Marguerite (Shull) Buckley, daughter of Isabelle (Sageman) and John Thomas Shull, was born on August 25, 1891, in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory. She and her brothers and sister grew up in the home built by her father at 225 S. Cortez Street. John Shull chose that location for the house because his wife so admired the big Arizona white oak tree on the property.
Marguerite was a fiery little spitfire of a redhead as a child (according to her daughter). She had inherited her mother’s musical talent and loved performing in the musical productions in both the local schools and St. Joseph’s Academy that she attended.
When she graduated from high school, her mother sent her to Oberlin College in Ohio to further her musical training. While at Oberlin, Marguerite became acquainted with a Christian Science practitioner who was very motherly and took Marguerite under her wing. Although raised an Episcopalian, Marguerite embraced the philosophy of the Christian Science Church and became a life-long practitioner of that belief.
On August 31, 1912, she married Maury Wade Buckley in Prescott. The couple moved to Alliance, Nebraska, where their daughter Ethel was born on October 19, 1919. During the Depression, things got so bad in Nebraska that Maury and Marguerite sold almost everything they owned and moved back to Prescott to live with Marguerite’s mother. Marguerite managed to get a position working in Agnes Todd’s ladies’ ready-to-wear shop where she was very popular with the customers.
Marguerite continued to live in her family home long after the death of her mother and husband. On Arbor Day, 1976, she was thrilled to see the old oak tree in front of the house dedicated as Prescott’s bicentennial tree. The following year, she fell and broke her hip, so her daughter, Ethel Tyson, retired after teaching at Prescott High School for 23 years and moved into the family home to look after her mother.
Marguerite died on July 29, 1984, and was buried in the Prescott IOOF cemetery. Ethel died in 2008. The small bungalow home built by John Shull in 1881 had been continually occupied by three generations of the family for more than 125 years.
Marguerite’s mother, Isabelle Shull, is also commemorated in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden.
Donor: Janet Hilton
Photo Located: Bate Studio Photo Collection PC-1, Box 1, F-4, I-1985-146-19
Updated: 5/6/2015, D. Sue Kissel
