Martha Summerhayes

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Summerhayes

Martha Summerhayes (* 1844 as Martha Dunham ; † May 11, 1926 ) was an American author. She became known for her memories published in 1908 under the title Vanished Arizona , in which she describes her experiences in America's " Wild West " in the 1870s.

Life

Summerhayes was born in 1844. In 1871 she traveled to Germany for two years and lived in Hanover in the household of a former city commandant, Lieutenant General Weste. After returning to the United States, she married in March 1874 the officer John W. Summerhayes (1835-1911), who had already fought in the American Civil War. A month later, she and her husband went to his regiment at Fort Russell near Cheyenne in Wyoming . Summerhayes, who was used to the civilized life of the North American east coast, entered the "Wild West" for the first time. In June of the same year, the regiment set out for Arizona , a desert region that was hardly explored at the time. Summerhayes spent the following years at her husband's side mainly in Arizona and later California , New Mexico and Texas . Finally, in 1892, her husband was ordered back to New York , where he was deployed in supplies when the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 . Two years later he retired with the rank of major .

In 1908 she published her memoirs under the title Vanished Arizona ("Disappeared Arizona"), which became a bestseller. Summerhayes died in 1926, her grave and that of her husband are in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC

An anecdote in Summerhaye's report is interesting from a tennis history perspective, according to which an officer's wife, Ella Wilkins Bailey , was playing tennis at Camp Apache near present-day Tucson in Arizona in October 1874 . This is considered to be one of the earliest mentions of a modern day tennis game on American soil. The sets required for this, consisting of bats, balls and a net, were only sold in England from February 1874.

literature

  • Martha Summerhayes: Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life of a New England Woman. 2nd Edition. Salem Press, Salem (Massachusetts) 1911. ( online )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Website of Arlington Cemetery, "ANC Explorer" ( online )
  2. ^ Collins, B .: History of Tennis. 2nd Edition. New Chapter Press, New York 2010. ISBN 978-0-942257-70-0 . P. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Summerhayes, Martha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author
DATE OF BIRTH 1844
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1926