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for Letter from Dr. Fenn J Hart from his home in Phoenix, AZ to his grandsons Earl and Fenn John Wilson in Berkeley, CA
Letter from Dr. Fenn J Hart from his home in Phoenix, AZ to his grandsons Earl and Fenn John Wilson in Berkeley, CA
Date1933
MediumPaper
Dimensions9 × 7 in. (22.9 × 17.8 cm)
ClassificationsDocumentary Artifact
Catalog number2023.3.81
DescriptionLetter postmarked May 11, 1933 from Dr. Fenn J Hart, Tempe's first mayor, from his home in Phoenix, AZ to his grandsons Earl and Fenn John Wilson at 600 Vincente Ave, Berkeley, CA (sons of Dr. Hart's daughter Mildred Hart Wilson). He appears to be answering questions about his time as a physician and school director to the Akimel and Tohono O'odham (formerly known as Papago and Pima) tribes at San Xavier Mission near Tucson, AZ from 1884 - 1887. Dr. Hart describes living in a two-room adobe house with a flat roof made of arrowroot and dirt, and furnishings consisting of one table and one chair, a bed cot and a small fireplace in a corner. He states that it wasn't until 1886 that he was able to obtain a larger two-room adobe home on a ridge west of the San Xavier Mission church. Dr. Hart desribes the home as having proper furnishings, dishes and linens, where he used one room as a school for the O'odham children, and the other room for his office living quarters, he also mentions an indigenous woman that prepared meals for him who was viewed by his white friends with suspicion for her clean and proper appearance. Dr. Hart repeatedly mentions his friend Frederick Remington whom he apparently spent much of this time with while at the San Xavier Mission, he describes Remington as always having his camera and always sketching Dr. Hart, the landscape and the indigenous people. Dr. Hart describes the indigenous people as mostly Catholics that were given Mexican names when they were baptised, and goes on to list the names of several of those individuals.Status
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