The most accurate description of the pioneer women of Arizona is best discovered somewhere between the historical records and the “embroidered” passed-down family stories. Without a doubt the women of the 1860s and ’70s who arrived in the Territory were fearless, dedicated individuals who brought with them the traditions and culture of their faith and homeland.
One such woman’s story begins in Baltimore in 1868. Rosa Katzenstein was raised in the comfort of middle class society. As with most Jewish marriages of the day, the bride and groom’s families were related by blood or marriage, and Rosa’s marriage to Tucson businessman Phillip Drachman on April 12, 1868, was arranged through family ties. How much Rosa knew about her future life with Phillip in Tucson is uncertain. It is believed that Rosa knew Phillip was a man of means and well-respected in her extended family circle, but like most eastern brides, she knew little about the hardships of the western frontier.
Shortly after their New York wedding, the couple boarded the steam- ship Arizona for the trip to Panama, and then boarded a wagon for the dangerous trip across the bug-infest- ed isthmus and finally another ship to San Francisco. From there they traveled to Los Angeles and then by stagecoach to San Bernardino, CA, where they visited with Phillip’s sister and waited for cooler weather before setting off for Tucson. Rosa likely did not know she was destined to become one of the first Eastern European and the first Jewish female resident in the Arizona Territory. Her reminiscence explains why no one had preceded her and why, for the next dozen years, only the most dutiful, love-struck or des- perate Jewish women heeded the call of the Arizona wilds. Rosa recorded her journey in her diary:
“We started for Tucson on October 21, 1868. We traveled in a four horse ambulance which was a relic; of the Civil War. We had provisions and camped out. “Our bedding was spread on the ground, and that is the way we slept. “We traveled at the rate of 25 miles per day and camped near stage coach stations where I saw the roughest and worst class of men. “As we traveled we passed many graves of poor people who had been murdered by the Indians or the desperate characters. We were detained en route by many mishaps to our team. Our friend, L.M. Jacobs who was traveling with us, got disgusted and got a buckboard and continued on to Tucson ahead of us.
“After we left Yuma, we had to cross a mountain and upon arrival on the other side we saw eight graves. This place was called Oatman Flat. The story was that a family had met the Apaches and was kind to them, gave them provisions and tobacco. The Indians assisted them down the mountain and then murdered them all with the exception of one girl, whom they made a captive. “When Mr. Jacobs arrived in Tucson he told my brother-in-law, Sam Drachman, of our mishaps and when we arrived at a station called Blue Water, we found a team with ten armed men to escort us to Tucson. Sam had sent the team and also a mattress.
“After another long and tedious journey across the desert, where there was nothing but cactus, sand and brush and occa- sionally an immense freight team which they called ‘Arizona Schooners’ and mighty glad to see them, we arrived in Tucson on November 15th, twenty four days after leaving San Bernardino.” Phillip arranged for a home for the couple to live in shortly after their arrival, a home of adobe walls, a mud-packed saguaro cactus rib roof and shutters to cover the windows. There was no stove to cook on and refrigeration was a hole dug in the mud floor. Phillip eventually added wood to cover the traditional packed mud floor, a floor that is believed to have been one of the first residential wood floors in Tucson.
Life settled into a pioneer pace and, although difficult, Rosa’s home included the traditions of her Jewish upbringing. In 1869 Rosa and Phillip became the parents of the first Anglo child born in the Arizona Territory. Harry A. (possibly Aaron) Drachman was born in the early morning hours in the family’s home on Alameda Street in Tucson. The closest mohel was an eight-day stagecoach ride to the Jewish community in San Bernardino.
According to the family stories, Rosa, the newborn and a wet nurse boarded the “Butterfield” stagecoach at noon the same day that the baby was born for the eight-day journey to San Bernardino. Night and day the stage rolled on at a pace from 5 to 12 miles an hour across scorching deserts, jagged mountain passes and rivers cursed with quicksand. The coach stopped only to change horses or let passengers slug down a cup of coffee with their provisions. The stage arrived eight days later and baby boy Drachman was circumcised at sundown on the eighth day in San Bernadino. The new mother and child remained in California for a few months and then returned to Tucson, where over the subsequent years Rosa would give birth to nine more children.
Phillip Drachman died in 1889 when their youngest child, Phyllis, was 1 year old. Rosa raised the 10 children without ben- efit of indoor plumbing, running water, electric lights, gas stoves or air-conditioning.
Harry A. Drachman grew up to be a proud Tucson businessman, and in adult life he legally changed his name to Harry Arizona Drachman. Rosa Katzenstein Drachman died in California in July 1918. Her body was brought back to Tucson, the town she loved, for burial. One of the local newspapers wrote: “Mrs. Drachman was beloved by all who knew her. She raised a large family of children and they are among the most progressive and respected of our citizens. There never was a better woman than mother Drachman.” Rosa’s life, embroidered with family lore, is the very essence of those pioneer women who risked it all to help build a new life and raise a family in the Old West. Today we honor them as the women who brought culture, grace and the faith and traditions of Judaism to our state and the next generation.
Eileen r. Warshaw, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Jewish History Museum in Tucson.
