By Jan MacKell Collins © 2014
In Part 1 of this article, Ruth Wallace Moritz recalled how her mother, Cora Wallace, toiled as a rancher’s wife in northern Arizona. Through Ruth’s eyes, Cora’s caring for her family and cowboys for the famous Hash Knife outfit around Holbrook illustrated daily life on a working cattle ranch. In Part two, Ruth’s narrative continues to describe how Cora and her family moved to various ranches, including the famed O W Ranch outside of Young, and the family’s involvement in ranching life.
Ruth and her sister, Margery, were often out on the range taking fresh horses to working cowboys throughout the day. “It was a lonely time as we missed home,” Ruth recalled, but added that Margery would ease the loneliness by singing songs to her. The girls would head home across the prairies after these round ups, where “Mama would have a hard time getting us clean.”
The Wallace’s hard work at Adamana eventually paid off. By the mid-1910s, the family was faring well enough to build a nice home in Holbrook, complete with a beautiful hardwood interior, glass doorknobs, electricity and indoor plumbing—although Frank stubbornly kept an outhouse in the back yard. Cora’s name appeared on the property deed. She also assured that her son-in-law, George Hennessey, purchased property directly across the street and built a home for himself and her daughter Frances. Shortly after the homes were completed, Hennessey was elected the first mayor of Holbrook.
Success continued to follow the Wallace family. Within a few years, Frank purchased the majestic O W Ranch outside of Young for a whopping $150,000. The original log ranch house served as an ample home. There was plenty of water. The family dined on fish, wild game, chickens, turkey and, of course, beef. Outbuildings included a smokehouse, a cow barn, and a dairy house for keeping butter, milk and cheese. Cora’s larder also included potatoes grown by a neighboring rancher, and wild grapes. Writer Norma Leonard described how, after she had made some wine, Cora threw the grapes in the yard. Some turkeys came along and devoured the grapes, and were soon off balance and stumbling around!
A second, much fancier home was erected on the property at the O W. It was intended for the Wallace’s oldest son, Emmet, to live in with his wife Amy whom he married at Adamana. Tragically, Emmet died during the 1920 flu epidemic (Margery, had also died in 1915). The family later moved into that house, where an ample root cellar stored Cora’s homemade preserves. A lack of electricity did not stop Cora from making a comfortable home for her family and the numerous cowhands who worked on or passed by the ranch. She also bought, sold, and traded coffee, flour and other goods with Native Americans, cowboys and nearby ranch wives.
Hard times forced Frank to sell out in 1928. He then went into business with some of his children and their spouses. In 1937, Frank and Cora moved to Tucson and lived with daughter Ruth and her husband, Harold Moritz. A year later, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary there. During a visit to Holbrook in September of 1939, Cora died unexpectedly. A son-in-law, Charles Lisitzky, and Fred Schuster of A & B Schuster Co. handled the funeral costs. Guests and pallbearers included many of the cowboys she had cared for and fed from the Hash Knife, including Dick Grigsby, Johnny Paulsell, Bill Wyrick and Ed Bargeman.
Little remains today as a testament to Cora Wallace and women like her. The Wallace homes are gone now, except for their house in Holbrook. Thanks to preservation efforts by subsequent owners, the home is amongst the nicest in town. Another landmark is Cora’s old root cellar from the family home at the O W Ranch where she stored cured meat and homemade preserves. When her granddaughter, Suzanne Peterson, visited the ranch as a young girl, she remembered seeing mason jars filled with preserves still in the cellar. This remnant from a ranching family pays a most fitting tribute to a unique group of women from the old west.
Jan MacKell Collins is the great-great granddaughter of Frank and Cora Wallace. More about ranching life can be found in her newest book, The Hash Knife Around Holbrook.
Ms. Collins will be appearing at Sharlot Hall Museum Library & Archives on Saturday, February 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m for a book signing.
Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14, or via email atdayspastprescott@gmail.com for information.