THIS TALK WAS GIVEN BEFORE EPES
RANDOLPH LODGE #32, ON MARCH 18,
1987 AS A PART OF THEIR ENLIGHTENMENT
PROGRAM, WITH MEMBERS OF TUCSON LODGE #4
AND MEMBERS OF NELSON C. BLEDSOE LODGE #74 IN
ATTENDANCE.

NELSON CHARLES BLEDSOE, JR

Before entering into the talk this evening, I would like to thank all of you for coming: The members of Epes Randolph, those of the Tucson Lodge, and those of Nelson C. Bledsoe Lodge, and I would especially like to thank Brother Hutchins for giving me the chance to talk on someone I loved, and worked for, and trusted.

Looking around this evening, I see many of you that did know Doctor Bledsoe; to you, much of this will not be too new. To the rest of you, I hope that I can be interesting in my efforts to bring my own personal contacts with him into my discussion. Sit back, therefore, and enjoy yourselves as I try to earn my keep and my dinner.

As I began thinking of this evening’s talk, I realized that I associated the doctor with so many other great masons from our Grand Lodge who deserve, at the very least, to have their lives and actions recorded for posterity. Yes, since the beginning of our Grand Lodge, in 1882, many Masons with outstanding records, both in Masonry and in the life of the Territory and State, are noted. From Phoenix there is really no outstanding one until the advent of Quentin J. Anderson in the 1920’s and 1930’s; from Prescott came Morris Goldwater and Rickmer Fredericks who helped form our Grand Lodge; from Globe, James R. (Jim) Malott, a wonderful man and Mason; from Douglas James H. Barrett, noted as a benefactor of men; from Flagstaff came Edwin S. Miller who, seemingly, was as much in demand in forming the Eastern Star in the state as a Mason; and finally, from Tucson Lodge #4 emerged George (Uncle George) Roskruge argumentatively the most devoted Mason of both this and the last century, who did more for the craft in the territory and state than any other, and whose life and history should be especially chronicled. Tonight, though, we journey to Bisbee to talk of their representative among these august and dedicated brethren, so I preface my remarks by saying, “Doctor Nelson Charles Bledsoe, Jr., This is your Life!!!”

First, and foremost, I am not going to delve too deeply into the life and times of the doctor;---if I pique your interest in him, most of his accomplishments can be found at the Pioneer Historical Society home on East Second Street. Rather, although I do have to tell you much of his history of course, as I proceed I shall try to instill in my attending remarks some of the personal touch I had with this man through the years, a touch for which I shall always be grateful.

The doctor was born in Ventura, California on September 1, 1876, the eldest son of Nelson Charles Bledsoe and Ann Jeanette McCreary Bledsoe. After Graduation from the Los Angeles Normal School (now UCLA), he began his career as a teacher in San Bernardino in 1896, but after three years there, he transferred to the Los Angeles Schools where he taught for three more years. During this latter period of employment, he attended the University Southern California Medical School at night, receiving his medical diploma in 1903; served a year as an intern in the Los Angeles County Hospital, and then came to the territory in 1904 and to Bisbee where he was a surgeon in the Calumet and Arizona Mining Company Hospital. In 1906, he returned to Los Angeles to claim as his bride, Harriet Bouton Gage, whom he brought to Bisbee to share his life there. In 1931, he removed to Tucson to open his own office for the practice of medicine until he might retire, but retire he never did, because nearly until the last days of his life some of his older patients came to him for assistance with their coughs and colds. The Doctor died on February 22, 1974 at his home in El Encanto. Perhaps you thought I was to sit down now and the talk was over? Nay, not so! We will now commence to explore the different avenues in his life.

In his role as a doctor, I related that he came to Bisbee in 1904 as a surgeon, --in 1910, he was promoted to head surgeon. Because his duties were not only at the hospital, he was forced to tend his patients whithersoever dispersed. In his early times in Arizona, he traveled by horse and buggy. Can you imagine going to Douglas or to Tombstone from Bisbee by buggy to ease some patient’s troubles when there were no roads to follow? The Doctor told me that he had to ride high in the buggy to see where he was going. But, autos came, and with them better roads and a somewhat easier life. He continued as an employee of the mining company until they sold out to Phelps Dodge in 1931, and this was one of the down points in his life for he was brokenhearted over the loss of his hospital. He then removed to Tucson, opened his office and served the people well until his death at 97 years.

As a Mason, the doctor was raised in Perfect Ashlar Lodge #12 in 1905. This same year he also joined the York Rite Bodies, two years later becoming the Commander of Bisbee Commandery #4. His first Grand Office was held in 1913, when he was elected the Grand Commander of the Knights Templar for the newly formed State of Arizona. In 1914, He was High Priest of Landmark Chapter #6 in Bisbee and he travelled the Hot Sands of El Zaribah Temple in Phoenix. In 1917 and 1918, he was Master of his lodge and also joined the Scottish Rite in Tucson. From 1918 until he left Bisbee in 1931, he was on the advisory board for Demolay. In 1919, he was Illustrious Master of Huachuca Council #1 in Bisbee. In 1921, he received his first Scottish Rite decoration being invested with the Red Cap of a Knight Commander Court of Honour. In 1922, he was the Potentate of El Zaribah Shrine in Phoenix. In 1925, he was the Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter in Arizona, and was also invested with the Demolay Cross of Honor. In 1926, he was elevated to our highest office in the state, of course that of Grand Master, and also was honored with the 33rd degree of Freemasonry in our Tucson Valley. In 1927, he was elected illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council Royal and Select Masters in Arizona, and walked high when he was invested with the Demolay Honorary Legion of Honor. In 1935, he was elected venerable master of the Tucson Lodge of Perfection (now held by our own Worshipful Brother Robert Francis Hannon); in 1936, he held the office of Commander in the Tucson Council of Kadosh; and from 1941-1952, he was Master of Kadosh in the Consistory. These last three offices he held were in the Scottish Rite. In 1942, he received the Knight York Cross of Honor which showed that he had been seated in the East in all of our York Rite Bodies. The year 1952 marked his elevation to deputy for our state in the Scottish Rite from which post he was again elevated to a seat on the Supreme Council of that illustrious body and to the post of Sovereign Grand Inspector General for Arizona; this latter in 1957. Also in this year, he received the Rainbow Cross of Color and was invited to join in the Royal Order of Scotland. In 1960, he was appointed Grand Herald of the Supreme Council, advancing until his resignation in 1973, through the position of Second Grand Equery to First Grand Equery and then to Grand Chamberlain. In 1931, he was invited to the Red Cross of Constantine in the Phoenix, Arizona Conclave and became its Sovereign at a later time, but when the Tucson Conclave was formed he was its Sentinel for most of the years until his death.

As a citizen he was also very active. While living in Bisbee, he was at times on the board of Education, a City Councilman, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a Vice-President of the Miners and Merchants Bank. He is best known in Tucson for his service to the Pioneer Historical Society for he was its President from 1949-1956, the years in which the trials and tribulations of building their new home on East Second Street were encountered and accomplished. He was all of his life a staunch Democrat, being once a delegate to their national convention from Arizona. He fully believed in our system of government and I think there are several people among us here tonight who remember his forceful dissertation on Laws. “Obey the law,--if it is a bad law, change it,--but obey the law!” To all of these activities as a doctor, as a citizen, and as a mason, he found time to be active and take part in the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Rotary, the Old Pueblo Club and the Sojourners.

My own personal contact with the doctor occurred when I petitioned for the degrees of the Scottish Rite in 1956. At these conferrals, I heard two persons, not overly loud, but somewhat so, in the lobby each time we had a break between degrees. I soon found that one was Henry H. (Heinie) Young, the director of the class whose whistle I soon tired of; The other was the Doctor laughing at the jokes which Brother Young told with such humor and consistency. Brother Young was a retired Railroad Hoghead and Doctor Bledsoe lived among the hardy people in the Territory, but despite this, I never heard either one of them use the name of the Lord in vain, and I knew them quite a while until they passed away.

As the years passed, the doctor and I became good friends; during discussions with him I learned many of his philosophies, his likes, his dislikes, his outlook on life. About his early days in Bisbee, because he was so active in the life of the city, work, and the lodge, he told me that all of his memory work in ritual and in the manner in which he would present decisions to the city or hospital were done when he was riding on the high seat of his buggy behind his favorite horse. He told me of having to attend and give testimony at a trial before a judge and magistrate and that this judge ordered the sheriff to search everyone in the courtroom for guns. I think I remember the words he used to finish this,-- “Would you believe that sucker searched everyone!” He told of a fellow escaping from an enclosure in which he was confined because he was thought to have smallpox. The doctor searched for him among the huts of what he called “Tin Town,” finally found him and had the sheriff pick him up. He told that the sheriff had him ride behind him on his horse, and the doctor continued that the sheriff would never contract the disease, he was so drunk that the germs could never penetrate the stupor he was in.

I have told you of all the offices he held throughout his Masonic career and I marvel at the extent of his ability to the Indian settlements along the mountains between here and Phoenix and he told that the train stopped at every one of them.

Doctor Bledsoe was indeed interested in the youth of the country. He remarked to me one time that some of the greatest joy he ever received from any of his many honors, came at the hands of the Demolay Boys and the Rainbow girls. He show this by providing scholarships at his death, one to the medical school at the University, the other to any university of the state. Most Worshipful Brother Kidwell is the person on the committee of scholarships in the Scottish Rite who pays the money for these scholarships, but the Office of Scholarship and Rewards at the University administer the whole program.

The good Doctor was a dedicated and devoted man, of this there is no doubt, but he was set in his ways. He either liked you of he did not, and if he did not you almost knew it. I would hurry to say after this, though, that there were very few people that he did not like. Neither did he like to hurt people, and I helped him with this one time when I was his deputy for the Valley of Tucson in the Scottish Rite. He had another brother from Phoenix who acted in my capacity in Phoenix’s bodies and he was beginning to act in a manner resembling senility. He was in a quandary as to what to do. I had the bright idea that he might let us both go from our jobs, that I did not mind the stepping down, and that this would relieve the situation. I received my letter of demotion but I rather felt the thanks from the doctor included in it,--one of the few favors I was ever to give him.

In addition to not liking to see people hurt through his actions, he also did not like to see people hurt at the expense of others. In the middle 60’s, just one worthy brother was hurt through the actions of the Arizona Conclave of the Red Cross of Constantine. The doctor, through his own efforts, spent his own time and money to secure a charter for a Conclave here in Tucson, and I might go on further to state that the brother who had been hurt was a brother in our conclave here in Tucson.

I should say a few words of the Doctor’s Offices in the Scottish Rite Supreme Council. When Harry Drachman (a member of #4) died in 1952, after serving for forty years as a deputy for the Scottish Rite in the state, there were two brethren in the state who were qualified for the post,--the doctor, and James R. Malott of Globe. Brother Malott had been our Grand Master, as had the doctor, and he had a fund of backers from the Northern part of the State. Of course the doctor had his family of backers too, and when the arrow was spun it stopped at the doctor’s name. Remaining just a deputy until 1957, the doctor had little except his own funds to assist him in his work, but upon getting elected to a place in the Supreme Council, and becoming the Sovereign Grand Inspector General, he could travel and do much more because the funds allotted to these officers, while not overly abundant, are such that quite a bit can be used for the betterment of any avenue of the craft. I have told you before that the doctor was fair in all his dealings,--all during his term as the head officer in the state for the Scottish Rite he had equal jurisdiction by population between Phoenix and Tucson,--they had Maricopa County and we had the rest of the State, which nearly split the number of lodges and the number of people right down the middle. This fairness was proven to be good, for when the jurisdictional lines were shifted so that the numbers of brethren in the Phoenix Valley far outnumber ours, where before the concurrent jurisdiction was started the bodies in each valley contained approximately the same number.

For those of us who were quite close to the doctor, the last few years of his life troubled us. He was a proud man and everything that he accomplished was done with a certain amount of speed, and with stamina. On our first trip to San Francisco’s Workshop for the Rite, our plane schedule for the return was at night, and we had a long wait in Los Angeles. He weathered the tedious schedule which we had with much more ease than the rest of us, and we all must have been at least thirty years younger. Even over seventy years of age, his trips up any stairs were those of a much younger man. I can remember when he first slowed down a bit; then he used a cane; then came the offer of assistance from one of us which was refused; then the assistance was accepted; and then finally it was asked for, but only from someone who knew him well and that he loved and taught and trusted. With the advancing years his hearing also faded but he never wore a hearing aid of any kind, and I never did decide whether this was vanity or not. Being one of the first to use x-ray, he was not aware of the troubles consistent with its improper use, and this resulted in his left hand having been affected,--to such an extent that he had the middle finger of his left hand taken off because it looked so bad.

So far I have told you of the doctor’s actions,--now let me take a moment to tell you of his inactions. These consisted only of his taking vacations through the heat of the summer months and going to Del Mar in California to spend the time at leisure. Did you fellows know that up till the middle fifties when air conditioning became quite prevalent in Arizona, most, who could afford to do so, would absent themselves for the full summer and return in the fall. The university campus looked bleak and forlorn for the want, not only of students, but moreso for the want of the instructors. The only other recreation taken by the doctor was weekend or holiday trips to his ranch situated in Ramsey Canyon which is in the mountainous region of Southern Arizona. This ranch he willed to the government for its use when he died.

The only black mark, if it would be considered so, on the doctor was his participation in the evacuation, a deportation really, of the wobblies from the city of Bisbee into New Mexico. It seems that the International Workers of the World had come to Bisbee to unsettle the miners as it had done in so many other places throughout the country. These I.W.W.’s or Wobblies or I Wont Workers, tried to get the miners to strike for higher wages and better conditions even though they were completely satisfied with conditions as they were. Because the situation was getting out of hand, the sheriff deputized many of the citizenry, and the doctor was one of those who took part. Because of this part, the doctor was arrested, along with the others deputized, for kidnapping the wobblies when they put them in freight cars and sent them across the border into New Mexico. A trial ensued in which one of the men arrested acted as an exemplar for the many, and he was finally acquitted on the grounds of a “necessity to save the Community.” There was much confusion and disagreement about this instance, and I never heard the doctor talk about this instance even once all the time I knew him.

Finally, I am so glad that the doctor will be remembered in the future. When the Nelson Charles Bledsoe Lodge adopted his name as the name for their lodge, unless grave things happen in the future he will always be a part of the Masonry of the state as he should be. Because he donated his medical instruments to the Arizona Pioneer Historical Society, his memory will remain there too, for they intend to build a room and furnish it with the somewhat antiquated tools he used when he first began his practice of medicine. Brethren, nearly all of the facts I have accounted here this evening have been memories of my own contact with the doctor as I remember them, a great man and Mason, a great exemplar for the principles of our great fraternity. Thank you for your kind attention.

ADDENDA------------2001

ADDENDUM #1
Doctor Bledsoe was very interested in all “youth” groups as I have noted in my article. Since writing it, I have learned that there is a group of youngsters I had, unknowingly, missed. It was the Boy Scouts of America. He was very active in the activity of these young men as an advisor for many of his years in Bisbee.

ADDENDUM #2
When N. C. Bledsoe Lodge #74, F & AM was in its infancy as a new lodge, I, having been a good friend of the Doctor for many years, desired to join and be a “Charter Member.” At the time, I had membership in Canastota Lodge #231 in New York (my Mother Lodge) and another membership in Epes Randolph here in Tucson. Since my Mother Lodge did only allow Dual memberships at that time, I could not become a Charter Member. Only last year I found out that the New York Grand Lodge had changed its regulations from the former Dual memberships to its allowance for Plural memberships. I did immediately secure a petition from the Lodge, presented it, was elected, and now gladly enjoy the benefits and the privileges of my Brethren there.

Nelson C. Bledsoe Lodge #74, F&AM

Chartered under the Grand Lodge of Arizona

4830 S. 6th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85714 

Phone: 520-261-8076 | Email: NBLodge74@gmail.com

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