Frances Gillmor papers

Frances Gillmor was born on May 21, 1903, in Buffalo, New York. The only child of Abner Churchill Gillmor and Annie McVicar Gillmor, she grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts and St. George, New Brunswick. She enrolled in the University of Chicago in 1921, but withdrew two years later to pursue her interest in journalism in Palm Beach and St. Augustine, Florida. In 1926 her family moved to Arizona, where Gillmor developed an interest in the culture of the Southwest and its Native American communities. She resumed her college education at the University of Arizona, and earned a B.A. in English from the University in 1928. The English Department offered Gillmor a teaching assistantship upon her graduation, and she began teaching courses in English and creative writing. She also began work on a graduate degree, and received her M.A. in English in 1931. In 1934, after serving as an instructor in English at the University of New Mexico for two years, she accepted a position as professor in the English Department of the University of Arizona, where she would remain for the next 40 years. During the ensuing decades she would pursue a variety of academic and intellectual interests. Her interest in Native American culture led her to Mexico to study Spanish. In 1938 she began studying Aztec codices at the Instituto de Filosofia y Letras. She began work on a biography of the Aztec king Nezahualcoyotl, which would culminate in the 1949 publication of She continued her formal study, and received the from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1957.

Gillmor loved to write, a fact reflected in her numerous literary publications. Before ultimately devoting all her attention to her academic writings, she pursued active interests in and reportage. Her first novel, (1929), drew on the experiences of her youth in New Brunswick, Canada. (1930), and the adaptation of her M.A. thesis, (1934), reveal her interest in Native American culture. Her third novel, (1940) describes life on an Arizona ranch. In 1937 she took up her journalistic pen again to cover the Trotsky trial in Mexico City for the Tucson, Arizona newspaper

She received wide recognition for the quality of her work. A Guggenheim Fellowship awarded in 1959 allowed her to pursue her research interests in Spain. In 1962 she was named a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. In 1969 she received the University of Arizona Alumni Association’s Faculty Achievement Award, and the University officially recognized her classroom abilities by giving her its Creative Teaching Award in 1970. After her retirement from the University in 1973, she remained active as a scholar, continuing to write and contribute to the study of folklore. Frances Gillmor died on October 28, 1993.

The following sources contain additional biographical information: Virginia Rodriguez Rivera, (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, 1967); 15th ed., (Chicago: Marquis, 1976). (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988).