 Manuel Harvey Reno, 1831-1899 Kentucky Judge Buried in the A. O. U. W. Cemetery, Block 18, Lot 4, Grave 2 (Grave marker photo courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Manuel H. Reno was born January 28, 1831, in Ballard County, Kentucky. He was one of nine children belonging to Richard D. Reno and Celia Bohannon, a farming couple. The federal census of 1850 suggests that the Renos had moved to Kentucky around 1830 from Alabama.
Around 1855, Reno married Ann D. Ellis in Ballard County, Kentucky. Their first child, a daughter named Mary Belle, was born on March 23, 1856. She was followed quickly by Susan Theodocia, born 1857, William Richard, born 1858, and Maggie, born 1862. No evidence has been found that Reno was ever in the Confederate army. Kentucky being a border state, it is possible that his sentiments aligned with the Union. He seems to have remained a small farmer throughout the war. By 1880, the Renos were farming in Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky. Although there is no mention of where he read law, Reno eventually became a county judge in Kentucky. The Renos retired to Phoenix around 1892. Although Reno doesn’t seem to have practiced law in Arizona, he was active in local politics. Originally a member of the Grange Party, he later became a member of the Populist Party which supported Buckey O’Neill’s short-lived political career. In 1894, Reno launched an Arizona chapter of the Child’s Aid Society, which seems to have been an insurance company benefitting the children of deceased members when they came into their majority by providing them with a small fund to get a start in life. In an era when fathers could not necessarily count on living long enough to see their children grow up, this might have been an attractive option. Reno was an officer of the Hopeton Baptist Church and taught Sunday school there. He died on December 11, 1899, of valvular heart disease. After a funeral sermon preached by Rev. Lewis Halsey of the Baptist Church, he was buried in Ancient Order of United Workmen Cemetery. At the time of Reno’s death, his eldest daughter, Mary Belle, was teaching school at the Sacaton Indian Agency. Although she had married James Zimmerman in Kentucky in 1883, she may have been a widow by 1899. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 24 November 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!
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 Anna Mary Fisher Dameron, 1839-1894 From Missouri to Arizona Porter Cemetery, Lot 55. There is no marker. (Generic image created using Bing AI) Anna Mary Fisher was born March 27, 1839, in Lewis County, Missouri. She was one of five children of James Fisher and Lucinda Doke, who were fairly well-to-do farmers.
On Valentine’s Day 1866, Anna married Willis Monroe Dameron in Adams County, Illinois. Willis had been married previously to Sarah Dysart, the daughter of a clergyman. She had died in 1860, presumably from complications following childbirth. Dameron, who was supporting his widowed mother and his little son Everett, seems not to have served on either side during the Civil War. After their marriage, Willis and Anna farmed in La Belle, Lewis County, Missouri. They had two sons of their own: Logan Douglas, born in 1867, and Richard Monroe, born in 1872. Logan was named after his paternal uncle, a successful dry goods merchant. The Damerons’ son Logan attended La Belle Academy and taught for five years before enrolling in Hospital Medical College in Louisville, Kentucky. After graduating in 1891, he moved to Phoenix where he went into practice with Dr. H. A. Hughes. By then, Anna was in poor health. When Logan returned to Missouri for a Christmas visit in December, 1892, he persuaded Anna and Willis to accompany him back to Phoenix. Anna lived for two more years before dying of pneumonia on December 31, 1894. After a Methodist Episcopal service conducted by Rev. W. A. Harris, she was buried in Porter Cemetery. Her husband joined her in January, 1907. Shortly after Anna’s death, her son Logan married Bettie Hughes, the daughter of his partner. Having helped to start the Arizona chapter of the American Medical Association, he became its president in 1903. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 29 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Charles Henry Petersen, 1851-1904 Brickmaker Buried in IOOF Cemetery, Block 12, Lot 1 (Grave marker photo courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Theodore Charles Heinrich Petersen was born on April 10, 1851, in Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia, to Jakob Petersen and Friederike Hansen.
Although the Petersens were of Danish ethnicity, they had adopted some German customs, such as passing on the father’s surname unchanged. In 1866, Germany asserted full control over Schleswig-Holstein and began conscripting Danish men into the German army. That may have been why Petersen immigrated to the United States in 1874. Family stories hold that Charles Petersen was working in Texas when he became a naturalized citizen. On October 30, 1888, he married Pauline Amalie Nissen, who was also from Schleswig-Holstein. The young couple took up residence in Campus, Livingston County, Illinois. However, Pauline died less than a year later, two weeks after giving birth to a son named Paul. Although born a U.S. citizen, baby Paul was apparently sent back to Bredstadt, Schleswig-Holstein, to be raised by his grandparents. 1892 found Charles Petersen in Phoenix, Arizona, where he married his second wife, Ernestina Lena Yostina Popken, on September 15. They had several children in quick succession. Petersen was in the brickmaking business and owned a 20-acre brickyard south of downtown Phoenix. The Petersens lived on South Third Street, just a few blocks from Columbus Gray’s mansion. On November 6, 1900, Mrs. Petersen was at home alone with the children when noises in the back yard alerted her to the fact that a vagrant was trying to steal the family’s calf. Armed with a shotgun, she ordered him to leave; however, when he charged at her, she fired, killing him. The coroner’s jury reported that he had recently been released from jail. While riding his bicycle down Washington Street on December 28, 1904, Charles Petersen turned in front of an oncoming streetcar, lost his balance and fell. He was crushed between the streetcar and the rail beneath. The newspaper reported that the widow’s grief was pitiful to behold; she was left with several children to raise, the oldest being only eleven, and she was nine months pregnant. Petersen was buried in Block 12, Lot 1, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery. Just a day or so after his funeral, his widow gave birth to a posthumous daughter. In 1909, Petersen’s son Paul returned to the United States to reclaim his American citizenship. He served during World War I in the 38th U. S. Field Artillery against Germany. It is not known whether he ever visited Arizona or had the opportunity to meet his half-siblings. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 28 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Henry Hiram Wilky, 1838-1900 Farmer Buried in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 3, Lot 4, North half (Charcoal sketch based on a photograph, courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Henry Wilky began life as Heinrich Wilke. He was born on January 8, 1838, in Duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany, to a farm family.
Germany saw much political turmoil in the following years, as a revolution in 1848 failed and Prussia became the most powerful of Germany’s many duchies. Europe was also undergoing an industrial revolution, as farms with mechanized equipment were soon outcompeting small farms that depended on hand labor. Prussia’s imperial ambitions also led to the conscription of young men into the military. Wilke may have left Braunschweig for any of these reasons. He arrived in New Orleans in 1855 and made his way up the Mississippi River to Burton, Adams County, Illinois, where he found employment on the farm of Peter Rump. The Rumps were originally from Hanover—only 40 miles from Braunschweig. Henry obviously intended to remain in the United States, as he filed a naturalization petition in 1860. By 1861, he had a farm of his own and, on April 2nd, he married Sophia Lutgerding, a neighbor. She was the daughter of George Lutgerding and Elizabeth Rump (possibly a relative of Peter Rump) of Adams County, Illinois. The Wilkys had six children: George L., born 1862; William H., born 1865; Frederick Daniel, born 1867; John Adolph, born 1870; Clara Ellen, born 1877: and Lena Madelia, born 1880. The family very likely spoke German at home. By 1870, they had moved to Marion County, Missouri, where the census recorded them as Wilkys. By 1882, the oldest Wilky sons were adults and needed farms of their own. Henry and Sophia sold their property in Missouri and came by train to Maricopa in November. From Maricopa, they traveled by wagon to Phoenix. At first, they homesteaded in the area of 99th Ave and Indian School but, due to lack of water, they had to move to about 67th Ave and Indian School. The Wilkys’ last years were marked by the loss of close relatives. Their son John Adolph died in 1886 and son Frederick Daniel in 1900. Henry Wilky himself died on December 22, 1900, of septicemia. He was buried in the family plot in City Loosley Cemetery. Sophia followed him in 1908. The Wilkys’ descendants prospered in Arizona. More than a century after their arrival in the Valley of the Sun, they generously donated funds for a wrought iron arch for Rosedale Cemetery. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 19 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Amelia Kleinlogel Geiges, 1856-1898 Health Seeker Originally buried in Rosedale Cemetery; moved to Greenwood Memory Lawn (Grave marker photograph courtesy of Donna L. Carr. Marker probably placed many years after her death.) Amelia Kleinlogel was born about 1856 in Ohio to Talla Kleinlogel who had been born in France. She was the second oldest of five children which included Charles, Theodore, Louisa, and Albert. Her father had died sometime between 1864 and 1870, which may have been why the family moved from Ohio to Michigan.
In 1870, the Kleinlogels were living in Solon, Kent County, Michigan, in the same household with several other people, among them 23-year-old Henry Geiges, an immigrant from Germany. Geiges was a sawyer in a local sawmill, as was Amelia’s older brother Charles. Henry Geiges had been born 1849 in Schleswig-Holstein. He and Amelia were married on August 17, 1875, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their first child, Lillian, was born about 1880 in Michigan. Daughter Minnie was born February 1, 1884, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Amelia eventually contracted tuberculosis, which was rife at that time. Around 1896, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, for her health. However, on December 28, 1898, she died at the family home at 235 East Taylor Street. With Woodmen’s Circle paying for the interment, she was originally buried in Rosedale Cemetery. Sometime later, possibly in the 1920s or 1930s, her remains were moved to Greenwood Cemetery. Henry and their two daughters moved soon afterward to Los Angeles, where Lillian eventually married Guy Hidden Lawrence. Henry Geiges died August 2, 1905, in Los Angeles, only a few months after his daughter’s wedding. Daughter Minnie married Robinson P. Kane, a Seventh Day Adventist, in Los Angeles on June 30, 1908. Unfortunately, he died just a few years later, in 1911. Lillian later returned to Phoenix with her husband. In 1929, they built a house at 6234 North Central which is on the National Register of Historic Places today. © 2017 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 30 September 2017. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Martha Tannehill Evans, 1846-1903 Married Late Buried in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 5, Space ½ (Grave marker photo courtesy of Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Martha Tannehill Evans was born in September, 1846, in Logan County, Ohio, the daughter of James Tannehill and Ruth Patterson. The Tannehills’ first two children were born in Ohio but, around 1847, the family had moved to Davis County, Iowa, where their last six children were born.
Possibly it was the promise of abundant farmland that attracted the Tannehills to Iowa, as James was a farmer and his sons became farmers. On November 30, 1876, Martha married John Robert Evans in Davis County, Iowa. Surprisingly, she was thirty years old by then and probably would have been considered a "spinster." However, since Martha’s younger sister Lovena was blind, perhaps she was needed at home until then. John Robert Evans was a farmer, like the Tannehills. A widower, he was twenty years older than Martha and had been married previously to Louisa Adeline Miller, who died in 1875. John Robert often appears in the public record as J. R. Evans. Martha very likely raised J. R.’s two youngest children, and they did have a ‘late in life’ son of their own, Robert James, born in 1885 when J. R. was nearly sixty. The Evanses farmed near Bloomfield, Iowa, until November 22, 1898, when they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Martha’s younger brother Joseph Edgar Tannehill had moved there around 1896, and perhaps the Evanses found the idea of a warmer climate appealing as they grew older. Nor were they alone in that, as Martha’s widowed father and four more of her Tannehill siblings either accompanied them or joined them soon afterward in Arizona. The Evanses were Presbyterian, and Martha was active in church work during the last years of her life. Martha died of pneumonia on December 15, 1903 at the family home about a mile west of the Indian School. She was buried in the family plot in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 6, Lot 5, next to her little step-grandson, Otto Evans. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 12 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Louise Gregory, 1903-1903 Infant, aged 5 months Buried in AOUW Cemetery, Block 24, Lot 1, Grave 8 (Photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) Louise was the only child of Walter T. Gregory and his wife, Augusta Frances “Gussie” Russell. She was born around July or August and died in Yuma on December 20, 1903, of “stomach and kidney trouble." Her parents brought her little casket to Phoenix for burial, because that had been Mrs. Gregory’s home and her parents were still living there.
By the time of Louise’s birth, her father Walter had already had a rather colorful life. The son of a hotelier, he had been born in frontier Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1873 and had grown up in California, Tombstone and Tempe, Arizona. Walter was working as a newspaper reporter in Phoenix when the Spanish American War began, and he enlisted immediately in Company B, 1st U. S. Volunteer Cavalry, otherwise known as the “Rough Riders." That short war had scarcely concluded when Gregory reenlisted in Company K, 4th U. S. Cavalry to serve in the Philippines. Although generally in good health, he suffered recurrent bouts of malaria from his military service in the tropics. Upon his discharge, he went to New York for a brief period but returned to Arizona when his father died in Tucson. Thereafter, Walter moved back to Phoenix where he met and married Augusta Frances “Gussie” Russell. In 1903, Walter’s former military commander, Alexander O. Brodie, by then territorial governor of Arizona, appointed Walter secretary of the territorial prison in Yuma. It was there that little Louise was born and died. Walter and Gussie divorced within the next few years. Disillusioned with life out West, Walter moved back to New York, where he found work with his brother Will’s theatrical booking agency. Unfortunately, he succumbed to pneumonia on April 16, 1909. Because of his military service, he was interred in Arlington National Cemetery outside of Washington, D. C. The parents of Walter’s ex-wife had by this time relocated to southern California, and she had joined them there. Gussie, or Frances as she was now calling herself, met and married Edmund J. Mulvihill, Jr., a railroad telegrapher. However, she died still relatively young in Los Angeles on May 31, 1927. © 2022 Donna L. Carr. Last revised 18 February 2022. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  Thomas Jefferson Newland, 1830 – 1896 Prospector Buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, exact location unknown. There is no grave marker. (Generic image created using Bing AI) Thomas Newland was born in 1830 in Tennessee, possibly to James Newland and Nancy Hazelrig. James and Nancy had a number of children, including sons named Archibald and Thomas. In 1850, this family was living in Crawford County, Arkansas, and these sons would have been old enough to be excited by news of the California Gold Rush.
1860 found a Thomas J. Newland and an Arch Newland farming in Pacific Township, Humboldt County, California. It seems likely that "Arch" was Thomas’s brother Archibald. Arch married in 1866 and thereafter moved to Idaho. In 1870, Thomas J. Newland was recorded as a miner living in a boarding house in Pioche City, Nevada. Sharing his room was an F. M. Newland, possibly another relative. Sometime in the 1870s, Thomas began to suffer from a chronic respiratory condition. It might have been asthma or silicosis, or perhaps it was a precursor to something like pulmonary tuberculosis. At any rate, he found that living in the desert as a prospector ameliorated his symptoms. In 1876, he was in Mohave County, Arizona Territory, when he registered to vote. Amazingly, Newland met a woman who shared his fondness for wide open spaces—a hardy divorcee named Saloma Larcombe. They were married on September 19, 1878, at her home in Globe, Arizona. Together, they worked several mining claims--the Defiance, the Pioneer, and the Saloma Mines—in Gila, Pinal and Yavapai Counties. At one point, they had a cattle ranch near Eagle Creek, but gave up on it in 1882 after the local Apaches massacred their neighbors. Although living in a remote campsite without the usual amenities could not have been easy, it was the lifestyle they preferred. As Thomas’s health declined, Saloma did the actual prospecting and brought the ores to her husband so he could judge whether her find looked promising. On December 12, 1896, Thomas died in Phoenix of what the doctor opined was chronic pneumonia, although it was probably something related to his previous respiratory ailment. He was buried in City/Loosley Cemetery. Saloma carried on by herself, living in a little camp near the Model mine in Yavapai County. In 1897, a reporter from the The San Francisco Call interviewed her and was surprised to find her well-educated, well-mannered and connected by marriage to a prominent family in California. She died of cancer on December 31, 1898, at Sister’s Hospital in Phoenix and was also buried in City/Loosley Cemetery, possibly near her husband. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 15 August 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  George W. DeGroot, 1842-1903 Railroad Employee Buried in Rosedale Cemetery, North Section (Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.) George Washington DeGroot was born on January 3, 1842, in New York City. His parents were Edward DeGroot and Hannah West. The surname ‘DeGroot’ suggests Dutch origins.
In 1850, George’s father was listed on the federal census as a "clothier," someone who made and sold good-quality men’s clothing. He might have had a small shop. Living on the same street near the DeGroots were a shoemaker and a tailor. Between 1855 and 1860, Edward DeGroot moved his family to Adams County, Illinois, where he became quite a well-to-do farmer. Although George registered for the Civil War draft in 1863, no evidence of Civil War service has been found to date. George was working on his father’s farm in 1870. On December 11, 1878, George married Laura F. Garner in Illinois. Over the years, they had five children: Eugene Dawe, 1879; William Clyde, born 1881; Edith and Harry Lester (twins), born 1886; and Robert Stanley, born 1889. Instead of continuing as a farmer, George DeGroot became a railroad employee, possibly for the famous Rock Island Line. For some years between 1886 and 1890, the DeGroots were in St. Louis, Missouri. By 1900, they were back in Rock Island County, Illinois, and George and his son Clyde were working as a baggage handlers. In 1901, after 23 years of marriage, Laura DeGroot divorced George on the grounds of cruelty and infidelity. Not long thereafter, DeGroot seems to have come alone to Arizona. He was living at 4th Avenue and Jackson near the railroad tracks when on December 13, 1903, he died of pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Rosedale North, where he has a grave marker. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 7 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!  George F. Parks, 1856-1888 Waiter at the Commercial Hotel Originally buried in City Loosley Cemetery, Block 4, Lot 3; Now in Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery, Section 8, Block 17, Lot 4, Space 2 (Grave marker photo courtesy of Donna L. Carr) George Fremont Parks was born in California in 1856. His parents were Charles Parks and Irene Taylor, and he had a younger brother named Charles.
Following the death of George’s father, the Parks family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. In 1879, Mrs. Parks married George Patterson, an immigrant from Norway. Young George Parks worked as a waiter at the Commercial Hotel in Phoenix during the winter months. During the summers, when there were fewer travelers lodging at the hotel, he would go up to Prescott to work. Like many local men, he was a member of the volunteer Phoenix Fire Department, Hose Company. On October 12, 1882, George married Mary Agnes Thompson Lucas, but the marriage may have been of short duration, as nothing more is known about her. On the evening of December 10, 1888, after serving supper to the hotel’s guests, George and three other waiters sat down to enjoy their own meal in the dining room of the Commercial Hotel. They were apparently talking and joking among themselves when the hotel’s Chinese cook, Wong Lee, passed by. Thinking that they were making fun of him, he made some profane remarks, to which George took exception. George and the cook took their dispute outdoors, where they probably exchanged a blow or two. Evidently George considered the incident resolved, for he came back to the dining room and resumed his seat. But the cook’s anger had not been appeased, for he followed George and, drawing a knife, stabbed him. George exclaimed, “He’s knifed me; look out for him!” and ran into the bar where he seized a pistol and went after his assailant. However, Constable McDonald caught George as he collapsed and carried him back to the dining room. Dr. McGlasson was summoned, but the knife had penetrated to the heart. George lingered for two or three hours, remaining conscious long enough to bid farewell to his grief-stricken mother. Wong Lee, George’s assailant, was swiftly apprehended and jailed amid muttered threats of lynching. Nevertheless, he stood trial in early February before Judge DeForest Porter and was adjudged guilty of manslaughter. Late in May, 1889, Wong Lee was conveyed to the penitentiary in Yuma to serve a six-year sentence. George F. Parks was initially buried in City Loosley Cemetery. Scarcely a year later, his mother passed away and was buried next to him. In 1918, their remains, as well as those of George Patterson, were removed to Greenwood Cemetery. © 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 3 December 2025. If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers! |