Memories of the Adair Home

by

Marceline Sidna Mae Russell Adair

The next time I was at the house was the summer of 1932. We had moved to San Diego and came to Pinetop to spend the summer. We rented the house where Ina Clair was born. Mildred and Snooks were expecting Delbert. My sister Mary Ellen and I became acquainted with Genevieve (Sis) and we spent time in the Adair's house.

A covered porch was in front. It was a nice place to sit and visit. There were a lot of impromptu concerts held there as everyone was musically inclined. The house had a living room with a fireplace (later replaced by a wood-burning stove). There was a bedroom used by Grandma and Grandpa Adair. Grandma Adair had a cedar chest in the bedroom. Every time somebody gave her a gift- a tablecloth, embroidered pillow cases, etc.- it would go in the chest, and she never used them. Their burial clothes were in there too. Hers were used, of course, but not John's- the chest went in the fire.

The next room was a dining room with a huge table. A dish cupboard was in one corner. One outstanding feature sitting on the cupboard was an antique wash basin with a water pitcher that was lost in the fire too. On the wall was a large framed picture of William Penn Adair Rogers (Will Rogers). On one wall was a covered wooden container where flour was kept, usually 100 lb. bags. Also, in the fall a truck would go through town with 100 lb. bags of pinto beans and one of them would be stored in the box. There was another bedroom off the dining room and a narrow stairway to the second floor. They also had a pump organ.

The kitchen had another good sized table, a dish cupboard and a huge wood-burning range. The washstand with water buckets was in a corner. There was a small window in one wall and the room was unusually dark. There wasn't electricity or running water (never any plumbing) until the house was wired probably 1940. There was another bedroom off the kitchen and a small covered porch where laundry could be done, except in winter it was done in the kitchen. The woodpile was in the backyard and a large iron tub sat on three rocks and washing water could be heated.

I have to mention the apple orchard. It was gorgeous in the spring.

I moved in with Linda and Raymond in 1947. We fixed up the middle bedroom and that's where we lived. Lloyd and Dell were the only sons at home. I had the janitor's job at the schoolhouse down the road for which I was paid $16 a month. Janice was born in Snowflake that same year. Shortly after we came home, I came down with yellow jaundice and was completely wiped out for three or four months. The next summer we started work on our log house.

When fall came our logs weren't chinked and it got to cold so I moved back to the big house. This was the time when Grandma Adair was suffering from cancer so I found plenty to do and didn't feel so much a fifth wheel.

Raymond, Janice and I slept upstairs. There were cracks in the wall where the boards had dried and shrunk. Snow would drift in, so every night when we went up there I would have to shake the top cover and get the snow off. It was kind of cozy- in bed with two kids and covering our heads to keep off the snow. I would get up early and go down to the living room, start a fire and put the coffee pot on. John loved it- getting up to a warm room and hot coffee.

This was about the time I sent Raymond (Linda was already there) to his dad, and Janice and I went to Phoenix where I got a housekeeping job. I was back in Phoenix when the house burned so I missed that, but I can imagine those dried out old boards went fast.

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Memories of Cynthia and John Adair: Written by Bobbie Stephens Hunt

Grandpa John Adair sat on his front porch in Pinetop, talking to me when I was but a girl of 12 or 13, some 52 years ago. "I rode into this Pinetop valley horseback. I had decided I would spend the night and ride out and I've been here 35 years," Grandpa drawled in his slow and quiet voice, smiling, as he told me this bit of information. I can still remember the old house; the big fireplace in the living room and the long front porch we had sat on. I wish, now that I am older and wiser, that I had spent more time talking to him. Grandpa was not my biological Grandfather. He was just everyone's Grandpa who grew up in Pinetop. My Grandpa and Grandma was George and Harriet Stephens and they lived about a mile from Grandpa Adair's. My great uncle Wilmer (Wimp) Stephens was married to Grandpa's daughter, Cynthia, who died at the young age of 22. My mom and dad, Mart and Stanley Stephens, lived in several places in Pinetop, for we moved back and forth to Phoenix where my Dad could find work.

The exquisite beauty of Pinetop in those early days is hard to explain. The green meadows, the huge ponderosa pine, the clean blue skies, the wild flowers blooming everywhere in the dead of summer, the stream that ran so close to Grandpa's house and meandered through the valley. I remember picking and eating wild watercress from the clean sparkling waters. I spent some beautiful hours, days, months and years in this small remote town in east central Arizona. No one in the world knew where Pinetop was then except the people born and raised there or had married into families that were born and raised there, Summertimes were endless wonderfilled days to a child. Eating fresh peas out of the pod from Grandma Stephens' garden, swimming in the old swimming hole in the woods, summer rainstorms that would work up out of a clear blue sky, rain about 2 hours in the afternoon and clear off to a sparkling clear air evenings. Summer rains lasted six weeks and came every day.

This is just a portion of the long ago memories from a woman with a girl's heart, who recalls the wonder of yesterday.

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A True Story About John Adair, Old Time Settler of Pinetop, Arizona: Written by Bobbie Stephens Hunt.

Grandpa John Adair had come to Maverick, a small logging community in the White Mountains, to stay a few days with my stepdad, Kenneth and my mom. Kenneth is Grandpa John's grandson and he was close to them. My mother took care of Grandpa's wife, Cynthia, as she lay dying of cancer in the old Pinetop house. After her death Grandpa spent time in Maverick with Kenneth and mom.

While there, he took out a license to hunt deer. His eyesight was very poor and he did not have a good rifle then and couldn't see to use it!

Kenneth and a man he worked with, Lonnie Ford, were on their way to work early one morning when they came upon two deer. Lonnie had his gun and a license but he had a license to shoot one deer. Bam! Bam! He downed both of them! "Well, what do we do now?" Kenneth said. Lonnie returned with, "Let's load the one in my pickup and we will hide the other one behind this log and come back to get it later to get it." So that's what they did.

Kenneth got his car to go back after the deer, along with Grandpa and his deer tag, Arvil Hunt and another friend, to help load the deer in the car trunk. They did this, and about 8 miles out of Maverick, on their way back, Rex Hansen, the game warden, stopped them. Kenneth and Arvil were nervous for they knew Rex and knew he would put his own mother away for killing a deer without a license. They pulled over and Rex got out of his pickup and walked over to them, saying, "Who got this deer? Grandpa spoke up, "I did." He was the only one who had a license. Rex said, "Where did you shoot this deer, Grandpa?" He knew Grandpa could not see well enough to shoot the deer and figured he had caught them red-handed. Not knowing what part of the anatomy the deer had been shot in, grandpa returned with, "Hell, I didn't shoot it--I roped it! With that lightning response, the game warden said, "Oh go on-- get out of here!"

Grandpa must have been about 81 years old and the year was right around 1955.

• The John Washington Adair Family
• Picture of where John's stood house today; Presbyterian Church
• Map of the Adair homes in Pinetop
• Picture of Dell and Marceline's cabin in Pinetop

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