This Land is Our Land: Early Women on the Arizona Frontier – Sun Lakes

This PowerPoint program touches on the lives of 5 Arizona women who experienced arduous ordeals & hardships during the territory’s early days. Apache warrior Lozen fought desperately to hold onto land once freely roamed by her people. Larcena Pennington was forced to crawl down a mountain to escape certain death. Mary Aguirre often journeyed with her husband along the Santa Fe Trail delivering supplies to army posts. Ada Bass endured crude living conditions at the rim of the Grand Canyon, becoming an integral part of one of the first tourist businesses at the Canyon. Mormon Emma Lee survived untold hardships struggling to survive at the site.

Award-winning author and lecturer Jan Cleere writes & speaks extensively about the people who first settled in the desert southwest. She has written five books including the just-released biography of rodeo photographer Louise L. Serpa, Never Don’t Pay Attention. Other books include Levi’s & Lace: Arizona Women Who Made History, Amazing Girls of Arizona: True Stories of Young Pioneers, Outlaw Tales of Arizona, & Nevada Women: Remarkable Women Who Shaped History. Her work has been recognized by the AZ Newspapers Assn., AZ Books Publishers Assn., Natl. Federation of Press Women, & the NV Women’s History Project. She is an American Studies magna cum laude graduate of ASU West.