7/8/2009 9:51:00 PM Genung descendants recognized as 2009 Honorary Arizona Pioneer Family Ranching, mining and rodeo tradition span seven generations
Matt Hinshaw/The Daily Courier
Members of the Honorary Pioneer Family wave to the crowd while riding on a float down Cortez Street Saturday morning during the Prescott Frontier Days annual parade.
The descendants of Charles B. and Ida Genung are members of a true Arizona Pioneer Family.
Five generations of the family, ranging in age from 14 to 78, participated in Saturday's Prescott Frontier Days Parade.
Parade Chairperson Barbara Boyer met great, great, great granddaughter Linda Hook through their membership with the Prescott Regulators and Their Shady Ladies. She said that after talking with Hook, she realized the family's history.
According to the family history, Charles B. Genung came to the area in 1863 with Ben Weaver, the son of Pauline Weaver. He first settled at Rich Hill in the Yarnell area on his claim, the Montgomery Mine.
During his lifetime, Charles Genung was a prospector, rancher, Peeples Valley Postmaster, Justice of the Peace, deputy sheriff appointed by Buckey O'Neill, and a deputy and hangman at the Vulture Mine. He was a guide to Sharlot Hall and a friend to the Yavapai Tribe.
In 1869, C.B. married Ida Elizabeth Hester Smith. Ida learned to ride, rope, shoot, smoke, cuss and spit from Pauline Weaver. Weaver gave a piece of his land, near modern day San Bernardino, CA, to Ida's father Dr. Isaac Smith. Ida was a first cousin to Orville and Wilbur Wright.
In 1870, Apache trouble forced C.B. and Ida to move to Peeples Valley. C.B. bought the land in 1865 from Abe Peeples. The couple settled and started their ranch.
C.B. and Ida had 10 children, eight of them survived to adulthood. Ed, the seventh son, roped at the Prescott rodeo in the 1920s. He was the great, great, great uncle of April and Crystal Poteet, both former Prescott Frontier Days queens.
Ed's great-niece Elizabeth inherited the Peeples Valley ranch. She lived there until 1994.
Sixth generation descendant Crystal Poteet said her grandparents lived in Prescott while her grandfather managed the ranch that her grandmother inherited. The Genung Memorial Cemetery is still in Peeples Valley.
Grace Chapman, the youngest daughter of C.B. and Ida, was the Yavapai County Recorder from 1922 to 1954. She campaigned for office on horseback. Sharlot Hall accompanied her to the ranches in search of items for the museum. Grace was instrumental in getting the government to designate land around Old Fort Whipple as a reservation for the Yavapai Tribe. She was also a founding member of the Smoki Museum.
This story is an updated version of the original, to correct several errors.
Reader Comments
Posted: Thursday, July 09, 2009
Article comment by:
anybody remember the Kirkland Junction dances?
Back in the 1960's my parents worked for the old Coughlin Ranch. We lived in the little house right across the highway from the John Hayes ranch. Old Mr. Genung lived directly behind us. The cemetery was on one side of us and the one-room school on the other. I would go back and visit Mr.Genung sometimes and he would show me his HUGE collection of Indian artifacts. His house was OLD and basic, but oh so interesting. He drove an old pickup and was really quite deaf. When he would get out to open the gate, upon getting back into his truck he would rev the engine to a mighty roar. If the clutch would have ever slipped, no telling where he would have ended up!!! A good story in a book I was reading told about one of the Genung brothers dressing up like a woman back in the old days at a dance over in the Walnut Creek area. It was really funny.
