This was a book like few I’ve read. I was looking for something to give me some more background on Arizona and this book was recommended to me. And it certainly delivered.
“Isabella Greenway, An Enterprising Woman,” is based almost entirely on letters exchanged between Isabella, her husbands and family and other notables in the America of 100 years ago.
My interest in Isabella Greenway began when I started learning about the Arizona Inn. My close friend and the ultimate Arizonan, Lisa Schnebly Heidinger, got me started when she and I met for lunch at the Inn one day during my transition to Tucson. From the library to the red adobe walls, it is an icon in the Blenman-Elm neighborhood of Tucson. Founded in 1930, it was a place for Ms. Greenway to escape to and also showcase the furniture military veterans had made for one of her other enterprises.
Isabella Greenway was Arizona’s first Congresswoman, elected as a Democrat in the late 1920s. A close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (Isabella was a member of the wedding party when Eleanor married Franklin Roosevelt). A champion of military veterans and the mining industry, she worked tirelessly for the good of Arizona. Isabella also owned a ranch in Northern Arizona.
Married three times, her second husband was John Campbell Greenway. John was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Roughriders and the man who built modern Ajo. And Isabella and her mom were favorites of Teddy Roosevelt when they lived on neighboring homesteads in the Dakotas.
So many threads of Arizona history are tied to her. Her footprints span the country as well as the state of Arizona–Kentucky, the Dakotas, and Minnesota are also places she inhabited and touched.
As the title of the book says, she indeed was an enterprising woman. Arizona was lucky to have had her.
Relentless
