Fatherhood in Rural Maricopa County: One Diarists' Accounts of Her Husband and Children in the Early Twentieth Century

At a time when society expected fathers to be the disciplinarians and mothers the nurturers, John Alexander Ray was both. Being a dairyman and cotton farmer in the East Valley of Phoenix in the 1920s and 1930s was brutal. Being a husband and father, however, suited John Ray, who was born in 1888 in Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico, one of the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico. Following the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, John and his family moved north to Arizona in 1912. In 1914, he married Juanita Stout, a native of Utah who had also been raised in northern Mexico. Initially, John and Juanita settled in Hinckley, Utah, where Juanita had lived and taught since leaving Mexico in 1912. John finished his high school education there at Millard Academy. After their first year in Hinckley, they moved briefly to Thatcher, Arizona, where they had their first child, John Ray Junior, in September 1915. They moved to Mesa weeks after Junior's birth, then moved to Gilbert in 1916.

Juanita kept diaries detailing her daily life from 1913 to 1954. The diaries depict life in small-town Maricopa County.¹ The diaries tell of local and national politics, local people and business, natural disasters, the weather, and even sports. But, most important, the diaries discuss family life for the Rays. In particular, Juanita discussed the relationship between her husband, John, and their nine children during more than four decades in the early twentieth century. John Jr.'s birth in 1915 was soon followed by the couple's first daughter, Verda, then followed by two more daughters: Winona in early 1920 and Lurline in late 1921. Then came Irving in 1924, Kathleen in 1926, Ila in 1928, Dewey in 1931, and Donetta in 1933. Each developed a special bond with their father, which Juanita captured in her daily diary.

John Alexander Ray Jr., referred to as "Junior," was born September 3, 1915, fifteen months after his parent's marriage. His father savored every moment he could spend with him. During Junior's first ten days, Juanita recorded many of these moments in her diary: "John slept in the next room and helped me in the night," "John helped me tend the baby," "John came from work on the Hoop's bean patch for a drink and to see his son," and "John and I tended the baby last night."²

Juanita filled the rest of her 1915 diary with descriptions of the simple joy John found in his son. "We lay on the bed with our babe between us just as good as pie," she wrote the day Junior turned two months old. "We watched the sweet moments of our babe," and John "walked the floor today with his little son and got him to sleep."³ "We watched the baby coo and laugh."⁴ John always did special things with and for his children.

Junior provided escape for daddy when mommy was cranky. When she "said foolish thing to the men, John had no appetite so he played with John Jr." And when Junior was cranky, daddy could lift his spirits. When Juanita and Junior had dinner at their neighbors in January 1916, "babe cried so hard, I came home" and went "to bed with him. He still screamed but when John came in, he smiled at him."⁵

As soon as Juanita let him, John took his children almost wherever he went. Sunday, January 23, 1916, was Juanita's first mention of John taking his child anywhere. It was a "warm day, so we dressed up baby and John took him to Skousen's" to retrieve the buggy so they could visit John's family about ten miles south in Gilbert.⁶

When Juanita was tired, John took care of the baby and let her sleep. "I slept more than John," Juanita wrote in Junior's fifth month. "But neither had much sleep. He got the baby to sleep." When Juanita was hungry, John took care of baby and let her eat...