Mary Adeline Perry was born December 21, 1878, in Badger
Springs, Arizona to William Henry Perry and Mary Agnes Clark. William Perry was a rancher whose land later
became part of Perry Mesa within the Agua Fria National Monument. Mary was one of nine children, according to
a homestead claim her father filed in 1889.
She and her sisters--Grace, Maud, Agnes and Charlotte
“Lottie”—eventually attended Tempe Normal School (now Arizona State
University). Education for women was
obviously valued in the Perry household.
Mary graduated in 1899 and became a schoolteacher. One of her first teaching posts was in
Arizola, Arizona.
Mary often visited friends in the Arizola area. There was known to be a mountain lion in the
area which had been taking livestock for some time. One day, Mary was alone and on foot near
the Bellamy ranch when the lion appeared
in her path. Mary was certain that she
was going to be attacked until she suddenly remembered reading about “the power
of the human eyes on savage beasts.”
Mary looked the lion right in the eye and it turned and fled. The lion, when later shot by a hunting party,
was found to measure eight feet from nose to tail.
While teaching in Cordes, Arizona, Mary met Joseph Reuben
Bassett, a cowboy who was working cattle on a nearby ranch. They were married in Phoenix on April 17,
1902.
The young couple was living in Safford, Arizona, when on
January 24, 1903, they welcomed a son, Walter into their household. Unfortunately, Mary never recovered from the
birth. She died on February 4, 1903 in
Safford, with childbirth listed as the cause.
She was buried in Masons Cemetery in Phoenix.
Although Joseph R. Bassett remarried a few years later,
apparently little Walter was raised by his sister and her husband. Joseph died at the Pioneers’ Home in
Prescott, Arizona, in 1957.
Mary’s father, William Henry Perry outlived her by many
years. When he died in 1929, his ashes
were scattered over Perry Mesa.
- by Patricia
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