Louise Hinkle
Birthday: 1919
We wish to honor our mother Louise Hinkle at the University of Arizona for many reasons. Our mother was a teacher of the one room schoolhouse era. While visiting the U of A campus many years ago at a 4-H Conference Mom said she loved the campus. Four of her eight children attended or worked at the U of A. While being a mother of eight she worked as an egg and chicken rancher. Mom carried those heavy baskets of eggs throughout the day collecting and preparing the eggs in the evening to have them ready to take to various markets in the morning. Then she moved on to become the manager and milker on a dairy they bought and ran without any outside help. We are grateful Mom was willing to get up at 3:00 a.m. 24/7 to milk cows and do it again in the late afternoon all for us. She scraped and planned for better housing for her family while still making time to encourage eight children to do their best in school and the activities we wanted to pursue. She supported our varied interests and activities helping us grow into individuals she loved and saw with pride. In her autobiography My Story Mom ended it saying "My life has been busy and I liked it that way. Having 8 children didn't leave much time for play but I enjoyed all of their activities. I have truly been blessed". Well we think we have been blessed. Since if she hadn't been willing to work so hard and long we all would have been raised on welfare and had little ambition in life. After retiring and selling the dairy she continued working as a teacher assistant until she was seventy. Then she volunteered at the elementary schools and helped with taxes until macular degeneration forced her to give up those activities. Mom had a geographical soul and upon retiring she traveled many places throughout North America Central America the Pacific and Europe with her husband sisters and children creating many everlasting memories with them. Mom belonged to various dairy associations and helped start a Homemakers Club in Buckeye. She was a district coordinator for 4 years treasurer for 4 years and served on the nominating committee for 4 years for the United Methodist Women's organization. In 1999 the Central West District honored her as Woman of the Year and she also served as secretary and president of the Avondale Woman's Club. Besides traveling and being a part of organizations Mom enjoyed many summers at her home in Prescott keeping busy sewing doing stained glass knitting and quilting projects for family and friends. Everyone looked forward to our Christmas dish cloths and hand towels. Mom was hospitalized for congestive heart failure and later for kidney failure. She was on kidney dialysis for six months and when her other systems started to shut down she decided to discontinue dialysis. Her eight children whom she raised to be independent and responsible adults survive her. She worked very hard to see that we had the opportunities to go to school do activities if we wanted and was there when we sought advice needed help or just needed a good listener. Since she always liked the U of A campus we her children would like to present a brick in her honor.