Walker, Frances

This interview is part 1 of 3 and was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on December 3rd, 2018. The interview covers the following themes: 

b. 1931 

  • Family background, including grandmother’s move to Phoenix in 1918. Walker’s experience living in small towns across Arizona as a child. Exploring Mars Hill and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. 

  • Walker’s childhood interest in science. Dropping out of the University of Arizona and working at Fischer Contracting to support mother and siblings. 

  • Memories of the Great Depression and World War II.  

  • The mobility and agency of children. Safety. 

  • Mother’s riveting job at Goodyear during World War II. Employment options for women in Walker’s generation and her mother’s generation. 

  • Enrolling at the University of Arizona at 17 to study engineering. Reception by male faculty and employers. Applying at the Arizona Highway Department.  

  • Social life at the University of Arizona. Dorm curfews, dress code, and house mothers. The Ramblers hiking club. Locations for hiking. Meeting husband Walter in hiking group and first date at Caruso’s. 

  • Reading, from childhood to adulthood. Radio programming during childhood.    

  • Returning to the UA after marriage. Husband’s work at Hughes and return to UA for PhD in metallurgical engineering. Husband’s teaching at UA, concern with mining smelter pollution, and silencing pressure from Phelps Dodge. Husband’s inconclusive investigation of metal sample purportedly from a UFO, the ensuing media circus, and his departure from the UA. 

  • A posthumous physics degree for Walker’s grandmother. 

  • Walker’s university courses, finals, and professional exam. 

  • Working in civil engineering during the 1950s. Plentiful jobs, a booming economy, and massive infrastructure investment. 

  • Teaching first aid courses for the Red Cross during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Civil Defense and the formation of Southern Arizona Rescue Association. Death of Boy Scouts in 1958 snowstorm and lack of strong search and rescue operation. Pima County Sheriff Waldon Burr’s attempt to centralize search and rescue within the Sheriff’s Department during the 1960s. 

  • The cold war: nuclear preparedness, psychology of living under nuclear threat, visiting a Titan II silo. 

This interview is part 2 of 3 and was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on December 13th, 2018. The interview covers the following themes:

  • Hiking, backpacking, and outdoors culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Backpacks and gear. 

  • Exploring the Navajo reservation, seeing the Glen Canyon Dam under construction, and wilderness adventures. Relationship with natural world when you have no maps and can’t call for help. 

  • Changing outdoor culture and attitudes towards public lands in the 1970s: more hikers, vandals, and state regulation. Water quality.  

  • Projects for Arizona Highway Department: Florence Bypass route, Oracle bypass, widening south 12th Avenue. 

  • Starting a career in a male-dominated field. 

  • The professionalization of the Highway Department. Political resistance to a state-wide grid. Rise of calculators and computers in the 1970s. Barry Goldwater and DeConcini family reshaping road projects to benefit their interests. 

  • Office safety issues and dealing with bureaucracy. 

  • Male opposition to Walker’s promotion to District Design Engineer. Leaving the Highway Department in 1979. 

  • Interstate-10 construction: interchanges at Grant and Ina, lack of awareness of the impact of Interstates in the 1950s, inability to anticipate growth. Groundwater pumping near Red Rock causing subsidence and disruption of I-10 survey. Automobile-centric design, difficulty in adding bike and mass transit infrastructure. 

This interview is part 3 of 3 and was recorded at the base of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona on January 14th, 2019. The interview covers the following themes: 

  • Husband Walter’s interest in UFOs. Acquaintance with UA professor James McDonald. Visit by UFO aficionado and later cult leader Marshall Applewhite. Metalurgical analysis for US Air Force crash forensics.  

  • Smelter pollution. 

  • Highway construction during the 1950s and the politics of freeway locations and displacement. Best practices for highway construction in 1950s, federal funding for highways, ignorance of flash floods, and underbuilding of bridges.  

  • Bypass roads around communities and conflicting desires within communities. 

  • The rise of limited access roadways. 

  • Car culture. The move of freight to highways, road trip culture. 

  • Decline of passenger rail. 

  • Favorite and least favorite projects from career, including State Route 387. 

  • Retirement and volunteering at Old Adobe Riding School on River Road, property enclosure in the foothills.  

  • Backpacking and beginning of the Summit Hut, early small-business equipment companies. 

  • Civil engineering consulting business. 

  • Exploring are that would later be the Ironwood National Monument area for magnetite ore. 

  • Current volunteer work with Southern Arizona Rescue Association and changes in emergency care. GPS and cell phones. 

Aengus Anderson