By Mona Lange McCroskey

Western women in the 19^th-century lived without much fanfare, working hard, bearing children, and caring for the sick. Usually they died as unsung heroines. It was therefore exciting to discover spidery-penciled notations in a fragile ledger kept by Laura Anna Garbarino Bolden in the possession of her granddaughter, Joan Kuhne Looney. Embellished by Joan’s recollections of her, the ledger provides a peek into Laura’s remarkable life.

When Laura was born on Jan. 20, 1886, she was already a fourth-generation Arizonan. Her great-grandparents migrated to Arizona in 1864, followed by her grandmother and her family. Her mother, Catherine Brown, married Gustav Garbarino in Prescott, and Laura was the third of their five children. In the early grades she rode her pony from the family ranch to Miller Valley School. Catherine suffered from asthma; consequently she moved her family into a home on Comfort Avenue in the Old Ball Park when Laura was still a child. Catherine boarded Santa Fe railroad employees, and Laura continued her education in Prescott.

In 1904 Laura married Fred Bolden, a Texan who arrived in Arizona in 1901. He worked in Prescott as a saddle maker and as a fireman and an engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad. The young couple moved to a ranch in Skull Valley in 1906. Bolden later came back to Prescott to become chief mechanic for the Samuel Hill Hardware Company, and in 1917 he started his own garage business.

Meanwhile, Laura contributed to the support of the Bolden household. Income came from varied sources, as evidenced by entries in her ledger. She sold “rolls of butter” for 33 cents per half pound and eggs for 50 cents a dozen to the J.I. Gardner store at Willis and Cortez streets. She sold veal and chickens to Prescott Meat Company and hogs to Herman Brinkmeyer. Sales of livestock, eggs and wood were carefully noted in her ledger, along with Laura’s household expenses. She shopped for groceries at Sam Dreyer’s and Jake Blumberg’s stores. She bought dry goods, gasoline and buggy paint from the Bashford-Burmister Company. Personal items were reasonable: $1.50 for a corset, $1 for stockings and 20 cents for a package of hair nets.

Inventories of cattle owned by the Boldens appear in the ledger, starting in 1906. Many of the animals were listed by names – Stumpy, Rose and Daisy, Goggles, Brownie, and Rebecca – with dates of birth, their offspring, and their fate: sold, killed, or died. The Boldens bought calves for 50 cents each. They paid $5 for a cow and $10 for a steer. Geese cost 10 cents each. They pastured horses for their neighbors at $3 a head.

Mrs. Bolden sewed for others and took in washing. She nursed the sick and bought remedies for them at Timerhoff’s drug store. Her ledger lists income for “nursing” until Sept. 1, 1919, when she served as a midwife for a Mrs. Young. The woman gave birth to a boy and stayed with Laura for 10 days; charge $30. What would become her maternity home in Prescott was built in 1922 at 212 Summit St. on the back of the lot, and later moved up closer to the street. Mrs. Bolden made monthly payments averaging $34 on it. She also occupied a second home to the north on Summit Street when she had multiple patients. Her neighbor across the street was St. Joseph’s Academy, where she had gone to school as a child and where she was taught be right-handed.

It is heartening to learn that occasionally Laura spent “sporting money” for a show and ice cream, and that she once bought a case of beer for $3. She subscribed to Charles Lummis’ Way Out West Magazine, to which Sharlot Hall was a frequent contributor and associate editor.

Laura’s husband, Fred Bolden, became a prominent Prescott citizen. He was a city councilman, a candidate for mayor in 1926, and he held virtually every office in the I.O.O.F. He was in good health until his bout with influenza and his ensuing pulmonary illness in 1929 forced him to give up his garage business. He lingered and died on July 18, 1930, leaving Laura a widow with two children at home. She continued her work as a midwife, tending to ranchers’ wives who came into town to have their babies delivered by Dr. Looney. Familiar Yavapai County names appearing under “Maternity Nursing” are Mrs. Harley Miller, Mrs. Bliss Travis, Mrs. Joseph Strojost, Mrs. Earl Carter, and Mrs. Robert Kuhne. Their average stay in Mrs. Bolden’s home was 10 days. There is an occasional sad note, “still born.” In 1922 when she was able to have a telephone installed, it cost $2 a month.

A poignant story about Laura’s midwifery involves the Otteni twins, born on Aug. 4, 1926, at the maternity home. Dr. Looney delivered the first tiny twin, said it would not survive, laid it aside, and turned his attention to the more robust twin. Mrs. Bolden asked if she could have the frail baby. She ran warm water over it, wrapped it up, and put it against her chest next to her heart. She carried the baby around that way, and it survived. A picture in her album shows the healthy twins in a stroller a few months later. They kept in touch with her for years.

In June 1936 Laura was suffering from gallstones and a nine-pound tumor in her stomach, which she had treated with a hot water bottle. (Joan has memories of Mrs. Bolden playing the fiddle, resting it on her big tummy). When the hardy woman discovered that she needed surgery, she sold her home on Summit Street and drove with her friend, Mrs. Simmons, to the Mayo Clinic. A card from the Odd Fellows secretary of transients’ relief in Rochester struck between the pages of her book hints that the women sought help from the lodge in which her husband had been active. Mrs. Bolden spend 14 days in the hospital, and the travelers drove back to Arizona via Yellowstone Park. Laura noted that she painted her toenails on the six-week trip, “the most wicked thing I have ever done.”

Mrs. Bolden’s eventual life in Prescott continued. She worked as chief housekeeper at the Arizona Pioneers’ Home from 1934-1940. She left that employment to become a matron at the Yavapai County Jail where she lived in the courthouse in a small apartment with a hot plate in the northeast corner on the third floor (now the clerk’s office). The bathroom was down the hall. Bolden supervised the women and juvenile prisoners – the jail was in the center of the third floor – and accompanied deputies when juveniles were transported to Fort Grant or the Good Shepherd Home for Girls in Phoenix. Her granddaughter thought it was great fun to spend the night “in jail” with Laura.

Laura Bolden was an honorary life member of the Rebekah Lodge in Prescott. She was affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. She passed away in Prescott on Oct. 28, 1966, leaving a legacy of industriousness and hard work.

(Mona McCroskey is an oral historian, writer, and long time volunteer at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

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