Western Women: Santa Cruz Hughes vital to Tucson's development

Hughes, however, made of sturdy Welsh stock, soon rallied. The couple had met when Santa Cruz was around 8 years old, an orphan living with her older sister, Petra, who was married to local businessman Hiram Stevens. Hughes and Stevens partnered in several business ventures.

Santa Cruz Hughes was born in 1850, just outside the walled Mexican Presidio San Agustín del Tucson, cornerstone of the Old Pueblo. Her father, Juan Maria Santa Cruz, died of cholera when she was 10 months old. At age 8, she lost her mother, Manuela Bojorquez.

The Santa Cruz family had an extensive Mexican heritage. But after Congress approved the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, making what’s now Southern Arizona part of the Arizona Territory, they chose to remain at the presidio even as many Mexican families returned to Mexico. They became some of the first settlers in what would become Tucson.

In February 1862, the young girl watched Confederate soldiers march into Tucson, only to retreat three months later when a large force of Union soldiers routed them from the territory. Hughes, who had left Tucson during Confederate occupation rather than swear allegiance to the Stars and Bars, returned with the Union soldiers and immediately sought out the strikingly beautiful Atanacia, her dark ringlets cascading around soft brown eyes.

Hughes spoke broken English with a distinct Welsh accent, while his bride was fluent in Spanish. But somehow they managed to communicate, and their marriage lasted more than 50 years.

The couple married at Mission San Xavier del Bac. According to Santa Cruz Hughes in a 1930 interview, her wedding dress was “black taffeta silk made with a big skirt trimmed with four ruffles. ... I wore a black lace mantilla. I was just dying to wear white for my wedding, but an aunt of mine insisted that I wear black. She said a wedding was a serious thing and just as solemn as a funeral.” Even her attendants donned black for the occasion.

The couple lived their entire lives in the old Santa Cruz family home that still stands at 223 N. Main St., in downtown Tucson.

Santa Cruz Hughes bore 15 children, but five did not survive infancy. Her first two children, Juan Baptist and Theodore, died shortly after they were born. In 1865, while still a teenager, Santa Cruz Hughes gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Lizzie.

Three years after they married, the couple took a long trip to California. Baby Lizzie, along with Petra and Hiram Stevens, accompanied them. Having never traveled beyond the confines of Tucson, Santa Cruz Hughes marveled at the sights and sounds of the bustling cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as the mission settlement of Santa Barbara.

They stayed in California for three years, returning home in February 1868. In her arms, the young woman carried her new baby, Margaret Frances, born in Los Angeles in December 1867.

She also brought with her a new Singer sewing machine, the first ever seen in Tucson. Considered one of the best seamstresses in the territory, Santa Cruz Hughes created quite a stir with this newfangled device. “Whenever I would use it,” she said, “people would gather around to watch me. They would also bring me all kinds of things to sew, and it did not matter to them whether I sewed with coarse or fine thread.”

“Those were very lively days, those times in the sixties and early seventies,” she said. Indian uprisings were common, and she feared venturing too far from home without an escort of soldiers. She had no qualms about making bullets in her parlor for the men who swore to protect their families and property from raiding Indian parties.

Hughes did not participate directly in the 1871 Camp Grant Massacre, but his wife said, “He furnished the means to go; he approved of the plan and gave the ammunition and the arms; yes, they were given out from this very room we are sitting in. ... Our wagon was loaded with supplies, the arms, the grub and the ammunition. ... ”

Santa Cruz Hughes and her husband played integral roles in the development of Tucson. They advocated for public education, and helped build many of the first schools and churches. Hughes was one of Tucson’s first aldermen, and was part of incorporating the city of Tucson.

Around 1880, Santa Cruz Hughes took her first four children to Lawrence, Kansas, to broaden their education, since Tucson schools were still small in number, as well as to visit one of Hughes’ brothers. While there, she made a concerted effort to learn English. Her youngest daughter, Mary, remembered that her “mother always spoke to us in English, but if we were being corrected or things weren’t just right, it all came [out] in Spanish.”

A Tucson icon for more than 80 years, Atanacia Santa Cruz Hughes died Nov. 12, 1934. One of her intricately sewn quilts is now housed at the Arizona Historical Society. Made of silk and satin, the still-brilliant blue, red and gold embroidered floral motif is a pineapple variation of a log cabin pattern. She stitched a golden key to the center of the quilt, though remains a mystery.

One of her great-granddaughters recalled the elderly, petite Santa Cruz Hughes as always dressed in black, scurrying here and there, and making sure the children behaved as she insisted. She was “very precise, very beautifully dressed, very proper,” the great-granddaughter said. However, “if you were naughty, she thumped you on the head with her thimble. But afterward she’d slip a lemon drop into your hand.”