By Kristy McCaffrey
Martha Summerhayes |
Martha “Mattie” Summerhayes is best known for her memoir, Vanished Arizona, which recounts her
life as an army wife in the 1870’s. Today, it’s considered a literary
masterpiece and one of the finest accounts of 19th century Arizona.
Born Martha Dunham in 1846 in Nantucket, she was raised by a
prosperous New England family. She lived in Germany for two years as a young
woman, studying the language and living with the family of a high ranking
German officer. She mixed socially with many Prussian officers, gaining a
romantic view of military life. Not long after, she returned to the United
States and fell in love and married John “Jack” Summerhayes, an officer in the
U.S. Army.
In August 1874, Mattie traveled with the 8th Infantry
Regiment to Arizona. Since the railroad hadn’t yet arrived, they journeyed to
San Francisco and boarded a steamship for a 13-day voyage around Baja
California to Port Isabel at the mouth of the Colorado River. They then embarked
on a flat-bottomed paddle-wheeler upriver to Fort Yuma. By the time they
reached the fort, three men had died from the heat. Mattie was five months
pregnant.
Fort Apache, 1877. |
Eighteen days later, they arrived at Fort Mohave, then traveled
north to Fort Whipple, near Prescott. When they finally arrived at their
destination—Fort Apache—Mattie was seven months pregnant. Over time, she
developed a deep respect for the young men in the military. “I was getting to
learn,” she wrote, “about the indomitable pluck of our soldiers. They did not
seem to be afraid of anything. At Camp Apache my opinion of the American
soldier was formed and it has never changed.”
Mattie and Jack spent the next several months living in a
primitive log cabin at Fort Apache. In January, she gave birth to the first
white child born at the fort, a son named Harry. The blue-eyed, blond-haired
baby drew ranchers, settlers, and even friendly Apache to pay their respects.
By April, Jack was assigned to Fort McDowell, in the desert foothills north of
the Salt River Valley (near present-day Phoenix), but at the last minute the
orders were changed to Ehrenberg, an uninspired settlement along the Colorado
River. Mattie wasn’t happy.
She spent one year in Ehrenberg, but returned to New England
with the baby to avoid a second summer in the blistering heat. She returned to
the Arizona Territory in December 1876. Jack was now stationed at Fort
McDowell. She brought many furnishings along to make her life more comfortable,
but unfortunately the steamer caught fire and all her goods were lost. Thanks
to charitable women at Yuma, her wardrobe was stocked with ill-fitting dresses.
Fort McDowell, 1870's. |
Mattie was one of five women at Fort McDowell. She set up
housekeeping in a flat-roofed adobe house on officers’ row. Soldiers built her
a couch and covered it with cotton cloth purchased at the trading post. During
the long summers, everyone slept outdoors. To deter the ants, empty tomato cans
filled with water were placed under the legs of each cot.
After two years at Fort McDowell, Jack’s regiment was transferred
out of Arizona. In 1886, during the last days of the Geronimo campaign, Mattie
returned with Jack to Fort Lowell, near Tucson. This time, just eight years
later, Mattie was able to make the journey via a Pullman since the railroad had
arrived.
Mattie’s ambivalence toward Arizona is apparent in her
writing, and yet, she admired and longed for it years later. She writes, “...I
did not see much to admire in the desolate wastelands through which we were
traveling. I did not dream of the power of the desert, nor that I should ever
long to see it again. But as I write, the longing possesses me, and the
pictures then indelibly printed upon my mind, long forgotten, amidst the scenes
and events of half a lifetime, unfold themselves like a panorama before my
vision and call me to come back, to look upon them once more.”
After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Jack retired and he
and Mattie returned to Nantucket. At the urging of family and friends, Mattie
wrote Vanished Arizona, which was
published in 1908. She wrote it primarily for her children, believing there
would be little public interest. But she was wrong. The book was popular among
women and, most especially, ex-soldiers. The first edition sold out within a
year, so a second was released in 1911.
A few weeks after the release of the second edition, Jack
and Mattie died within two months of each other. Both were buried with full
military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. “I had cast my lot with a
soldier,” she wrote, “and where he was, was home to me.”
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2 comments:
You sure made me want to read her book, Kristy. Great blog. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks, Agnes. :-) It's a great book.
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