Anna Jenks Eason Rodgers
in Tucson at her daughter's home
b. March 19, 1861 Pennsylvania
d. March 27, 1956 Tucson, Arizona
Anna was the was seventh child of sixteen born to David Eason and his wife
Matilda Steck. She married Robert Andrew Rodgers in Pennsylvania in 1884. He was the third son and eighth child of eleven. In February 1903 she,
Robert and their two teenage daughters, Pauline and Helen, arrived on the
train in Tucson and soon bought a squatters right in what became the Huachuca Forest Reserve. They constructed a temporary home from the packing boxes used to ship their belongings from Pennsylvania. Among these were an upright piano, and an 1885 illustrated edition of Tennyson's works, which had been a present to them from Anna's brother Fred at Christmas in 1887. Within a year Robert applied to establish a new post office at Canille (as he called and spelled it in his application) and he became the first postmaster and Anna followed as the second postmaster from 1906-1910.
In 1910, they homesteaded 135 acres there, began construction on a
a substantial ranch house, and started farming corn and other crops and
eventually adding cattle to the ranch, calling it Hacienda Huachuca. Their two daughters and husbands also built homes on the land:
Helen and Stanley Young divorced within a few years and moved away; Pauline
and Arthur Young raised their children, Virginia and Sig, on the ranch for 10 years.
Hacienda Huachuca, winter 1912
Robert was also an early Forest Ranger in southeastern Arizona, in charge of a large area both east and west of the Santa Rita Mountains, and Anna on
occasion heard of threats on his life from cattlemen and miners who didn't
appreciate the control he sought to bring to their operations.
Two of Anna's brothers, Mal, and H. Ward, moved to the Canelo area a few
years after Robert and Anna had settled their family there. Each of them established their own ranches. Mal stayed in the area until his death; H. Ward moved to Bisbee and lived there the rest of his life. Both of them and many of their descendants are buried at Black Oak.
In her later years, she sometimes occupied herself by crocheting pot holders and a number of them are still in use after more than 70 years...
She was always known as "Mammaw" to her family.

50th wedding anniversary 1934

Virginia, Pauline, Anna 1953
(Anna and Robert share a headstone; her inscription says her name was "Anne" but her signature in her daughter Pauline's wedding booklet is written "Anna"; the stone says that she died in 1955, but her death certificate indicates the year of her death as 1956. Robert's birth is inscribed as in 1861, but his death certificate indicates it was 1860.)
written by her great-grandson Sig Corbin Smith
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