We hope to see you at our meeting Saturday, June 6, 2026
Lunch: 12:00 NOON
Presentation: 1:00 P.M.
PROGRAM: The French Presence in the Southwest
French may have been spoken in what is now Arizona before English, by administrators of Spain’s colonies, and later by fur trappers. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the California gold rush, and the end of Maximilian’s rule in Mexico brought more French speakers to the Southwest. Some were adventurers, active in mining and saloons. Others were Catholic priests and nuns, building not only churches but schools and the first hospitals, and saving San Xavier del Bac, as described in Willa Cather’s 1927 novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. Most of the priests were from Auvergne in central France, also the homeland of Lafayette. Other French were traders and ran businesses. Their contributions are often overlooked because many had no descendants, or they married into Mexican and Hispanic families.
PRESENTER: Laurel Cooper, Ph.D.
Laurel’s parents met in the Colorado town where Doc Holliday died. Her father was a second-generation Western Slope Coloradoan, and her mother a Parisian. They lived in Santa Fe and Grand Canyon National Park before moving to Los Angeles where Laurel was born. From early years, she juggled both cultures and languages, and later worked in Tunisia, Zaire (now D.R. Congo), and Mexico. She came to Tucson in 1979 for graduate work in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Often passing Salpointe High School, she wondered about its French name. After finishing her dissertation, Spatial Syntax of Chacoan Great Houses, she started a tour business to host international travelers and began to learn more about French speakers in what is now Arizona and New Mexico.
LOCATION: Tucson Medical Center’s Marshall Conference Center – 5301 E Grant Road 85712 (enter on the east side of TMC)
MEAL COST: $12 per person.
PRINTABLE RESERVATION FORM: PDF FORMAT
Please return reservation by June 2 to P.O. Box 40744, Tucson, AZ 85717. Also, please enclose your payment for the cost of the lunch with the reservation.
For more information please call (520) 795-9484.