Cassie Ethel (Walker) George was born at Klondyke, Graham County, Arizona Territory, on January 3, 1910, the daughter of Albert Gallatin and Jessie (Wootan) Walker. Albert was a freighter in the Aravaipa Canyon area. Jessie died October 14, 1918 from the Spanish flu, one day after giving birth to a baby girl, who lived only a short time. Albert moved his family to Safford, Graham County, Arizona. His brother, Ira Walker, bought a ranch on the Hassayampa River near Wagoner and urged Albert to join him.
Albert bought two hundred head of registered Angora goats from a rancher in Aravaipa Canyon and drove them cross-country to a ranch at the McKinley Mine near Wagoner. He sent his children on the train to Kirkland, where his brother Ira met them. Later they moved to Black Butte, Yavapai County, on the Hassayampa River just below the Gold Bar Mine. In that move they packed all their furniture on burros and came across the mountain on horseback. Cassie said that she lived in every canyon in the area!
Cassie rode on horseback to school in Klondyke, Graham County, Arizona, when she started first grade, and later attended schools in Safford and San Carlos. After moving to Yavapai County, she attended an accommodation school at the Gold Bar Mine. She went to Texas and stayed with her grandmother the first year of high school.
The second year she taught at the Abe Lincoln Mine; in turn, the teacher taught Cassie her high school subjects. Finally, when the Walkers were living at Morristown, Maricopa County, Arizona, Cassie boarded with the Kellis family in Wickenburg. Her father brought her to town for school, but when the bridge across the Hassayampa River was washed out, she rode the train. She completed two years in one and graduated in the Class of 1927.
Cassie then worked at Brayton’s Mercantile in Wickenburg, whose slogan was “Everything from Diapers to Dynamite.” Interestingly, she returned to work there in 1950 and stayed until Brayton’s closed. On June 28, 1928, she married Roy Rudolph George, a goat rancher like her father, in Prescott, Arizona. Their daughter Pauline Beth(George) Russell was born in Wickenburg on April 21, 1929, and attended school there.
The Georges moved to the Diamond A Ranch near Socorro, New Mexico, and lived there until 1935, when Cassie’s father asked them to return to Arizona and take over the Angora goat operation. Before World War II, many products were made primarily of mohair, and the goat business thrived. Then synthetic fibers were developed and that caused the mohair market to crash. So the Georges and Walkers returned to the cattle business.
Cassie George was active in the Wickenburg Church of Christ. She passed away on October 14, 2002, in Mesa, at the age of ninety-one. She is interred in the Wickenburg Municipal Cemetery. Her family remembers her as honest, caring, and loving. She was a devoted Christian and a hard-working lady who was always there for her family and friends.
Cassie's mother, Sarah Jessie (Wootan) Walker, and her aunt, Ethel (Wootan) Montierth, are also commemorated in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden
Donors: Beth George Russell, daughter, and Mona Lange McCroskey
Photo Located: Oral History Folder – George, Cassie
Updated: 9/20/2016, D. Sue Kissel
