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The Shrine of Santa Rita in Vail was constructed by 1914 Arizona football team member Charles Beach (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
— General history
— J.F. “Pop” McKale
— The games
— Comparisons then and now
— Wildcats nickname
— Military service
— Rankings
— The players
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Clipping of actual L.A. Times article published Nov. 8, 1914
Excerpt from L.A. Times, Nov. 8, 1914, authored by Bill Henry:
“Arizona’s cactus-fed athletes, despite heroic efforts on the part of their two halfbacks, (Asa) Porter and (Franklin) Luis, went down to defeat before the Occidental Tigers yesterday afternoon, the tally with all precincts heard from being 14 to 0 in favor of the Tigers.
Confident of rolling up a big score, the Tigers took the field with grins on their faces, but before the game was 10 seconds old they knew they had a battle on their hands.
The Arizona men showed the fight of wild cats and displayed before the public gaze a couple of little shrimps in the backfield who defied all attempts of the Tigers to stop them.”This site will conduct a countdown in a 100-day period, leading up to Arizona’s 2014 football season-opener with UNLV on Aug. 29 at Arizona Stadium. The 100 Days ‘Til Kickoff countdown will include information daily about the historic 1914 Arizona team that helped create the school’s nickname of “Wildcats” because of how they played that fateful day against Occidental.
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Charles Beach was a man of many talents but in his yearbook profile he wrote that desired to become a “thrifty” farmer later in life
About a decade after Charles Pablo Beach was a junior playing for the historic 1914 Arizona Varsity football team, he apparently was down on his luck.
Beach, whose life was so fulfilling after he graduated from Los Angeles High School and left for Arizona in 1912, did not have much to his name working as a ranch hand in Vail in the early 1920s.
Beach and teammate Albert Condron were lured to Tucson by the positive feedback of the Arizona campus by a couple of their Los Angeles High School classmates who graduated the year before.
Beach studied mining and cattle at Arizona and discovered the value of the campus by becoming involved in numerous activities at Arizona. He played football and baseball, acted as part of the junior play group and served with the school’s battalion.
After his graduation in 1916, Beach served briefly in World War I in France. Upon his return in 1919, he lived in Vail and worked on the ranches there.
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THE LAST WEEK IN THE SERIES:
— No. 18: Talents of 1914 football Varsity went well beyond playing field
— No. 19: Emzy Lynch family member recalls peculiar prediction by great uncle
— No. 20: Two 1914 Varsity football members part of student newspaper staff
— No. 21: Development of fraternity life significant 100 years ago
— No. 22: University of Arizona’s seal among firsts of 100 years ago
— No. 23: Rifle popular sport in 1914, football player captained teams
— No. 24: 1914 team members part of required military program on campus
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That is when he met Eben Takamine, who moved to the Vail area from New Jersey for respiratory health reasons. Takamine was the son of Japanese scientist Dr. Jokichi Takamine, who became internationally renowned and wealthy for his isolation of the hormone “adrenalin”.
The 1914 Arizona football team that earned the honor of being named the first “Wildcats” was composed of (front row, left to right): Verne La Tourette, George Seeley, Leo Cloud, Richard Meyer, Asa Porter. Second row: Franklin Luis, Lawrence Jackson, Ray Miller, J.F. “Pop” McKale (coach), Turner Smith, Harry Hobson (manager), Orville McPherson, Albert Crawford, Ernest Renaud. Back row: Albert Condron, Emzy Lynch, Charley Beach, Vinton Hammels, Bill Hendry, George Clawson, Harry Turvey.
(AllSportsTucson.com graphic/Photo from University of Arizona Library Special Collections)
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What they were talking about on this day in 1914
Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1914
A Coast League baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Venice Tigers ends in an 8-8 tie after 18 innings because of darkness. Los Angeles and Venice each had 13 hits and an error. The first night game in major league history was not until 1935.
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The beautiful stained glass windows at the Shrine of Santa Rita in Vail were salvaged from the First Methodist Church in Tucson by Caroline Beach in the early 1930s (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)
The elder Takamine was married to an American, Caroline, who he met at the World’s Exhibition in New Orleans in 1884. A Japan native, he was Buddhist and she was Catholic. He converted to Catholicism out of the love for his wife six months prior to his death in 1922 from a prolonged illness that included liver and kidney failure.
The dedication for the shrine was held on March 31, 1935, attended by more than 600 people. A barbecue with steers from the Beach ranch were cooked in Western fashion over fire pits (Photo courtesy of the Shrine of Santa Rita)
After Dr. Takamine’s death, his widow visited Tucson to spend time with her son, who introduced her to Beach. Caroline Takamine was 56 at the time of her husband’s death and Beach was 23 years younger. Despite the age difference, they fell in love. Caroline moved to Vail and left her son Jokichi Jr. to run the Takamine Laboratory Inc. facility in Clifton, N.J.
Caroline Takamine and Beach married on Aug. 16, 1926 at St. Augustine’s Cathedral in Tucson. They lived on their large Vail cattle ranch, which the new Mrs. Beach dubbed “El Rancho de los Ocotillos”.
In the early 1930s, the Beaches planned and executed the construction of a Catholic church near their ranch in Vail in honor of Dr. Takamine. The church, known as the Shrine of Santa Rita, was also built for the benefit of poor Mexican families who worked on the ranches and for Southern Pacific Railroad. The church is situated between two railroad tracks. Charles Beach engineered the landscape of the church grounds.
Caroline Beach’s relationship with the former Arizona Varsity football and baseball star blossomed despite their varied economic backgrounds.
Caroline Beach (pictured when she was young) was 23 years older than Charles when they married in 1926
“The true story of Charles Beach is difficult to reconstruct,” writes Ann Grigsby, author of the 1996 book Whispered Prayers in the Desert: The History of the Shrine of the Santa Rita. “He must have had some wealth before he met Caroline because he attended the University of Arizona in Tucson and was a gentleman scholar with plenty of time to spare and was connected with Vail ranching in some way.
“Neither of these pursuits were open to penniless drifters early in this century. Nonetheless, rumors persist that prior to meeting Caroline, Charles Beach, as he was remembered by those people who know him, was dirt poor and doing odd jobs for ranchers who were indeed wealthy.”
The dedication ceremony for the opening of the Shrine of the Santa Rita occurred on March 31, 1935. About 600 people attended the gala event, which included a barbecue.
One of the interesting features of the church are the stained glass windows, which were salvaged by Caroline Beach from the First Methodist Church in Tucson which was moving closer to the university in the early 1930s. The Shrine of the Santa Rita was built around those rescued windows and are a focal point of the church.
Caroline passed away in 1954 and Charles in 1967. Both were active in the church’s development and maintenance until their deaths. They were both given memorial services at the shrine upon their deaths.
The now-closed well outside of the Shrine of Santa Rita in Vail. Water was scarce in that area at the time of its construction in the early 1930s. (Javier Morales/AllSportsTucson.com)
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He also writes articles for Bleacher Report and Lindy’s College Sports.
