Community information: Old Trails Spring History Highlight ‘Legacies of the Past: Arizona Women who Made History’

The Old Trails Museum offers its 2019 Spring History Highlight May 4, at 2 p.m. at the Winslow Arts Trust Museum, 333 East Second Street.

Author Jan Cleere celebrates the lives of remarkable women who helped shape the territory and state in Legacies of the Past: Arizona Women Who Made History.

Cleere will introduce people to artists and healers, to teachers and entrepreneurs, to those who plowed the land and others who helped establish laws in the new Arizona Territory.

These women became known for their adventuresome spirits, their confrontation of extraordinary situations, their fortitude in the face of adversity, and their dedication to improving the lives of others. Some gained a degree of celebrity across the state, within their communities, and throughout their tribal regions, while others remained relatively unknown. Some faced and fought discrimination, and some laid down their lives.

Meet an array of women who not only endured hardships but also achieved amazing feats and brought unique perspectives into a harsh, strange country. Learn about Native women warriors and peacemakers as well as women who rode into the territory to discover a completely different way of life. These are women who persisted and persevered in their quest to explore, discover, and conquer new lands and new beginnings.

Cleere is an award-winning author, historian, and lecturer who lives in Oro Valley. An American Studies graduate of Arizona State University, she has authored five historical nonfiction books about the people who settled the desert Southwest. Her freelance work appears in publications such as Arizona Highways, and she writes a monthly column for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson — “Western Women” — that details the amazing lives our state’s early female residents.

Cleere serves on the Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail’s Coordinating Council and is a member of multiple professional organizations including the Western Writers of America, National Federation of Press Women, and Women Writing the West.

The 2019 Spring History Highlight is made possible in part by Arizona Humanities, a non-profit organization and the Arizona affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.