“Fun and Trials of Pioneering,” an autobiography written by Dixie Collie Walker for her children, provides a firsthand account of the experiences of Arizona one-room schoolteachers in the early 20th century. Schools were in remote, small communities, so finding a place to live was a challenge, and living alone was scary. Schools closed when populations decreased, requiring relocation to other districts, and transportation was on horseback or on foot.
Dixie Collie Walker (1894-1991) was the youngest of Ruben (1846-1925) and Lucinda (1852-1926) Collie’s 13 children. Born in Kentucky, she moved with her family to Texas when she was about ten. The next move was in 1910 when she and her brother Stone (1892-1982) joined their parents and older brother Bill (1879-1966) in Elgin. Ruben, Bill, and Stone all filed homestead claims and began ranching in the Elgin/Vaughn area.
In 1911, at age 17, Dixie passed the Arizona teachers certification exam, beginning a ten-year teaching career. Dixie’s first teaching assignment was in the Mowry mining community, about 30 miles from her parents’ home in Elgin. She bought a horse for transportation and lived in a tent cabin rented from Orton Phelps. She had about 30 students, most of Mexican descent. Only a few spoke English.
In 1912 Dixie began to teach in the mining town of Greaterville. The pay was better but there was no place for her to live. Her brother Bill constructed a one-room shack and a corral for her horse near the Greaterville store, operated by Silas Piper. One night Dixie awoke to the sound of someone trying to enter her home. She fired her Colt 45 and shot Mr. Piper who had mistaken her door for the outhouse. [The Border Vidette 1/18/1913]. Piper was wounded in the wrist and lung and died several months later. [The Border Vidette 3/22/1913]. Dixie was understandably reluctant to continue living alone. Fortunately, Carl Schofield, Rosemont Forest Ranger, invited her to board with him and his wife and daughters, allowing Dixie to finish the school year.
Her next teaching assignment (1913/1914) was in Maricopa, south of Phoenix at the junction of the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad. She lived in the town’s hotel and was able to walk to school. From 1914 to 1917 Dixie taught in the farming district of Potrero, six miles north of Nogales. She boarded at the Nogales ranger station, initially with the Albert Abbott family and later the Theodore Knipe family.
By 1917 Dixie finally was able to teach closer to home, first in the new school in Rain Valley and later in Sonoita. She lived at home when teaching at Rain Valley and in the unoccupied Sonoita railway section house when teaching in Sonoita. Sadly, the flu epidemic of 1919 closed schools in the area and the student body at Sonoita school dropped so much that a teacher was not needed when schools reopened in early 1920.
Dixie next accepted a position in Russelville, Cochise County. There she met Almond E. Walker (1889-1960), a cowboy at the C Bar ranch where Dixie boarded.
They married in August 1919 at a double wedding ceremony where her brother Stone married Fern Bartlett. Dixie taught in Russelville for the 1919-20 school year.
In the fall of 1920 her first son was born and her teaching career ended. She and Almond moved to Tucson in 1922 where Dixie worked as a cafeteria cook for many years and the couple owned and operated the Walker Riding Stables.