The Mexicanas of the Tempe Normal
School: A Look at the Cultural and
Educational Foundation of Tempe,
1885 to 1936 (Part II)
School: A Look at the Cultural and
Educational Foundation of Tempe,
1885 to 1936 (Part II)
The legacy of the Mexicanas of the Tempe Normal School is linked to the
cultural and educational underpinnings of Tempe.
cultural and educational underpinnings of Tempe.
Tempe, Arizona, June 8, 2009 - The family was quarantined by the
county health department. John died as the result of his illness. The
combination of his illness and the quarantine cut short Marina’s
education. But she returned to the Tempe Normal School the following
year and graduated from TNS in 1906. Her first teaching position was at
Benson, Arizona where she earned $ 75 a month teaching in the room of
a Chinese dining hall, divided by a curtain. While she taught on one side
of the curtain, there were Chinese cooks giving orders on the other side
of the curtain. She remained in Benson a year. Marina acquired her
second teaching position the following year in Clifton, where she met
Jack Wellington, an electrician for the local copper mine, and who lived in
the same boarding house she did. Marina Gonzales priest married Jack
Wellington in 1913 in Clifton, where she continued to teach.
Sophia Sigala Muñoz, born in Tempe in 1906, graduated from the Tempe
Normal school in 1926. She became a home economics teacher for the
United States Department of Agriculture and taught home-making and
sanitation skills to the Mexican families who lived in the migrant camps in
west Phoenix. She played an important role in the establishment of
culinary programs for agricultural workers imported from Mexico to
Arizona during World War II. Sophia Sigala Muñoz died in 1966 at the
age of 61.
Mary Jones Gomez is another example of a woman who maintained her
bicultural diversity and bilingualism. Her grandfather was Walker Wilson
Jones, who studied medicine at the University of Maryland and came
west. He bought land in California and practiced medicine, specializing in
tuberculosis. That specialty brought Doctor Jones to Arizona, where he
was able to aid in the health and care of those in tubercular camps in
and around Phoenix. He met and married Alcaria Montano, and they
made their home in Wickenburg. Their first child was a daughter, Kathryn
Jones. Years later and after the death of Kathryn’s father, her mother,
Alcaria, acquired the management of her husband’s cattle ranch and
hired Jesus E. Gomez to work with other men on her ranch. That same
Tempe property later became the land occupied by the Cook School for
Christian Leadership, now called Cook Native American Ministries,
located near 52nd Street and University Drive in Tempe. Today, that
same property is worth $40 million. The Cook Native American Ministries
sold that land to Mark-Taylor Incorporated, a Phoenix development
company that has carried out several other major residential projects in
Tempe. Mary Jones attended the Tempe Normal School and acquired her
teaching diploma in 1929, as did her sister, Inez Jones, in 1936. Mary
taught Spanish at secondary schools in Scottsdale and Phoenix. She met
her future husband, Jesus Gomez, when he worked for her mother,
Alcaria, on her ranch.
As I was researching the history of Mexicanas at the Tempe Normal
School, I became intrigued by the Tempe story of Tiburcio and Manuela
Sanchez Sotelo, whose daughter, Maria Sotelo, symbolizes the rich,
cultural history and diversity of Tempe and Tempe’s link to the history of
the Tempe Normal School. This is the story:
Maria Sotelo’s grandfather, Ignacio Sotelo, a lieutenant in the Mexican
government, served as the commander of the presidio of San Ignacio de
Tubac from 1813 to 1814. In 1820, the Mexican government assigned
him the responsibility of over-seeing the Tumacacori Mission in southern
Arizona.
Tiburcio Sotelo came to Tempe in 1870 with his sons, Jose and Feliciano
and his brother, Pedro. They helped the Mexican farmers who lived in the
south mountain area along the Salt River beneath the present-day 24th
and 40th streets build the “Mexican ditch” also known as the San
Francisco canal. The Mexican ditch brought life-saving water to their farm
lands. The head of the canal was located near what is now Tempe. And
the channel extended three and one-quarter miles in a southwesterly
direction toward the north foothills of south mountain. The industrious
nature and strong work-ethic of the Sotelo men caught the attention of
Winchester Miller, a Confederate soldier from Ohio who came to Tempe
via California in 1869. Miller was the first zanjero, or water master, for
the Hardy irrigation canal, later called the Tempe Canal Company when it
became part of the Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association canal
network. In 1871, Miller hired Tiburcio, his sons and his brother to work
for him as irrigation workers. Their steady work and pay enabled Tiburcio
to buy and settle on 160 acres of land in Tempe, which was platted in
1890 by Tiburcio’s wife, Manuela, and called the Sotelo Addition. Manuela
and her children forged a living as enterprising farmers within a
wilderness ready for improvement by Mexican families like the Sotelos.
They grew herbs, beans, squash, and corn or sold or traded their crops
with other farmers.
Maria Sotelo, Tiburcio’s daughter, was now a lovely, well-mannered and
intelligent nineteen (19) year-old in 1872, educated in a private school
administered by the Catholic Church in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico.
Winchester Miller, a widower twice Maria’s age and with teen-age
children of his own, became captivated by Maria’s youth and beauty and
after a five-month courtship approved by Maria’s father, Miller made
Maria his bride in Tucson on January 8, 1873. Unfortunately, an ailing
Tiburcio died in Florence some time before the wedding and did not see
his daughter marry Miller.
Miller took young Maria to his sparse home in the settlement of Lehi, the
home provided to him by the Tempe Canal Company when Miller served
as its superintendent. The one-room house, fortified only by a door, bore
no windows; instead, port-holes served as protection against the
Apache and Pima Indians nearby. The Millers soon moved to Tempe,
where their first child, Anna Manuela Sotelo Miller was born in October,
1873. It is believed that Anna is the first Anglo-Mexican child born in
Tempe, a frontier example of the results of a mixed-culture marriage so
characteristic of what brought prosperity and development to Tempe and
what made the community unique in its own heritage of cultural
diversity.
Maria Sotelo Miller raised eleven (11) children. Records show that six (6)
of her children attended the Arizona Terriitorial Normal School in the
period from 1896 to 1906. Her daughters, Anna Manuela Sotelo Miller
and Clara Maria Sotelo Miller graduated from the Arizona Territorial
Normal School, each with two-year teaching diplomas. Anna taught
school in Flagstaff for three years and her sister, Clara, taught in Tempe
and Buckeye. It is important to note that their mother, Maria Sotelo
Miller, regarded education as a civic and parental responsibility. Thus, it
is likely that all of Winchester and Maria Sotelo Miller’s eleven (11)
children, all born in Tempe, attended the Arizona Territorial Normal
School, also known as the Tempe Normal School: and they are:
Anna Manuela Miller, born in 1973
Clara Maria Miller, born in 1874
Albert James Miller, born in 1878
Samuel B. Miller, born in 1880
Andrew J. Miller, born in 1880
Sarah “Sally” Miller, born in 1884
Benjamin Miller, born in 1886
Rosa Miller, born in 1890
Louis Winchester Miller, born in 1891
Lydia L. Miller, born in 1894
Laura Miller, …whose birth date I could not confirm.
The legacy of the Mexicanas of the Tempe Normal School is linked to the
cultural and educational underpinnings of Tempe. It is important to
remember that these women share a rich and proud history with Tempe,
their native home town. (Part I)
__________________________________________________________
Author’s Note: My thanks to Laura K. Muñoz for sharing this information with me.
See her 2006 ASU doctoral dissertation for an in-depth historical analysis on this
topic:
“Desert Dreams: Mexican American Education in Arizona, 1870-1930.” Arizona
State University. 2006, 349 pages.
( Call number: LD 179.15 2006d M866 . Hayden library. Arizona State University.
Tempe
county health department. John died as the result of his illness. The
combination of his illness and the quarantine cut short Marina’s
education. But she returned to the Tempe Normal School the following
year and graduated from TNS in 1906. Her first teaching position was at
Benson, Arizona where she earned $ 75 a month teaching in the room of
a Chinese dining hall, divided by a curtain. While she taught on one side
of the curtain, there were Chinese cooks giving orders on the other side
of the curtain. She remained in Benson a year. Marina acquired her
second teaching position the following year in Clifton, where she met
Jack Wellington, an electrician for the local copper mine, and who lived in
the same boarding house she did. Marina Gonzales priest married Jack
Wellington in 1913 in Clifton, where she continued to teach.
Sophia Sigala Muñoz, born in Tempe in 1906, graduated from the Tempe
Normal school in 1926. She became a home economics teacher for the
United States Department of Agriculture and taught home-making and
sanitation skills to the Mexican families who lived in the migrant camps in
west Phoenix. She played an important role in the establishment of
culinary programs for agricultural workers imported from Mexico to
Arizona during World War II. Sophia Sigala Muñoz died in 1966 at the
age of 61.
Mary Jones Gomez is another example of a woman who maintained her
bicultural diversity and bilingualism. Her grandfather was Walker Wilson
Jones, who studied medicine at the University of Maryland and came
west. He bought land in California and practiced medicine, specializing in
tuberculosis. That specialty brought Doctor Jones to Arizona, where he
was able to aid in the health and care of those in tubercular camps in
and around Phoenix. He met and married Alcaria Montano, and they
made their home in Wickenburg. Their first child was a daughter, Kathryn
Jones. Years later and after the death of Kathryn’s father, her mother,
Alcaria, acquired the management of her husband’s cattle ranch and
hired Jesus E. Gomez to work with other men on her ranch. That same
Tempe property later became the land occupied by the Cook School for
Christian Leadership, now called Cook Native American Ministries,
located near 52nd Street and University Drive in Tempe. Today, that
same property is worth $40 million. The Cook Native American Ministries
sold that land to Mark-Taylor Incorporated, a Phoenix development
company that has carried out several other major residential projects in
Tempe. Mary Jones attended the Tempe Normal School and acquired her
teaching diploma in 1929, as did her sister, Inez Jones, in 1936. Mary
taught Spanish at secondary schools in Scottsdale and Phoenix. She met
her future husband, Jesus Gomez, when he worked for her mother,
Alcaria, on her ranch.
As I was researching the history of Mexicanas at the Tempe Normal
School, I became intrigued by the Tempe story of Tiburcio and Manuela
Sanchez Sotelo, whose daughter, Maria Sotelo, symbolizes the rich,
cultural history and diversity of Tempe and Tempe’s link to the history of
the Tempe Normal School. This is the story:
Maria Sotelo’s grandfather, Ignacio Sotelo, a lieutenant in the Mexican
government, served as the commander of the presidio of San Ignacio de
Tubac from 1813 to 1814. In 1820, the Mexican government assigned
him the responsibility of over-seeing the Tumacacori Mission in southern
Arizona.
Tiburcio Sotelo came to Tempe in 1870 with his sons, Jose and Feliciano
and his brother, Pedro. They helped the Mexican farmers who lived in the
south mountain area along the Salt River beneath the present-day 24th
and 40th streets build the “Mexican ditch” also known as the San
Francisco canal. The Mexican ditch brought life-saving water to their farm
lands. The head of the canal was located near what is now Tempe. And
the channel extended three and one-quarter miles in a southwesterly
direction toward the north foothills of south mountain. The industrious
nature and strong work-ethic of the Sotelo men caught the attention of
Winchester Miller, a Confederate soldier from Ohio who came to Tempe
via California in 1869. Miller was the first zanjero, or water master, for
the Hardy irrigation canal, later called the Tempe Canal Company when it
became part of the Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association canal
network. In 1871, Miller hired Tiburcio, his sons and his brother to work
for him as irrigation workers. Their steady work and pay enabled Tiburcio
to buy and settle on 160 acres of land in Tempe, which was platted in
1890 by Tiburcio’s wife, Manuela, and called the Sotelo Addition. Manuela
and her children forged a living as enterprising farmers within a
wilderness ready for improvement by Mexican families like the Sotelos.
They grew herbs, beans, squash, and corn or sold or traded their crops
with other farmers.
Maria Sotelo, Tiburcio’s daughter, was now a lovely, well-mannered and
intelligent nineteen (19) year-old in 1872, educated in a private school
administered by the Catholic Church in Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico.
Winchester Miller, a widower twice Maria’s age and with teen-age
children of his own, became captivated by Maria’s youth and beauty and
after a five-month courtship approved by Maria’s father, Miller made
Maria his bride in Tucson on January 8, 1873. Unfortunately, an ailing
Tiburcio died in Florence some time before the wedding and did not see
his daughter marry Miller.
Miller took young Maria to his sparse home in the settlement of Lehi, the
home provided to him by the Tempe Canal Company when Miller served
as its superintendent. The one-room house, fortified only by a door, bore
no windows; instead, port-holes served as protection against the
Apache and Pima Indians nearby. The Millers soon moved to Tempe,
where their first child, Anna Manuela Sotelo Miller was born in October,
1873. It is believed that Anna is the first Anglo-Mexican child born in
Tempe, a frontier example of the results of a mixed-culture marriage so
characteristic of what brought prosperity and development to Tempe and
what made the community unique in its own heritage of cultural
diversity.
Maria Sotelo Miller raised eleven (11) children. Records show that six (6)
of her children attended the Arizona Terriitorial Normal School in the
period from 1896 to 1906. Her daughters, Anna Manuela Sotelo Miller
and Clara Maria Sotelo Miller graduated from the Arizona Territorial
Normal School, each with two-year teaching diplomas. Anna taught
school in Flagstaff for three years and her sister, Clara, taught in Tempe
and Buckeye. It is important to note that their mother, Maria Sotelo
Miller, regarded education as a civic and parental responsibility. Thus, it
is likely that all of Winchester and Maria Sotelo Miller’s eleven (11)
children, all born in Tempe, attended the Arizona Territorial Normal
School, also known as the Tempe Normal School: and they are:
Anna Manuela Miller, born in 1973
Clara Maria Miller, born in 1874
Albert James Miller, born in 1878
Samuel B. Miller, born in 1880
Andrew J. Miller, born in 1880
Sarah “Sally” Miller, born in 1884
Benjamin Miller, born in 1886
Rosa Miller, born in 1890
Louis Winchester Miller, born in 1891
Lydia L. Miller, born in 1894
Laura Miller, …whose birth date I could not confirm.
The legacy of the Mexicanas of the Tempe Normal School is linked to the
cultural and educational underpinnings of Tempe. It is important to
remember that these women share a rich and proud history with Tempe,
their native home town. (Part I)
__________________________________________________________
Author’s Note: My thanks to Laura K. Muñoz for sharing this information with me.
See her 2006 ASU doctoral dissertation for an in-depth historical analysis on this
topic:
“Desert Dreams: Mexican American Education in Arizona, 1870-1930.” Arizona
State University. 2006, 349 pages.
( Call number: LD 179.15 2006d M866 . Hayden library. Arizona State University.
Tempe
| Part II Part I |
Dr. Christine Marin Curator/Archivist and Historian of the
Chicano Research Collection, Department of Archives andd
Special Collections, Hayden Library, Arizona State University
E-mail: Christine.Marin@asu.edu
Chicano Research Collection, Department of Archives andd
Special Collections, Hayden Library, Arizona State University
E-mail: Christine.Marin@asu.edu
| Copyright © 2009 by Christine Marin |
| Photographs courtesy of University Archives Collection. Department of Archives and Special Collections. Hayden Library. ASU Tempe. |
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