The Bungalow and Speedway Homes

The bungalow, first located close to the Marshall home, was later moved to the back of the lot. There were several similar wooden homes in the neighborhood, all painted green.

One bungalow was behind Miss Goodin's home, one behind the Blake home and faced Park Avenue. With the green paint, screen porch and rolled down canvas awnings, they looked like mountain cabins.

"To Mrs. Marshall, I hope you will enjoy this story of the Navajos written in your little house in the lane. Cordially yours, Frances Gillmor" was inscribed in the front of the book Windsinger, by Frances Gillmor published by Minton, Balch and Company, New York, 1930. The "little house" was the bungalow.

In June 1934 Frances wrote a similar inscription in her book Traders to the Navajos, the story of the Wetherills of Kayenta (co-author was Louisa Wade Wetherill). "To Mrs. L. F. Marshall, in whose little house in the lane the thesis from which this book grew, was written. Most Sincerely Yours, Frances Gillmor."

Frances' mother, Faith Gillmor, was listed in the 1919 Desert as a Pi Beta Phi alumnae, and Frances, who was also a member, had lived with her mother in the "little house in the Lane" first in October 15, 1929.

By 1952 Frances was a nationally known folklore specialist at the University. I was one of the hostesses at Mrs. Marshall's ninetieth birthday party. I had made and decorated a birthday cake, cut and helped serve it. I was trying to make pleasant conversation with the guests, all of whom had known me all my life. Several guests were admiring the Valley of Mexico painting. I knew Dr. Gillmor, Professor of Folklore, frequently spent summers at the University of Mexico. Trying to say something pleasant and not look too stupid, I inquired of her, "And what is your next project, Dr. Gillmor?" She said with a definite and factual tone to her voice, "The history of Moctezuma the Fourth."

At that point I did not know whether to say, "Is that the way it's pronounced? I thought it was Montezuma," or to say "I did not know there were four of them." Instead I just said, "Oh."

When Tom Marshall took the above picture he was standing on the land that would become Palm Road. This street was one block long. It will become a pleasant neighborhood built during the late 1920s and demolished in the 1960s because of University expansion. An aerial view of the homes in 1954 is shown in The Palm Road Neighborhood, 1927.

In 1905 Mose Drachman subdivided land east of the Marshall home and named it University Terrace. Mose had a lot of business ventures besides real estate. One was his laundry, as documented in amusing fashion by his daughter Rosemary Drachman Taylor. In 1944, when Rosemary gave Louise a copy of her book Ridin' the Rainbow, Father's Life in Tucson, she wrote "I suppose you know that the title came from your story about father." Louise enjoyed talking with Mose about his dreams and plans. She told him he was "riding the rainbow to find the pot of gold at the end" .

A previous book was Chicken Every Sunday, My Life with Mother's Boarders. In Louise Marshall's copy of the book she inscribed, "For darling Mrs. Marshall, my mother and father's friend and my friend too, Lots of Love, Rosemary." This book was also a successful stage play and a movie. These interesting books give a picture of everyday life in Tucson. Rosemary was a University student in the class 1920 and a charter member of Arizona Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi.

In the 1930s her brother Oliver and cousin Roy Drachman and their families would live in homes on Palm Road.

But now the year is 1911, the house to the far right in the above picture is the G. E. P. Smith home and son George, Jr. is seven years old.

In May, 1990, George, Jr. recalled that as a small boy he would watch from his home to see his father come from the University through the wooden gate on Rincon Road and would run to greet him. The path was among the creosote bushes on the east side of the Marshall home.

One day as he eagerly ran to meet his father he jumped over what he thought might be a brown stick; his father looked very concerned as he lifted his son into his arms. The "stick" was a large rattlesnake that kept going its own way.