Who the Mary of Maryvale was


Maryvale is a community in Phoenix that goes from Camelback Road to McDowell and about the Agua Fria River to 43rd Avenue. It was built by John F. Long, who created it as a master planned community. His incentive to do so was the critical lack of housing for the people who were moving to Phoenix after World War II, especially the servicemen who were starting new families.

I have friends who grew up in Maryvale. And as a history adventurer, Maryvale has always fascinated me, and I'm always interested in learning more. And the best place to start is with who Maryvale was named after, Mary P. (Tolmachoff) Long, the wife of John F. Long. Yes, the same Tolmachoff family that has the farm at 75th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.

Today a friend of mine took me on a tour of Maryvale, including seeing the new construction near Grand Canyon University. And it's the first time I'd seen Marivue Park, which is on Osborn.

I'm fascinated with the names of things. Names of cities, names of streets. And some of them really don't mean anything. But Maryvale meant a lot. And the next time you're at the Maryvale Baseball Stadium, stop and smell the roses, and note the plaque there at the entrance, and think of Mary.

John F. Long and Mary, the Mary of Maryvale.

The roses at Maryvale Baseball Park
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. If you like Phoenix history and would like to help support my efforts to preserve and share precious digital historic images, please consider becoming a patron. Thank you!

Become a Patron!

Comments

  1. Maryvale ManAugust 7, 2019 at 11:43 PM

    Mary Tolmachoff maybe related to Tolmachoff Farms. Could that account of some of the land John Long built homes on.
    I live in a John Long Home. From 31st to 33rd avenues from Rose lane to Bethany Home Road is a subdivision originally called Maryvale Terrace. Built in 1954. This is where Maryvale starts. There are many more than a hundred John Long Homes from East of 31st avenue to West of 35th avenue. Between Bethany Home Road and Missouri Avenue. Maryvale Pool was located at 31st Avenue and West Missouri Avenue. It was removed along with a water pump and storage tank across Missouri Avenue. An open irrigation ditch ran along 31st Avenue. Actually between two sides of the road. A dirt road ran beside the ditch from Missouri to Camelback road. It was lined with cottonwood Trees.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more