myself, 20 miles each way. Rode down one day, took my lesson, spent the night with one of my aunts, and rode back the next day,” adding that she never became a good organist, but enjoyed the ride.
She graduated from Pine’s one-room school and went to high school at Camp Verde for two years. Ultimately, she graduated from Phoenix Union High School and Lamson Business College.
Isabelle met Francis Valentine “Bud” Brown shortly after he came to Arizona in 1926. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1925, he said no to theological school and jumped at the opportunity to cowboy for $40 a month in Arizona. Bud was immediately smitten with Isabelle, and they were engaged in 1928. Realizing a cowboy’s income would not support a family, he earned a teaching certificate at what is now NAU and took a teaching position in Flagstaff.
Despite misgivings about his son marrying a rancher’s daughter, Bud’s father married the couple in 1930 at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Prescott. Appalled his daughter was marrying an “Ivy League city slicker,” Isabelle’s father skipped the wedding.
In 1936 the Browns moved to the Salt River Valley, where Bud taught high school. For a class fundraiser, he suggested a hayride complete with a campfire and dinner. An immediate success, the outings quickly led to Bud Brown’s Barn, located near Phoenix, where large amounts of food, music and dancing were served. Isabelle’s beans were legendary. When asked for the recipe, Bud replied, “Hell no, I had to marry the woman to get that recipe, I’m not about to give it away.”
The Browns opened Friendly Pines Camp on Groom Creek in 1941 with their five children and five of the kids’ friends. Friendly Pines is still known internationally as a premiere summer camp for children, complete with horseback riding.
Besides nurturing Friendly Pines, the couple followed their other passions. They imported and raised Peruvian Paso horses in the 1960s and 70s. The breed, known for its smooth gait, was a favorite of Isabelle’s.
Spending much of her life in the saddle, Isabelle was an early member of Las Damas, the female equivalent to the Desert Caballeros, and the Desert Saddle Bags of Scottsdale. In her sixties, she took up endurance riding and competed in The Western States Endurance Race, also called the Tevis Cup Ride, held each July in California. The goal is to ride a hundred miles in 24 hours and earn a belt buckle embossed with “100 Miles, One Day.” Completing her third ride at age 75, Isabelle would have tried for her fourth buckle in 1981 at the age of 78, but her horse died the month before the ride. Passing in 1997, Isabelle is buried in Pine 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 https://archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/l. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org. Please contact SHM Library & Archives reference desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 2, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.