Thomas Keith Marshall [3 AUG 1870 - 20 MAY 1931] was born in Anderson, Kansas of father Joseph Thomas Marshall [1838-1892] and mother Susan Elizabeth Lahar [1844-1933]. Thomas only sibling was his sister Mary Alice Marshall [1872-1946], his parents second and only other child.
In the 1880s the family traveled for weeks by horse drawn wagon to what was then considered the Northwest. That area later became better known as Washington State bordering with Canada along its northern edge. Adventure quickly captured the young healthy athletic man's imagination, and the areas for young Thomas Keith Marshall to explore in the Northwest seemed endless to him.
The major and smaller local newspapers of the United States and around the world in 1897-1898 boldly headlined daily stories and accounts of huge amounts of gold to be easily found laying right out on the ground, in streams, and along the river banks in the Yukon Territory of Canada.
Newspaper reporters interviewed hordes of adventuresome men from all around the world who were gathering at the busy ports of Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California trying to book their passage if even just for a single spot to sleep out on the steamer ships deck for the rough sea voyage up to the starting off point of Skagway, Alaska.
The cities, officials, authorities, merchants in those United States port towns were all suddenly overwhelmed. Father north up in Canada the only law then amounted to a mere handful of Royal Canadian Mounted Police [aka 'Mounties'] to patrol and administer as the only government representative for hundreds and often thousands of miles of wild territory in every direction. Winters at 50-60 below zero there in the Yukon Territory of Canada were unforgiving, and deadly.
Eager adventurers along with wanted criminals of all walks of life flooded into the busy ports purchasing goods and gaining passage. That while those successful early gold seekers arriving back to Seattle and San Francisco unloaded the sacks of their gold dust and gold nuggets showing the glittering shine of the precious yellow metal to astonished newspaper reporters pushing their way up to the gang planks trying to get first hand stories for the then eager news hungry public.
It was 'Gold Fever' ...
For Thomas Keith Marshall the magnet of the north pulled him and pointed his feet north. Saying his goodbyes to his mother, sister, and friends Thomas set out with a backpack and some money in his pockets heading out for the goldfields far to the north. It was to be a far more perilous dangerous journey than he or any of the gold seekers would ever imagine.
For some of the survivors of the "Trail of '98" word had spread of another gold strike this time down in the Arizona Territory of the United States. The whispers, tales, rumors between the men themselves, and news articles told that it was warmer, safer, easier, and did not snow.
What would later be termed, "The Last Gold Rush"' was on to the Territory Of Arizona!
Thomas Keith Marshall soon had pointed both feet and all his youthful determination headed to the south. It was a long and perilous journey made on foot, hiking over mountains, fording raging rivers, on horseback, riding in horse drawn wagons, traveling in stage coaches, and booking tickets on railroads of the 'Last of the West.'
After some prospecting in parts of the Arizona Territory, for young Thomas Marshall the trail led through Phoenix, various desert mining towns, and soon on to Tucson, Arizona.
Then in his mid 20s, both more stable work and a better education were on Thomas mind. The days of gold strikes and adventuring were over. Tucson, Arizona was growing, still just a little on the wild side to keep it interesting, horses and horse drawn wagons still moved through the streets day and night, Tucson offered work and opportunity, and Tucson had a recently established very small university that was offering some educational classes.
Thomas, already a highly educated graduate of the "School of Hard Knocks" as well as y educated to an accomplished level of reading, writing, public speaking, and basic mathematics skills seemed to be at the right place at the right time. He still needed to complete some of the classes taught in 'Normal School' of the time period. The University also offered just those classes.
Thomas was a sober hardworking focused worker, skilled in labor, construction, property maintenance and landscaping. The young man also had a real passion for one of the United States then most engaging games... Football.
It was leather helmets, no padding, long sleeve shirts, some skill and some brute muscle force. Thomas by then was in his late 20s, many of his classmates were almost half his age. However, that never stopped or slowed any of them in the slightest.
At the University in Tucson, Arizona Thomas Keith Marshall the student and star Football Player and the aged Louise Henriette Focuar the woman Professor met.
In time the student began working with the professor at her real estate properties, and a passionate relationship beyond working unfolded between the two.
Louise Focuar had re-located to Tucson, Arizona from Mexico, City Mexico where she had lived after leaving her established family's home in Massachusetts before a stop in Denver, Colorado in hopes of curing health ailments including lung ailments and Tuberculosis.
Within one year of her arrival in Tucson, Arizona enrolling as a graduate student for the 1898-1899 semester Louise was appointed an instructor of the romance languages in the then one main building school classes were being held in.
Soon she quit her position at the university, they married, each with their skills together building up a sizeable amount of commercial, residential, and other income producing real estate holdings along with businesses. Louise became a recluse in what was described locally as an opulent home at 85 Rincon Road, in Tucson, Arizona.
Thomas Keith Marshall and Louise Henriette Foucar purchased first class berth tickets where they lived in Tucson, Arizona then traveled by the eastbound train to El Paso, Texas to get married where she had made friends a number of years before and privately away from local Tucson press publicity on 24 August 1904.
Louise was in constant contact with the manager of her drug store and her gift store, while Thomas preferred working with and on the couples properties developing them, collecting and depositing the rents, the business,and running his newspaper as its editor and publisher.
In late 1930 Louise Marshall suddenly withdrew almost all of the money out of the married couples two local personal bank accounts at the Consolidated Bank, and the Territorial Bank in Tucson, Arizona.
On April 17, 1931 Thomas Keith Marshall was shot five [5] times with a .38 Cal Automatic Pistol at point blank range while he was in bed sleeping at approximately 12:30am in the early April morning of 1931 by his wife Louise Henriette [Foucar] Marshall who had just a few days before asked one of her life insurance salesmen to buy a pistol and a box of ammunition for her. It was one of Louise's life insurance salesman that purchased the .38 Cal Automatic Pistol, then showed Mrs. Marshall how to load the .38 Cal. Automatic Pistol and how to shoot the .38 Cal. Automatic Pistol.
Sources: Tucson Citizen Newspaper Articles April 1931 - 1930-1933 Pima County Arizona Court Records / Tucson Police Department Records / Pima County Sheriffs Department Records / Arizona Consolidated Bank Records / Tucson Methodist Hospital Records / City of Tucson Business License & Tax Records
Sources: Texas, Select County Marriage Index, 1837-1965 - El Paso, Texas Newspaper Marriage Announcements Section - Tucson, Arizona Arizona Daily Star Newspaper Announcements Section - August 1904
Place of Death: Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles, California
Sources: California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994