Isabella Greenway

by Kristie Miller

"She was at home on the western range and in New York salons. An energetic entrepreneur who managed a ranch, an airline, and a resort. A politician who became a key player in the New Deal. Isabella Greenway blazed a trail for remarkable women in Arizona politics today, from Janet Napolitano to Sandra Day O'Connor." "Isabella Greenway's life was linked with both Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her infancy was spent on a snow-swept ranch in North Dakota, where young TR was a neighbor and a friend. In her teens, she captivated Edith Wharton's New York as a glamorous debutante. A bridesmaid in the wedding of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Isabella was the bride of Robert Ferguson, a Scottish nobleman and one of TR's Rough Riders. They went west when he developed tuberculosis; after his death, she married his fellow Rough Rider, Arizona copper magnate John Greenway." "In Tucson, the energetic Isabella ran an airline, worked with disabled veterans, and founded the world-famous