05/10/2026
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! Here's one mother's story from our book Pioneer Stories Of Arizona's Verde Valley:
Around 1884 my mother, Annie Josephine Allen she was then, left her San Francisco home and came to Arizona to teach. When she reached Ash Fork she was given a room with one of those partitions that do not go clear to the top, and every so often over it came a bag of hard candy and some very flowery compliments thrown by a couple of slightly inebriated, but evidently badly-smitten, gentlemen. It is mother’s statement that she was too frightened to speak until she reached the home of her uncle, Orlando Allen, who was postmaster of Prescott at the time. By stage coach, she came.
In those days she was a tiny girl weighing in the neighborhood of 90 pounds. Age around 18 (she was born in 1866) and she wore a size 1 shoe.
Among her first assignments was the school on the Verde. I don’t know the exact location of that school, but I do know that while she was teaching it she boarded in the home of the Willards in what is now Cottonwood. The old two-story house is still standing. I believe. (We children in later years always had it pointed out to us when we made our many trips down in that section of the country fishing).
Mother’s first Arizona beau was Dolph Willard. It is a treasured memory of mine that he remarked many years later, “Well, I courted the mother twenty years ago; if I were a single man today, I’d surely court the daughter.” Me!
Courting in those days was largely done during “buggy rides,” and one day Dolph took her riding and got so eloquent pleading his case that the lines went unattended and were only stopped on the verge of a precipice by Dolph who was an excellent horseman until something of more importance intervened.
I don’t know if it came from that but ever afterward Mother had a huge distrust of the whole equestrian tribe. Teaching school in the Agua Fria Valley later she fell off the b***o she was endeavoring to ride to school. Mrs. Hall, questioning her daughter Sharlott Hall, asked how the b***o came to “buck” the teacher off. Sharlot said, “Oh, Mama! The b***o didn’t buck. He just shook himself and Miss Allen rolled off.”
It was the delight of our father in after years to relate how Mother cleared the spring wagon seat in one jump and landed on the ground without spilling a drop of milk from the ten-pound lard pail full that she was carrying.
We children looked less ascant at the acrobatic feat than we did at Father’s assertion that what caused the trouble was that one of the horses "coughed slightly." The horses that Father drove didn't usually indulge in coughing slightly. They plunged and reared in the bargain.
Later, after teaching in the Verde Valley, Mother met and married John Sherman Sessions, son of the pioneer settler of Cherry Creek, George W. Sessions. They were married in the Cherry Creek District by Judge George W. Hance, longtime resident of Camp Verde, on October 23, 1888. Their wedding notice in the paper stated: "The bride is the niece of a pioneer Arizonan Orlando Allen, of Prescott. The groom is one of our best citizens."
The parents passed on twenty years ago but all six of the children are still living. Dora, Edith, Ed, the three oldest, and George the youngest, live in Miller Valley, Prescott. Jack and Charley, the other two, live in the state of Washington.
![đź—“ "The Clear Creek Church bell was raised into place on Saturday, May 15 [1982].The bell is the original bell and was us...](https://img5.museums1.com/707/331/122111653497073316.jpg)
