Book Review: Your Friend and Mine, Andy Devine

 Your Friend and Mine, Andy Devine: A Memoir of a Father and His Son, by Dennis Devine, BearManor Media, Albany, Georgia, 2012.

This book gives plenty of inside information on the life of Andy Devine.  It is written by his son.  Devine grew up in Kingman.  His father was working for the railroad, but had an accident.  The cash payout after the accident allowed him to purchase the Beale Hotel in Kingman and this is where Andy Devine grew up.   Andy injured the roof of his mouth running with a curtain rod in his mouth.  It healed but left Devine with a distinctive raspy voice.  

Devine is most known for his Hollywood adventures.  The book includes a very good list of all the projects in which Devine acted.  This included roles with John Wayne and Roy Rogers, usually as a side kick.,  He hosted "Andy's Gang," a children's program.  He was in "Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok," a television series.

Andy's signature was his voice.  It was felt that his voice would limit him, especially as he graduated from silent movies to talkies.  But in truth it made him as people remembered his voice.  This is very distinctive in his voice role as Friar Tuck in the Disney "Robin Hood." 

The information in this is very good, but it does get lost trying to tell two stories at the same time.  It is also Dennis Devine memoir book.  It goes back and forth between the son telling his own history while also telling his father's history.  This frustrated me, as I was more interested int he Andy Devine story.

Book Review: Images of America: Kingman

 Images of America: Kingman, by Dan W. Messersmith, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 2010.

This is a very good pictorial history of Kingman.  It begins with a picture of Henry Kingman, who surveyed the railroad.  Early history of Kingman centered around the railway.  The depot was finished in 1893 at its current location.  From there, Kingman began to expand around fourth and Front Street (Andy Devine).  

In addition to the old commercial and residences, I learned that the original airport in Kingman was where the fairgrounds is now located, but extending on both sides of the freeway which wasn't there.  However with WWII the airport moved to its current location, which was originally a machine gun Army Air training base, Kingman Army Air Field, KAAF.  It eventually became a major location for gunnery training for the B-17.  After the war it became a location for storing and then dismantling airplanes, especially the B-17.  

Book Review: Weird Arizona

 Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona's Local Legends, and Best Ket Secrets by Wesley Treat, Mark Sceurman, and Mark Moran executive editors, Sterling, New York, 2007.

After reading this book which I found at the library, I am convinced I am in need of a copy.  It has turned me onto many local stories, and Arizona stories.  In this book I learned of Slaughter House Canyon in Kingman, a place by Grand Canyon with Flintstone memorabilia.  Along Highway 40 there is a stretch of several different dinosaur displays, and in Quartzite there is a yacht club.  There is a significant history of murders in Arizona, with the Wild West theme.  This includes Tombstone.  As a result there are many ghosts.  Arizona also has significant extraterrestrial history, including the Phoenix lights.  I was disappointed there was nothing about the ET crash close to Kingman; but a different crash farther south.  

Another ghost story is that of the ghost bus of Highway 93.  This is based on a more recent story of a bus traveling from Phoenix to the gambling halls in Laughlin Nevada.  First the heater on the bus broke, and it was a warm July day.  The driver suggested turning around, but the gamblers were anxious to continue on.  Later the truck began to lose power and the driver finally said he could go no further.  The passengers then put the driver off the bus, pushed it to the top of Union pass, and then decided to coast down the other side.  It was last seen going behind a hill, and then disappearing.  No one ever found an accident or the remains of the bus, but three years later, people started to see a ghost bus on Highway 93 between Phoenix and Laughlin.  

There are many more stories, strange buildings, castles, domes etc.  The book includes a section on Route 66; a section on strange animals, which includes the chupacabras, skinwalkers and Oatman burros.  

Book Review: Phillip Johnston and the Navajo Code Talkers

 Phillip Johnston and the Navajo Code Talkers, Indian Culture Series, Montana Indian Publication Plan.

This is a short book which explains the relationship between Phillip Johnston and the Navajo Code Talkers.  Phillip Johnston grew up among the Navajo, and consequently learned Navajo as a child, a very difficult language.  When WWII started Phillip Johnston was too old to serve as a soldier.  He was aware of issues with secret codes, and the Japanese ease with breaking the codes.  Codes were changed almost daily as a result.  He knew Navajo was a difficult language and came up with the idea of using Navajo speakers, and code to keep messages secret.  It took some time to convince the military he was onto something.  At his own expense he took four Navajo to the Marine Base by San Diego to demonstrate and convince the Marines to use his idea.  The Navajo also had the ability to become code experts.

Johnston was brought back to the Marines to train the Navajo.  The program was highly successful as they were able to communicate.   The survivors of the program received medallions in 1969 at a special meeting.  

Book Review: The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America

The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America by George R. Milner, Thames and Hudson, London, 2004.

I have always had an interest the the moundbuilders, and hope to travel east to visit some of the mound sites.  It is truly amazing the work that was done by ancient inhabitants of North America, and even more impressive when you consider that we only have less than ten percent of the original sites remaining as many have been covered by farms or urban growth.  

This book presents the story of the moundbuiders in a chronological order, dividing the chapters into mobile hunter groups, sedentary hunter groups, builders of burial mounds Woodland period, the chief period, villagers and lastly the Trail of Tears.

The book reports on many different sites including: Cahokia from the chief period, Hopewell sites in Ohio, including the Serpent Mound, Moundville.  There are mound ruins throughout the east extending from Florida through Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky and on to Illinois and Ohio.  The book has many pictures of artwork and pottery.  There are also sites where many arrow heads were gathered.  

The book does a very good job of describing many of the mounds as burial sites.  However, as those things on top of the mounds are now gone, it may fall fault in describing other purposes of the mounds.  There are mounds that had wood walls as evidenced by post holes.

I enjoyed this archeological study of Eastern North America.

Book Review: The Ordeal of Olive Oatman

 The Ordeal of Olive Oatman: A True Story of the American West by Margaret Rau, Morgan Reynolds Incorporated, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1997.

The story of Olive Oatman is fantastic.  I had not heard of this story until moving to Arizona and learned than the town of Oatman was named after her.  Olive Oatman, with her family was emigrating from Independence Missouri to southern California in 1851-52..  They were an offshoot Mormon family, Brewsterites, which traveled with a group who felt that Salt Lake was not the correct destination.  They traveled the Santa Fe Trail.  Even they had disagreements and the group separated.  The Oatman family, with the smaller group, made it to Tucson, where the group was further reduced as some decided to stay.  Only three families continued on.  They finally made it to Pimole amongst the Pima people.  They were invited to stay, and only the Oatmans continued on, hoping to reach the Colorado River and Fort Yuma, 150 miles to the west.  The crossed the Gila River, and finally made it to the plateau on the other side.  It was on that plateau where they were met by a group of Native Americans, thought to be Apache but later determined to be Yavapai.  After asking for tobacco and food, they finally manifested their true intentions, using clubs to bludgeon the pioneers.  They killed the parents, mother who was eight months pregnant, and six siblings of Olive.  She and her sister Mary Ann were taken captive.  Her older brother Lorenzo was clubbed, but survived.  Al the other family members were killed.  

In captivity Olive and Mary Ann were made to to slave labor, providing food for the men but also being subject to ridicule.  Mary Ann was often sick, but they were both always hungry.  A trading party from the Mohave visited the camp, and the daughter of the chief insisted they trade for the slaves.  They were eventually sold for two horses.  The Mohave lived close to the Colorado River near present day Needles.  They now received better treatment, but it was always feared they would run away.  Consequently Olive was tattooed showing marks of being a slave so she would be returned if she attempted escape.  Mary Ann became sick and died of starvation during a period where the Mohave were short of food.  Olive considered escape, but withdrew this when another slave form a different Indian Tribe escaped and was captured and tortured to death.  

However after five years in captivity, word of her existence reach fort Yuma.  There people took interest and arranged to purchase her from the Mohave.  After several failed attempts, they were finally successful.  Olive was released to Fort Yuma, but the fort had to provide a fine horse.  After being released she learned of her brother, Lorenzo still being alive.  Olive's story was published widely in the newspaper.  Lorenzo joined her in Yuma, and eventually a cousin who invited them to Oregon.  The story of Lorenzo and Olive was published in a book.  This lead to their being invited to tour the East telling their story.  During this visit Olive met a man, John Fairchild, and they married and settled in Texas.  They were childless but did adopt a child.

From this book, I learned that Olive Oatman had to part in the founding of Oatman which bears her name.  It was named in her honor.  Olive always insisted the Native Americans never violated her chastity.  After her death, in 1903 however a man claimed to be her son by the son of the chief.  He called himself John Oatman.  

Launa's or Luana's Canyon or Slaughterhouse Canyon, Kingman

 I was reading a book "Weird Arizona" by Wesley Treat and came upon the story of "La Llorona" the weeping lady.  There are several versions of the story, of a lady who murders her children, in one case to gain a lover who then leaves her because of what she has done.   In the Kingman story, the mother has two children but is jealous of them because of her husband's attention to the children (the children are his as well).  She throws the children off a cliff.  Her husband he knows of her jealousy does not accept that it is an accident and leaves her.  She then follows her children hurling herself off the cliff.  She is said to roam the canyon, moaning, between midnight and 3 a.m.  People claim to have seen her, a woman with no face, or a woman with the head of a horse.  She is also said to be looking for bones as she was denied entrance by Saint Peter until she brings the bones of her children.  

The more common story is that a miner family lived in the canyon.  They were poor and food was hard to come by, and prospecting was not working.  The lived in a wooden shack in the heart of the canyon.  The husband would leave hoping to find food, or success prospecting and to come back with supplies.  He would be gone for weeks at a time.  However eventually he left and never returned.  The family slowly started to starve.  The children would cry for food, and their cries would echo across the canyon.  Eventually the mother could not take it any more and killed the children then hacked them up, and threw their remains in a river (wash more likely).  She became more distressed herself and stayed on the bank crying until she died of starvation.  Talk of a river makes you think that the murder happened in monsoon season, or August. 

Slaughterhouse Canyon Hike