Don and Carolyn Honnas: Ranching on the Pocahonnas
August 1, 2008
The Honnas family arrived in Arivaca in 1960, when they bought the Las Jarillas Ranch from Homer and Dottie Osborne. The Honnas family’s roots in Arizona go back to the late 1800s when Don’s grandmother Della and stepfather Peter Honnas arrived in the Sonoita area to do some homesteading. They had their own homestead, but also purchased others as they came up for sale by people who couldn’t make a go of it. Don’s father Cecil married Lottie Moore, who had been teaching at the Empire Ranch School in the late 1920s. Lottie’s mother, Nancy Moore, had come to Arizona about the turn of the century. Lottie was raised in Marana, where she was in the first graduating class of the high school there. Lottie and Cecil were serious ranchers who intended to make a go of it no matter what. Cecil sometimes had to work off the ranch while Lottie took care of the horses and cattle. But Lottie was also the mail carrier on the route to Greaterville. Lottie and Cecil had two boys, Ray and Don.
Don married Carolyn Pine, whose family had been in Southern Arizona for four generations. Her great-grandfather John K. Brown, built the Sahuarita School which was founded by his wife. Carolyn’s step-grandfather, John S. Brown, raised cattle at Sahuarita. Her father, Kenneth Pine was from the Box Canyon area where his mother had property. They were among the first settlers in Santa Cruz County and donated land for the old Empire Ranch school. Carolyn was born in Morenci, but moved to Sonoita at age 4. That was where she grew up and met Don. She has 3 brothers, Mike, Walt and Bruce. The latter lived with them here at Arivaca after their father died.
When Lottie and Cecil decided to retire, they sold their Sonoita ranch, keeping their home there. When Las Jarillas Ranch came up for sale, they decided to buy it. Don and Ray brought their families to live on the ranch. In those days Las Jarillas (or Jarrillas) was about 36 sections of land with a Forest Service grazing lease as well as State land and BLM land. There was 1380 acres of private land. It extended from the Mexican border to Arivaca and from the Tres Bellotas Road to the old Buenos Aires Ranch boundary on the west side of the San Luis Mountains. Ray and his family lived at the Las Jarillas headquarters while Don and Carolyn lived in Arivaca; renting until they could get their house built. In 1962, Ray Honnas left the family business. His half of the ranch, with the headquarters, was sold to Lawrence and Mary Jones.
In 1963 Don and Carolyn built a new house one mile due west of the town of Arivaca, where they raised their children, Debra, Jackie and Cliff. The kids attended Sopori and Sahuarita schools. All of them helped around the ranch. With this background, Cliff became a veterinarian and is now a professor at Texas A&M University, specializing in equine science. (All the emphasis placed on education by their great-grandparents paid off.) The girls also graduated from college, Debra becoming a nurse and Jackie a teacher.
Don and Carolyn are community minded, which they expressed in many ways. Don was on the Sopori School board and Sahuarita School board. Carolyn was an EMT and was involved with other activities like the Homemakers Club. The whole family was involved in church activities. They donated the land on which First Baptist Church is built. If you needed something, they would drop everything to help you, even if it was something like pulling a calf. Don is most proud of the several times that he was able to get people to the doctor in time (before the days of ambulances and helicopters.)
After 40 years in the cattle business, Don and Carolyn decided to retire. Not wanting to see their beautiful property subdivided, they sold part of it to the Chilton Ranch. The headquarters, with its cienaga on Arivaca Creek below the town, they sold to the USFWS’s Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. That is still known as the Honnas Ranch. Down on the Arivaca creek is an old watering hole, which is still known as Honnas’ pond.
Don’s stories about ranching in Sonoita and Arivaca are now collected in a book, Happenings on the Pocahonnas: a Southern Arizona cattle ranch. Some of the valuable contributions of this book include: details of the cattle business, such as the screw worm eradication program, pulling calves and fencing. He tells what it is really like to live on the border, especially when their home was inadvertently built right on an old smuggler’s trail. Of course, smuggling wasn’t a big business in the 1960s, not like it has become today. Don has stories about Arivaca that contribute significantly to the history of the area in the last half of the twentieth century. It’s a little like reading a James Herriot book, with many dog and horse stories, and a few strange neighbor stories as well.
You can get a copy of Don’s book by calling him at 625-5564, or check with Mary at Arivaca Branch Library.
Don will also be signing his books at the October 3 meeting of La Frontera Corral of the Westerners at Casa Community Center in Green Valley.
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