By Linda Ludington

(This is the second part in a two-part series on the Perkins Family) 

Annie Perkins, like her daughters-in-law later, was a resourceful ranch wife. She grew large gardens and canned fruits and vegetables throughout the summer. She also canned meat-venison and beef-and dried some beef into jerky. There was no refrigeration. Annie also made good use of her treadle sewing machine, generously sharing with her Yavapai Indian neighbors.

For years these women brought her their yardage, and were delighted with the dresses made on her machine. Sharlot M. Hall, founder of the Museum, admired Annie: "Hers was that courage and patience, that friendliness and hospitality, upon which the homes of the frontier were built." 

Marion Perkins employed Curtis Miller to tutor his younger children. The teacher lived on the ranch. His wages were small but, in addition, he received cattle for his services. For years thereafter, Curtis Miller had a small herd on the ranch. 

Evelyn Duncan was a history teacher in Williams when Nick Perkins rode horseback from the ranch to court her. This cultured lady from Excelsior Springs, Missouri, once described her school board as "a bartender, a fiddler at the saloon, the town bootlegger, and a non-descript fellow without any specific job." Evelyn became a rancher's wife when she married Nick in Williams on May 2, 1923. 

The first school in Perkinsville was held in Evelyn's home. She started the classes so that children of the limekiln workers and those of the Mexican railroad workers living in Santa Fe housing could receive an education. Later, she persuaded the railroad to donate the small Perkinsville Depot for a schoolhouse and one unit of the workers' quarters for a teacher's apartment. Evelyn's four sons, including Tom, who is still living on the Perkins Ranch, all started school at the old depot near their home. 

Besides school, the Perkins children received a typical ranch education: feeding chickens, milking cows, roping, doctoring, and branding cattle. For fun they spent whole summer days splashing in the Verde River, which was just a lazy stream in the hot weather. Tom's favorite childhood memories are of those times when Nick saddled four trusted horses for his young sons, with Tom on the reliable "Bullet," and took them wherever he was working cattle. Often they slept in one large bedroll under the stars. Tom speaks with obvious admiration of his father, the consummate cattleman, always addressed as "Mr. Nick" by the cowboys. Tom's dad had been a top hand even as a boy of eleven when he helped trail the herd from Texas. 

The Perkins properties have been divided among Marion's descendents over the years; Tom is the only Perkins still on the original homestead. He talks of his family with humble but genuine pride. Tom and Marge have shared forty-eight years of ranching and, like his grandfather, have raised three sons (Tommy, Mike, and Dan) and three daughters (Debbie, Lyn, and Cindy). 

Tom first met Margaret Siegert at Prescott High School. She had moved to Arizona as a young girl when her father's deteriorating health forced him to sell his Minnesota farm and move to a drier climate. In 1954, Tom brought his bride to the ranch and they made their home in what had once been the Santa Fe headquarters house in Perkinsville. Marge fitted in easily-she loved helping Tom with ranch work, and she treasured her relationship with Tom's mother, Evelyn. It was Evelyn who had suggested a Women's Memorial Rose Garden at the Sharlot Hall Museum; she had helped to organize the Chino Valley Community Church and the Junior Cattlegrowers Association, and she had worked with the Smithsonian Institution identifying Indian artifacts found on the Perkins land. 

The Perkinsville School was no longer operating when Tom's children came along. After several years of renting a house in Chino Valley during the school months, Tom and Marge built a house on the western edge of their ranch, across Little Chino Wash from Chino Valley. They have kept the old Perkinsville buildings for various ranch uses. Most of their crossbred herd is summered on their private and state-leased land, and is moved to National Forest grazing-permit land in the winter. 

Whenever stock is to be worked, Perkins children and grandchildren eagerly gather to help-the ranch is still home to the entire family. One of the family, sadly, is missing: Mike, the middle son, died suddenly two years ago while riding on the range he loved. He was only thirty-two. Tom calls Mike his "right hand man." Marge adds, "Old Nick and Mike were both born with their spurs on. Nick said he knew Mike was a cowboy from the day he was born. Mike would sit in his high chair and twirl his spaghetti noodles just like a rope." Later this year Mike's sister Lyn and her cattle-broker husband Danny Major will return to Perkinsville to run the ranch. 

In 1893 the noted historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote that "the traits of a frontier people include strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical, inventive turn of mind, that restless energy, that dominant individualism, that exuberance which comes with freedom." No pioneering family has exemplified that frontier character more than the family of Marion Alexander Perkins, his wife Annie, their children, grandchildren, and the generations following in their boot-steps. Indeed, that old movie set at Perkinsville was the genuine deal. The Perkins Ranch faithfully represents, even today, the authentic spirit of the West. 

(The Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering begins this Thursday at the Sharlot Hall Museum, call the Museum or visit sharlothallmuseum.org to find out more. There will be a special session about the Perkins Family at the Museum at 1 pm Saturday afternoon hosted by the author) 



Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (Perkins family). Reuse only by permission.
Marion, Annie, and Fannie Perkins pose for this photograph at the Perkins Ranch. The Perkins Family, that settled in the area that was later to bear their family name, represents an authentic spirit of the West and will be honored at this week's Cowboy Poets Gathering.