A Pima Past by Anna Moore Shaw

Author:Anna Moore Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2015-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Childhood Sweethearts

ALTHOUGH THE GIRLS AND BOYS were strictly separated at the Phoenix Indian School, we could not help but notice each other. This was especially true as we became teenagers and young adults. You see, in those days most of us spent two years in each grade in order to master the difficult English language along with the subject matter. Indian students most often would be from eighteen to twenty-two when they graduated from eighth grade, old enough for marriage.

The first and only romance of my life began in 1912 when I was fourteen years old. I no longer wore my hair in pigtails, and the attentions of a handsome Pima named Ross Shaw were flattering. We wrote notes because the matron was very strict and only let us see each other at social functions. But sometimes Ross would sneak over to the girls’ side of the campus, where we would play croquet until the matron discovered us and shooed Ross back where he belonged. Soon we were going together. We were truly childhood sweethearts.

* * *

Our backgrounds were very similar, but Ross’ family was even more traditional than mine. Born on the Salt River Reservation in 1892, he was named Jujul Tonol (Zigzag Light). When he entered day school, the teacher thought he seemed about eight years old and recorded his age as such. Actually he was ten, but those two years the teacher chopped off his age have appeared on every document concerning Ross ever since.

All spruced up for a date with Ross, I seem pretty proud of my new dress, one of the products of the Indian School sewing class. Our dates were very different from those of modern teenagers, for back then the school was quite strict. We were only allowed to see each other once a week, at chaperoned parties in the girls’ sitting room on Saturday nights. They never even let us hold hands!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.