Lucille (Singletary) Denson Yopp was born December 7, 1877, in Texas. In 1886, her father, Daniel C. Singletary, a farmer, founded the Monaville Post Office in his store on Harris Creek in central Waller County, Texas. He named the community Monaville in honor of his daughter. In 1900, Lucille was working in her father’s grocery. She had a sister, Mona, and a brother, Julian.

Lucille’s first marriage was to Albert Montgomery Denson. They had two children: Mona (Denson) Lange, born October 14, 1907, in Benson, Mohave County, Arizona Territory, and Albert Denson, born December 25, 1910.  

Lucille related to a granddaughter that, after six or seven years, she “ran him off” because Albert would not settle down. Denson wanted to keep moving to new towns. Lucille and her children moved to Prescott, Arizona, about 1920 and lived on North Granite Street.

After her second marriage to William Freeman Yopp, a carpenter, they lived on S. McCormick Street in Prescott. They were married five years when she parted with him because he wanted to put her son Al, who had epilepsy, into an asylum.

As a single mother, Lucille worked at the Head Hotel as a chambermaid. She opened a boarding house near the intersection of McCormick Street and Goodwin and hired a Turkish man by the name of Remi Zir, also known as “Turk,” as her houseboy. He had been a miner in Jerome.

In 1929, Lucille gave up the boarding house and moved to Phoenix to be near her daughter, who was attending Arizona State Teachers’ College. Turk moved with Lucille and together they lived in South Phoenix in an old adobe house for thirty years, surrounded by citrus, date and olive trees; honeysuckle and blackberry vines; a grape arbor full of June bugs in the summer; sweet peas and roses; and a garden full of wonderful vegetables. Lucille was a good cook -- her pecan pies and chicken dumplings were especially delicious.  Lucille did not have much money, but she never forgot a birthday and always had a small gift for each of her nine grandchildren at Christmas time.  Turk became a father figure to her children and remained with her until her death.

Lucille Yopp died on July 31, 1960, and was buried at Double Butte Cemetery in Tempe, Arizona. Her daughter, Mona (Denson) Lange, is also commemorated in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden.

Donor: Mona (Lange) McCroskey, granddaughter
Photo Located: Photo Box 147, Folder 7A
Updated: 4/17/15, Brenda Taylor