To make the desert "blossom as the rose" takes water, lots of it. In 1878, when the pioneers settled in the area East of Phoenix and Tempe, south of the Salt River, in central Arizona, they found remnants of old canals that the original inhabitants of the area dug hundreds of years before. These early Native Americans had been given the name Hohokam by later Indian tribes. The name meant "Those who have disappeared, or are all gone," because all that was left of these first people were their ruins. The pioneers cleared out the ancient canals and used them to bring water from the river onto the desert. Soon Mesa, Arizona, was a flourishing community.
Cottonwood trees grew along the banks of the dirt canals, creating beautiful, cool shady oasis' on the desert, but when the monsoons came the river flooded, and sometimes so did the canals. I remember driving to see the river one summer when it was flooding. The water rolled and tumbled and sounded like thunder rumbling along, throwing huge trees around like matchsticks, while big boulders washed against each other sending the water splashing into the air as it rushed across the desert. It spread out far beyond it's normal channel, covering a huge swatch of desert, completely submerging the bridge that normally crossed it and tearing out it's foundation. I remember being fascinated and terrified at the same time.
Many years earlier, when my grandmother was a child, flooding on the river was even more intense since no dams had yet been built to store and save the excess water. She wrote about the floods that would come rolling down the river and overflow the ditches. Once the ditch overflowed into their yard after a big storm and drowned some of their little baby chicks. They could hear the river roaring from their home, it was only a little over a mile away, and they would pile into their wagon and drive over to see the amazing, terrifying sight.
One day Ethel took her little brother to the school-house to watch her big brother practice for a play. The actors were practicing out under the porch of the school house while Ethel and her little brother sat on a bridge that crossed the ditch in front of the school, playing in the water. It had rained and the water was high, with sticks and leaves rushing by to catch and throw onto the bank. All of a sudden Ethel couldn't see her little brother. He had caught a big stick and it had pulled him into the water. She jumped up and ran along the ditch, wringing her hands in despair as she looked for the little boy, but he was no where to be seen.
Ethel's big brother and the neighbor boy saw her running up and down the bank. Guessing what had happened they came running to the ditch. The big boys dived up under the bridge and found her little brother caught in the limb. Pulling him out, they rolled him on the grass and soon he began to sputter, and thank goodness he was all right. Ethel was so grateful that her big brother was watching over her, and that Heavenly Father had heard her prayer.
(Taken from memories written by Ethel H. Stewart)
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