Her birth name has been forgotten; she is only known as Mrs. Andrew Stanley. As obscure as she remains, she left a legacy of a bold, courageous woman who was determined to survive enormous odds in her quest to reunite with her people.
Mrs. Stanley was probably born around 1866 as when she recorded her narrative in 1931, she was about 65 years old. She was a Cibecue Apache living in the White Mountains of Northern Arizona. Her uncle was Chief Diablo, known as Eskinlaw by his people.
When she was about 6 years old, her mother was killed, and she went to live with an aunt. She remembered having to get up early every morning to run and bathe in the river. “In wintertime, when I swam in the river,” she said, “the current would sweep me against the ice and my body would be scraped. I thought it was awful at the time, but now I can appreciate that was the right thing for me.”
Mrs. Stanley and her people lived near Fort Apache. At the age of 14, she became a widow when her husband was killed.
Learning that an old man wanted to marry her, Mrs. Stanley decided to leave Fort Apache. Encouraged by a cousin who also wanted to leave, the two young women headed out of Fort Apache sometime around 1880. They crossed the Black River and rode along the Gila Mountains toward the town of Solomonville (now Solomon) before crossing into New Mexico Territory, making their way to the Rio Grande.
They came upon a group of Chiricahua Apaches who fed them. When she discovered her brother among the Chiricahuas, Mrs. Stanley decided to stay with him, particularly since her cousin had married one of the Chiricahuas and intended to remain.
She was content until her brother was killed.
“It was from that time on that I was a captive to the Chiricahua,” she said. “Those Chiricahua were pretty mean all right. … I had to do just as the Chiricahua told me now.”
The Chiricahua rode east toward the town of Duncan with Mrs. Stanley closely guarded. They stayed several days before their food ran out, and they headed out again. Whenever they came across anyone along their path, a skirmish ensued with the Chiricahua usually on the winning side. The men took the horses of those they killed and butchered them for sustenance.
As the group made their way toward Round Mountain near New Mexico’s Animas Valley, the men left the women to fend for themselves and went on a killing spree. The women spent many days there until the men returned, and they headed south into Mexico.
By this time, Mrs. Stanley knew the Chiricahua would certainly kill her. When they started north toward Fort Huachuca, the men kept her closely guarded. They remained near the fort for a long time before moving on.
“Then those men said that we had been there long enough, so one evening they told us all to saddle up and that we would move from there. As they said this, I was making up my mind what I would do. I had a brown mule there, and I had saddled him up and got all ready. Then we started out and on the way as I rode between them, we came to a tree so that we had to split to get around. I held my mule in and remained on the other side of it from them. They rode on. I don’t know how they could have missed their minds that way, but they must have thought that I was still between them and went right on.”
Mrs. Stanley took off in the opposite direction, not knowing where she was at the time. Traveling only at night, she often lost her way. When she found herself near the town of Tucson, she knew she had ventured too far west.
Finding a good place to hide in a canyon, she unsaddled her mule and led him to water. Suddenly, a man spotted her and called out. Running as fast as she could, she lost her mule but outran the man.
After a lonesome night in the canyon, she started out on foot. Coming upon a horse corral guarded by men and dogs, she knew she had to catch one of the horses. Creeping up to the corral gate, she carefully made her way around one sleeping guard and his dog, cut free a big white horse, leaped on, and raced past the still-snoozing sentinel.
She rode hard and fast until she came across a trickle of water spluttering down a rock. Although she knew she should not drink too much, her thirst overpowered her senses.
According to Mrs. Stanley, “A person who had not had water for a long time should only drink a little. On account of this, I almost died right there and vomited out everything and started to swell up. Then I lost consciousness and lay there for I don’t know how long. But somehow I managed to hold to the bridle reins in one hand and the horse standing there finally moved his head so that it moved my hand and brought me to.”
Staggering to her feet, she mounted the horse and was on the road again.
She recognized Fort Bowie as she passed by, turned north toward Solomonville, cautiously crossed the Gila River as Chiricahuas were in the area, and made her way into the Gila Mountains.
As she forded the Black River, Fort Apache lay before her.
“Below there was a camp of our people,” she said, “but I stayed there alone for six days … then I started to walk down to that camp.” Crying as she entered the camp, she met an uncle watering his horse. Not knowing her at first, the man thought she was a Chiricahua until the two recognized each other.
Mrs. Stanley was home. She had been on the trail for over two months, surviving both two- and four-footed dangers, unwavering in her quest to live out her life among her own people.
