Maude Ball (1864-1899) - Teaching Instructor

PCA Archives - AOUW

Maude was born June 21, 1864, in Marshall, Michigan, to Dr. Alexander Rawson Ball and Delilah née Weld.  She was the youngest of their ten children.  Maude’s father was a well-regarded homeopathic physician until his death at the age of 79 in 1902.  Her sister Hannah became a homeopath like her father and sister Fannie trained as a teacher.

By 1880, the Ball family was living in Mason, Shiawassee County, Michigan.  Maude herself graduated with a teaching degree in 1882 and eventually became an educator of teachers at Michigan State Normal School (now Eastern Michigan University) for several years. She then transferred to Whitewater Normal School (now University of Wisconsin--Whitewater) around 1897and served as secretary of the teachers' association.

Maude’s sister Delilah had married George Homer Jones in 1874.  On December 12, 1898, he died suddenly at the home of his mother in Michigan.  By September 1899, Maude was suffering from tubercular laryngitis, so her widowed sister Delilah accompanied her to Phoenix, Arizona Territory.

Like so many others who came to Phoenix during that time, Maude had been hoping that she would recover in the warm Arizona climate.  However, she died on December 26, 1899, at the home of her sister Delilah in Phoenix.

- by Patricia 

 

 

#3 Angeline “Angie” Piper (1876-1899) - Schoolteacher

 

Stock Photo

Angeline Piper was born 1876 in Kansas to Ray Piper and Sarah née Fortney.  Angie’s parents had been married in Bourbon, Kansas, on October 22, 1874.  Angie had a younger brother John, who was born in 1878, but he died in 1881.  Nearly two years later, Angie’s father also died, leaving her mother to raise Angie and her sister Raye, born after Mr. Piper’s death.  Since Angie’s mother did not remarry, perhaps she had sufficient means to raise two children on her own.

In 1887, a rabid dog bit Angie, her mother and sister.  According to one news report, only a “mad stone” (a bezoar stone found in the digestive tract of some animals) would save them from contracting rabies.  One was found in Chetopa, Kansas, and all must have gone well, as they all survived.

 Angie began attending Oswego College for Young Ladies in 1893 and obtained a teaching certificate.  At some point, she joined the Royal Neighbors Society.  The Society, established in 1895, was a progressive women’s fraternal benefit association and an auxiliary to Modern Woodmen of America.  It focused on assisting women and children in need and offering life insurance for women--an option never before available to women.  Today, Royal Neighbor is the largest women-led life insurer in the country.

In April 1898, Angie became quite sick while teaching in Fort Scott, Kansas, and her mother was sent for.  Under her mother’s care, Angie recovered and, in November, her mother left for Arizona to visit relatives.  Angie remained in Fort Scott at the home of an uncle, but later joined her mother in Arizona.

Angie went to Arizona primarily to recuperate.  Unfortunately, she developed typhoid fever and died December 30, 1899.  Although she was initially buried in Rosedale Cemetery, her mother later had her remains moved to the IOOF Cemetery when Angie’s Royal Neighbors Society insurance policy paid out.

by Patricia G.

 

Laura Long Cochran (1871-1899) - Matron at Phoenix Indian School

 

Arizona Memory Project - Main Building Behind School, 1900

Laura Long was born on September 11, 1871, in Kansas.  She was the daughter of Isaac Zane Long, a prominent member of the Wyandotte Nation, and Catherine McConnell.  Her father Isaac is thought to have been a descendant of the famous frontiersman Isaac Zane and his wife of the Wyandotte Nation, Myeerah. Born in Zanesfield, Ohio, Isaac went west when the remnants of the Wyandotte tribe were removed to reservations in Kansas around 1843.

Even though school records list Laura as being only one-sixteenth Wyandotte, she seems to have been regarded as Native American throughout her life.  In 1891, she was working and going to school at the Quapaw-Wyandotte Indian School in Seneca, Kansas.  Thereafter, she attended Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, from which she graduated in 1895.  By 1896, she was employed as a matron at the Phoenix Indian School.

Opened in 1891, the Phoenix Indian School was intended to function as a residential industrial school, training Native American teens and young adults in useful occupations such as carpentry, animal husbandry and the domestic art, such as sewing, cooking, nursing.  In time, its dormitories housed a total of about 700 pupils from 35 different tribes, including advanced students from other Western states.  Like Laura, many of the teachers were themselves Native Americans from tribes elsewhere in the United States, on the theory that they would serve as relatable teachers. 

On February 22, 1897, Laura Long married John Piper Cochran, a blacksmith at the Phoenix Indian School. Laura and John had one son, John D. Cochran, born March 30, 1898, in Phoenix.

Laura died on January 8, 1899, of inflammation of the bowels and peritonitis (possibly a ruptured appendix).  After a Methodist funeral service attended by almost all the Indian School students, she was laid to rest in Rosedale North, Lot 43. 

Weeks later, her husband’s parents, William C. and Mary Cochran, came to Phoenix to take nine-month-old John back to Kansas with them.  Following John P. Cochran’s remarriage in 1901, young John went to live with his father and his new stepmother.

- by Donna Carr

Forgotten Grave of a Little One - The Shadow Archives

Bing AI/Val Wilson Prompt

As I delve into various histories and family stories, I often uncover articles, photographs, and fragments of history that are both unusual and forgotten. During my research on a pioneer in Rosedale Cemetery, I stumbled upon a hidden tale in Porter Cemetery. An old newspaper article revealed the existence of an unknown infant buried there. According to the article, the infant, a child of Mr. and Mrs. White, passed away in January of 1899 from a mysterious illness. Further investigation by Patty revealed that Mr. and Mrs. Fred White were the brother-in-law and sister of James McNeil, a merchant in Tempe. This discovery adds a new layer to the rich tapestry of our history. Welcome to our cemeteries, where the past continuously unveils its secrets.  You can read the article below.  

 Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona, Tue, Jan 31, 1899

Christopher Baine (1832 - 1899) - Carpenter and Firefighter

 

PCA Archives

Christopher Baine was born about 1832 in Dublin, Ireland—possibly to Lawrence and Ellen Bain.  It is not known when he immigrated to the United States but, by 1860, he was living in Sacramento, California, and working as a wheelwright and wagon-maker.  Several newspaper articles attest to the fact that, while living in Sacramento, Baine was a member of the city’s fire department.  He served in Engine Company #2.

 Baine was in Arizona City (now Yuma), Arizona, in 1868, when he married Jesus Dominguez Esquer, born 1844.  At the time of the marriage, Jesus Dominguez already had a little daughter named Maria Cruz by her previous relationship with Donaciano Cruz.  With Baine, she had a daughter Guadalupe, born 1869, a daughter Emilia, born 1871, a son Thomas/Tomás, born 1873, a daughter Sarah, born in 1875, and a daughter Juanita, born in 1879.

 The Baine family’s life in Yuma was thrown into turmoil on July 29, 1879, when Baine shot and killed his brother-in-law, Antonio Ruiz, who was married to Jesus’s sister.  At about 1 AM, Ruiz, drunk, appeared at the Baines’ house, from which he had been ejected a month before.  When told to leave, he did, but returned a few hours later.  Baine, fearing that Ruiz had come back with a gun, again ordered him to leave.  When Ruiz advanced instead, Baine fired four times.  Ruiz died several hours later.

 Baine immediately turned himself in to the sheriff.  The grand jury set his bail at $1000.  It does not appear, however, that Baine was charged with anything beyond defending his home from an intruder. 

There is more to this story!  Baine is buried in City Loosley.  Come find out more about him at the Pioneer and Military Memorial Park!

-By Donna Carr

PCA Archives