Hattie Myrtle Greene Lockett (August 25, 1879[1] – May 19, 1962[2]) was an American writer, rancher, and clubwoman. She was inducted into theArizona Women's Hall of Fame in 1987.
Hattie Myrtle Greene was born inBushnell, Illinois, the daughter of William Greene and Hattie Wallace Greene. The family moved toScottsdale, Arizona when she was in her teens. She trained as a teacher at Bushnell Normal School andTempe Normal School.[3][4]
Greene taught school in Arizona as a young woman.[5] She was founder and first president of the Washington Woman's Club in Phoenix in 1912,[6] and she organized the Tucson Junior Women's Club.[2] When her husband died in 1921, she took charge of the family sheep ranch.[7][8] She attended National Wool Growers Association meetings, won awards for her prize sheep, and worked with theUnited States Forest Service on grazing reform.[3]
In 1932, after her children were grown, she earned a master's degree in anthropology at theUniversity of Arizona; her thesis, later published as a book, was titled "The Unwritten Literature of theHopi: First Hand Accounts of Customs, Traditions and Beliefs of the Northern Arizona Indian Tribe".[3][4]
In her later life, Lockett was primarily a writer and speaker.[9][10] She published poems and short stories, and served a term as president of the Arizona chapter of theLeague of American Pen Women. She was also president of the Flagstaff Writers Club, active in the Phoenix Writers' Club,[11] and the founder of Arizona Poetry Day[12] and a related statewide contest.[13] She served on the national advisory board of theGeneral Federation of Women's Clubs.[3]
Greene married Henry Claiborne Lockett, a widowed rancher with three children, in 1905. They had two sons, Claiborne (Clay)[17] and Robert.[18] Her husband died in 1921. After years of living withParkinson's disease, Lockett died in 1962, at the age of 82, at a rest home inPhoenix.[2][19]
In 1978, her son Clay Lockett established the Hattie Lockett Awards at the University of Arizona, presented annually to three undergraduates "who demonstrate great promise as poets."[20][21]
