Josephine “Josie” Catarina (Hegglin) Surrett was born on March 18, 1891, in Menzingen, Canton Zug, Switzerland, the daughter of Josef and Josefa Roth Hegglin. Her family was prominent in the Swiss Canton Zug, but Josie, lured by tales of the American West that were widely read in Europe, longed for adventure away from the staid traditions of her Swiss homeland. She received a letter from a friend, Paula Schrade, who, with her German husband Louis, had just purchased the White House Hotel in Mayer, Arizona Territory. Paula offered Josie a job at the hotel.

Winifred “Winnie” Lucille (Mayer) Thorpe was born December 12, 1892, the youngest daughter of Sarah “Sadie” Belle (Wilbur) and Joseph Mayer in Mayer, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory.  Joe Mayer was born Joseph Hoffmire in 1846 in Olean, New York. At age 14, he left home as a result of a troubled life. He changed his name from Hoffmire to Mayer to avoid being found by his ill-tempered father.

Mary Ruth (Payne) Todd was born on March 23, 1899, in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, the only daughter of Edwin Clement and Maris Anna (Wing) Payne. Her grandfather, Thomas Wing, who moved to Prescott in 1882, coined the name “Granite Dells,” which has become a popular colloquialism for the entire area that was once called, "The Point of the Rocks.”

Pauline Gerhardt “Fritzie” or “Polly” (Rosenblatt) Tovrea, the first of the six children of Paul “Pete” Gerhardt and Dora Cordelia (Leach) Rosenblatt, was born to her pioneer family on April 1, 1905, in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory.  Her maternal grandmother had walked behind covered wagons west to Colorado in the 1860s and then later to Arizona Territory. Her father came to Prescott in 1892.

Aileen Agnes (Powers) Tracy, daughter of Benjamin and Jessie Grace (Durbin) Powers, was born on May 22, 1905, in Prescott, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, in a home shared by her parents and grandparents. Her grandmother became the caretaker of Murphy’s Park in 1909 after Frank Murphy, a local businessman and philanthropist, donated land in west Prescott for a zoo.  As Aileen grew older, her friends liked to visit her home so that they could see all the animals kept in cages and wandering the grounds.

Hester Elvira (Shook) Travis was born on April 24, 1857, near Cedar Bluff, Alabama, daughter of William Taylor and Amanda Lavina Golightly Shook. On November 23, 1882, she married Charles Travis, a carpenter, in Gadsden, Alabama. Hester and Charles had one son, William Bliss Travis, born February 29, 1888, in Graysville, Tennessee.

Edith Almeta (Johns) Trengove was born July 1, 1872, in Lake Linden, Houghton County, Michigan. She was the youngest of five children.  She was the daughter of Maria (Rogers) and Alfred Raymond Johns.  When she registered to vote in Yavapai County in 1924, she was five feet four inches and weighed 150 pounds.

Jane Catherine “Jennie” (Hereford) Tritle was born in Independence, Missouri, on May 30, 1840, the daughter of Sarah C. S. Foote and Francis Harrison Hereford. Jennie was the granddaughter of Governor Henry S. Foote of Mississippi.  On October 16, 1862, she married Frederick Augustus Tritle in Sacramento, California. They came to the Arizona Territory a year-and-a-half before her husband was appointed Governor of Arizona Territory in 1882. He served until 1885.

Helen Beatrice (Shupp) Voller was a member of two of Yavapai County’s “first families,” the Shupps and the Gibsons.  She was born on September 13, 1902, in Skull Valley to Dora “Nellie” (Gibson) and Chester Alvin Shupp, who were both natives of Skull Valley. Her father operated the Shupp Ranch, the eleventh homestead officially issued by the Territory of Arizona. Nellie was the daughter of pioneers, Sarah Ann (Hayes) and William Washington Gibson, who came to Arizona from Texas around 1880. 

Louise C. (Genung) Earle Walcott was born November 28, 1873, in Peeples Valley, Arizona Territory, to Charles Baldwin and Ida (Smith) Genung.  Her father, Charles Genung, came to Arizona Territory in 1863 and worked as a miner, administrator of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, Peeples Valley postmaster, and rancher.  Her mother was born in Iowa and traveled with her family by covered wagon to California as a child.  She met Charles in California, and they married in 1869.