Recently in University Neighborhood Category

Patricia Stephenson shared another interesting artifact with us yesterday. It is Louise Foucar's Tucson Street Railway stock certificate. You will see that she purchased 3 shares for $100. Certainly, a sizable investment for 1903 and one that would fit nicely with her plans to develop housing in the area. She purchased the shares in October 1903, the same month that the Santa Catalina Apartments were finished.

See both the front and back of the stock certificate, which is in excellent condition, on The University Neighborhood website's "A New Gate and a New Trolley, 1906" page.

Finally finding time to get back to working with the images from Louise Foucar's (Marshall) 1899 Histology. I wrote this on the in-development page to give visitors a context of why her Histology is so interesting.

Louise Foucar registered at the UA but the only course that she was eligible to take at the time was a botany course taught Professor James W. Toumey. In A Photographic History of the University of Arizona 1885 - 1985 (p. 28), Phyllis Ball wrote that Toumey was one of the UA's six original faculty members and held the title of Botanist for the Agricultural Experiment Station. Alumni will be interested in knowing that it was James Toumey who began the University's original cactus garden in 1896. He left the UA two months after Louise began her studies for Yale University where he helped found the Yale School of Forestry.

In the letter to a friend quoted on the University Neighborhood website, Louise wrote that Toumey "showed me how to use the microscope and to make slides; then he pointed out to the desert and said 'There is your work.'" She later recalled that in a trip of an hour over the campus she found twenty-three blooming desert plants. Examining the detail Louise included in her Histology sheds light on why two months after meeting her, Professor Toumey recommended her as his successor.

We have scans of all the sketches and text she wrote by hand in her Histology. However, for the work to have value to students and researchers, we need to create an HTML version that is easy to read and search. This will likely take months to complete.

There are ten pages developed so far containing images and short descriptions of her sketches. The first page includes an image of the Histology's cover and her hand written name. The following page being a look what see researched in her "lab."

Patricia Stephenson shared this photo yesterday and I added it to the University Neighborhood's University Square ... and the Campus page.

Patricia said that Tom Marshall took this picture of Mrs. Baxter and her staff around 1925 in Mrs. Baxter's University Square beauty shop. She added that she got her first perm in the first station. Mrs. Baxter's daughter told Patricia that Mrs. Marshall was very helpful to her mother's business. Patricia also pointed out that if you look at the first station, the long cords hanging at the opening were what was used back then to give perms.

Now that Tom Marshall's Tucson is published, we are working on bringing to the Web Patricia Stephenson's second book, A Personal Journey Through The University Neighborhood Built by Louise Foucar Marshall 1901-1951.

Visit the in-development page for more information and to view a few images that will be part of this website.

The image above is from a photo of an oil painting that Patricia Peters Stephenson painted while a UA student in 1950. The painting was for an art class and is included in her remembrance of the University neighborhood. The website is in-development at this time. The text from the OCR scanning has been added and Patricia is combing through her personal photo archives to match photographs with page sections. It is such a nice painting that I wanted to share it here.

In her book, A Personal Journey Through The University Neighborhood Built By Louise Foucar Marshall 1901 - 1951, she has this caption.

MY OIL PAINTING was made in a University oil painting class in 1950. The assignment was to paint a landscape; I looked over the wall and painted the College Shop, "College Street" and former College Ice Cream building. (None Nicer Creamery had leased it starting in 1933). August 28, 1952, I took the painting to show Mrs. Marshall. I was pleased that she gave constructive criticism to me. After my visit, she wrote in her diary, "Patricia called and we discussed her picture. I think she was convinced of my criticisim. Her line perspective was perfect but her surface perspective was very faulty. Hope I convinced her. Unfortunately, her professor had made no criticism." I thought, "How long ago it was that she studied perspective and had art lessons, how wonderful she can remember so many things!"