Tag: history

BAZY

bazy

The horse world has lost a piece of history as the breeder and owner of Al-Marah Arabians, Bazy Tankersley, passed away yesterday at her home in Tucson, AZ. Bazy was a founding sponsor of HorseTales.org, family friend and inspiration to my father with her decades of knowledge about bloodlines, conformation and training. As she said recently, “I was blessed to do what I loved and now (getting older) to remember the names of all my horses.” Mrs. Tankersely had thousands of friends – four and two footed.
Here’s a video of her at the farm

And the obit from the local paper;

Ruth “Bazy” McCormick Tankersley, renowned Arabian horse breeder and the founder of St. Gregory College Preparatory School, died Tuesday at her home. She was 91.
Tankersley bought her first purebred Arabian horse when she was 19 years old and opened Al-Marah Arabians in her early 20s when she and her husband moved to Tucson in 1941, according to Star archives.
Tankersley moved the ranch to Maryland in the 1950s but returned to Tucson in the mid-1970s.
In 2001, Tankersley bequeathed the 85-acre property at 4101 N. Bear Canyon Road to the University of Arizona, which will continue to use the property as a working ranch.
Tankersley also helped found horse breeder organizations, created a program to train young horse lovers and was a supporter of Therapeutic Riding of Tucson, known as TROT, a program that helps children with disabilities ride horses.
“You see, I come from that old-fashioned background of noblesse oblige: If you’re born with money, you have an obligation to do good works for others,” Tankersley said in a biography. “Only in recent years did I come to feel that through Arabian horses I might do more for my fellows than in any other way.”
Tankersley was born in Chicago in 1921. Her father, Medill McCormick, was a U.S. senator from Illinois and her mother, Ruth Hanna McCormick, was an Illinois congresswoman. Both parents were also in the newspaper industry.
Tankersley’s uncle, Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, appointed her publisher of the Washington Times-Herald. Tankersley wrote a column for the Tribune after the Times-Herald was purchased by the Washington Post in 1954.
Continuing her mother’s passion for education, Tankersley founded two schools in Maryland and St. Gregory in Tucson.
She donated millions of dollars to the school and gave an annual donation of $100,000 to be used for scholarships, according to Star archives.
Tankersley was a board member of several organizations in Tucson, including the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, where she served as president in the late 1970s.
“Bazy was an enormously generous person and I got involved with many causes in my life here in Tucson and whenever I needed help financial or just good support, I could turn to Bazy, she was just enormously generous,” said George Rosenberg, one of Tankersley’s longtime friends and former editor of the Tucson Citizen.
Though Tankersley had a privileged life, her longtime friend Marty Lynch said she remained very down to earth.
“She was the most genuine, normal person I’d ever known,” Lynch said. “She was interested in people, in animals, in the world and had the background of being part of all of them.”
A memorial service for Tankersley is scheduled for Feb. 25 at 1:30 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 3738 N. Old Sabino Canyon Road.

Rosemary Farley Speaks!

Reading Eagle photo: Bill Uhrich

Thanks to;

Ron Devlin — The Reading Eagle

They met at a party in New York City to celebrate the first anniversary of Yank, the Army magazine, in the early 1940s.

He was in the Army, assigned to write and edit at Yank. She was an up-and-coming John Robert Powers Agency fashion model who appeared in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

Somewhat prophetically, Walter Farley and Rosemary Lutz spent their first date horseback riding in Central Park.

Walter, who had already written “The Black Stallion,” would go on to write 20 sequels about a boy and his majestic Arabian horse. Many of them were written at an Earl Township farm the Farleys bought after marrying in May 1945, as World War II ended in Europe.

Rosemary, 90, spends summers in Earl Township, where her husband died in 1989. In winter, she lives in Venice, Fla.

She comes to the Kitchen Table, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of “The Black Stallion,” to revisit the heady post-World War II era in New York and chat about the solitude her husband found on a secluded farm in Berks County.

What was New York like in 1945?

RF: It was a wonderful, marvelous time. We walked all over the city the night it was announced that the war had ended in Europe. People were celebrating everywhere. There was a feeling that everything was going to be great. It didn’t turn out that way, though. In a few short years, we had the McCarthy era.

Was Walter blacklisted?

RF: No. But we knew friends and writers who were blacklisted. It was a very sad time.

I understand Lauren Bacall was one of the models you knew in New York?

RF: Yes. We weren’t close friends, but she lived nearby and we were both modeling in the early 1940s. Her name wasn’t Lauren Bacall until director Howard Hawks cast her with Humphrey Bogart in “To Have and Have Not” in 1944. That’s what made her a star.

How did you get the farm in Earl Township?

RF: We were living in Greenwich Village and traveling a lot. We bought the farm as a place to keep books and things while we were away. Walter used to say when he looked out every window in the house he wanted to see a horse. That wasn’t the case, but we had thoroughbreds and horses for harness racing. Turns out, we were here when our first child, Pam, was born in 1949. We didn’t have a phone here, and we had to use a neighbor’s to call the doctor.

Walter wrote “Black Stallion” books in an outbuilding?

RF: Yes. Walter needed a place of his own to write. It was quiet here. This has always been a place of refuge.

Did did you ever edit Walter’s writing?

RF: Yes. I’d read his manuscripts over and we’d discuss the material he’d written. Sometimes, I’d suggest changes.

What has been the lasting impact of Walter’s books?

RF: So many people say their lives were affected by “The Black Stallion” books. At first, I wondered how could that be. But after hearing it so many times, I believe it. We still get fan mail.

At the Kitchen Table, reporter Ron Devlin chats with Berks Countians whose experiences and accomplishments reflect the region’s character and culture. He can be contacted at 610-371-5030 or rdevlin@readingeagle.com