Eulalia Bourne

Who was Eulalia Bourne?

Eulalia "Sister" Bourne was a pioneer Arizona schoolteacher, rancher and author. Born in West Texas, the oldest of five girls, she was dubbed "Sister" by a younger sibling who couldn't pronounce Eulalia. After a sketchy education, she got her first teaching job circa 1910 in Beaver Creek in Arizona's Verde Valley. At the end of her second year, she was fired for dancing the "one-step", considered a “vulgar rag” by the chairman of her school board.

Bourne's next teaching job was at Helvetia, a mining camp in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. None of her students spoke English, nor did Bourne speak Spanish. At that time, Arizona had a law forbidding the use of Spanish in school. "It was the silliest rule I ever heard of in my life," she said. She sent away for Spanish grammar books, and set aside the last five minutes of each day for the students to teach her Spanish.

Bourne entered the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1920, but it took her ten years to graduate,working her way through school, majoring in English and Spanish. After graduating summa cum laude, she took a job in the isolated ranching community of Redington. There she created The Little Cowpuncher, a mimeographed newspaper, written and illustrated by her students. It was begun, as Bourne later explained, as an effort “to hold the mirror up to life as we live it here.” The little paper moved with her from school to school for the next 11 years: from Redington to Baboquívari then to Sierrita, Sasco, Sasabe, Sópori and back to Sasabe. With its lively, detailed descriptions of ranch and school life, it is now seen as a unique historical document of Southern Arizona ranching communities from 1932 to 1943. A complete set is available online here.