Alfred Scott

Alfred Scott, 1881-1906
Phoenix Indian School Student
 
Buried in Rosedale North

(Grave marker photos courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

Alfred Scott was born about 1881 in California. His records at Phoenix Indian School list him as a ‘Mission’ Indian, probably Luiseño.
 
Opened in 1890, the Phoenix Indian School was intended to function as a residential industrial school and to teach Native American teens and young adults useful occupations such as carpentry, animal husbandry, and the domestic arts--sewing, cooking, nursing. In time, its dormitories housed a total of about 700 pupils from 35 different tribes, including some advanced students from other Western states.
 
The school was designed to be a self-sufficient as possible. Vegetables were raised in the gardens. Male students tended the cows in the dairy and made the furniture used in the classrooms and dormitories. Female students sewed school uniforms and practiced some native crafts such as basket-weaving.
 
In addition to classes in occupational skills, the school had an academic curriculum similar to that taught in the average high school of the time. Many of the teachers were themselves Native Americans from tribes elsewhere in the United States, on the theory that they would serve as relatable role models. The school newspaper was produced in the campus print shop, and the school’s military drill team, marching band, and football and baseball teams were highly regarded. Each fall, students participated in the annual territorial fair, exhibiting handicrafts and taking part in horse races and foot races.
 
Alfred Scott played left outfield on the school’s baseball team in 1901. In 1904, he gave a declamation entitled “The Road to Placerville”, from Mark Twain’s book Roughing it, at a literary night performance.
 
In 1905, Alfred married an Anglo schoolteacher, Mae Glase, in Los Angeles, California. They had met while Miss Glase was teaching at the Phoenix Indian School. After the wedding, the young couple moved to Fort McDowell, where Mae taught elementary school.
 
Tragically, Alfred was already suffering from tuberculosis and died less than a year later on 10 April 1906. He was buried in Rosedale Cemetery, and his widow had a red sandstone monument placed on his grave.
 
Mae Glase Scott eventually moved to Murray, Utah, where she was employed for 33 years as a schoolteacher and principal. She died in Seattle in 1951.
 
© 2021 by Donna Carr. Last revised 24 October 2021.


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