Restless women explore the Southwest.
The rugged Abiquiu area in northern New Mexico is one of my favorite escapes, a faraway land known for its stunning red-rock cliffs, the soothing Chama River and a rich cultural history.
This is the land that Georgia O’Keeffe made famous in her unforgettable paintings of vistas and scenes that still exist today. This is the land she claimed as her own, from the towering Pedernal mesa to the sprawling Ghost Ranch where she lived for decades. Since O’Keeffe “discovered” Ghost Ranch, many others have ventured there because of her. The ranch helped establish her reputation as the eccentric artist who inhabited and painted this primitive, exquisite slice of the Southwest.
Well, it turns out there’s a lot more to the story of how Ghost Ranch came to be, involving another adventurous woman, a shady card game, an alcoholic husband and a beautiful grand piano.
Perhaps it’s not too surprising that O’Keeffe failed to give credit to another pioneering woman, but author Lesley Poling-Kempes sets the record straight in her new book, “Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest.”
Poling-Kempes chronicles the escapades of Ghost Ranch’s real founder, Carol Stanley, and those of several other educated and restless women of means who rejected the security of their conventional lives to explore the wild Southwest in the early 20th century.
“It was the story of New Women stepping bravely into the New World, of Anglo America waking up to Native America, of inconspicuous success and ambitious failure,” Poling-Kempes writes.
The author, who lives near Abiquiu with her artist husband, knows and loves this territory. She has written several books about the Southwest as well as the novel “Bone Horses,” which recently won a WILLA Literary Award.
The stars of “Ladies of the Canyons” are Stanley, Natalie Curtis, Alice Klauber and Mary Cabot Wheelwright, with memorable cameos by Teddy Roosevelt, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Willa Cather, Charles Lummis, Chief Tawakwaptiwa of the Hopi tribe and Hostiin (Hosteen) Klah of the Navajo tribe. Oh, and O’Keeffe.
Poling-Kempes brings these real characters to life with thoughtful, engaging prose. With envy, we follow them on their intrepid journeys to Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, the pueblos of the Rio Grande, Santa Fe and other notable spots. We join Curtis, Roosevelt and others on an expedition to the Snake Dance gathering at Walpi, we cheer on Stanley during her introductory trip to Indian Country, and we ride the rough terrain into mystical Canyon de Chelly on “Ford machines.”
Poling-Kempes began her quest for the “ladies” more than a decade ago when she went looking for Stanley, a “woman who had gone missing in history.” Through her research, Poling-Kempes also dis- covered a larger network of gutsy women whose considerable contributions to promoting and preserving the Southwest, including their involvement in creating an arts and literary colony in Santa Fe, had been forgotten.
Using oral histories, letters, written accounts and other research, she weaves their stories while also charting their individual paths. There are missing pieces for sure, but I appreciate Poling-Kempes’ efforts to reflect on what may have been without taking too much license.
These women were serious about understanding and appreciating their new home. Curtis, a classically trained pianist who grew up on Washington Place in New York City, worked to preserve Native American music and published an authoritative book on the subject. She also sought to improve conditions for Native Americans, even lobbying Roosevelt, a family friend.
Klauber, a painter from California, traveled frequently with Curtis and was involved in the establishment of the Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Wheelwright, a Boston Brahmin, joined this casual alliance later, in 1920. She had a passion for Navajo artworks and culture and helped establish Santa Fe’s Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which remains today.
And then there’s my favorite, Stanley. Born on Nahant Island, Mass., she was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music and taught at a private girls’ school in Baltimore. In the spring of 1915, she headed to the Southwest, staying at Louisa and John Wetherill’s home and trading post in Kayenta, Ariz. (Louisa Wetherill’s story also is amazing. She spoke nearly fluent Navajo and was a trusted friend of the Navajos, Utes and Paiutes.) Stanley quickly fell in love with the land. She also fell for a handsome cowboy, Roy Pfäffle, and married him not too long after her life-changing trip.
“Just eighteen months had passed since Carol had learned to ride a horse with Louisa and John Wetherill, but that New England music teacher was long gone. The new woman known as Carol Pfäffle was very much at home on the bright, hot desert of Navajoland, and with John Wetherill and her new cowboy husband, she rode across the Rainbow Trail to the legendary bridge on the far side of the world.”
I just plain love these women. I want to go riding with them; I want to learn from them; I want to sit under the stars with them for just one night — please?
There were misadventures, hardships and tragedies in their lives, but I won’t be the spoiler here. Read the book to find out about the poker game, the alcoholism, the accident. But you also will learn about the hard work these women put into their new lives and the respect they shared for this wide-open world and its people.
Curtis had been sickly at times, but her own words reveal how she flourished in the desert, spending time “wandering roofless and free, over the sun-scorched deserts … for in them we quite lost the trail of the twentieth century and of our materialistic and commercial civilization ... Even the wrinkles and crow’s feet that lined our white faces … were burned away. In the silence of the desert and the sweep of pure winds, our souls were washed clean, till we too seemed true children of the Earth-Mother and the Sky-Father.”
What a ride it must have been.