PROFILE

Pauline McCleve's quick, energetic stride has slowed. Her back is no longer ramrod straight. She walks with a cane. She is 95. But the twinkle is still in her eyes. She charms with her smile. And she is, as she has always been, an accomplished conversationalist with wide-ranging interests and an absolutely amazing mental storehouse of facts. "We could sit here," she says, indicating the dining room table of her pleasant Tempe town house. "This is where I work." It looks like a worktable, and, indeed, it is. Piled high with files, folders, and reference documents. She is working on a history of the pioneering Kempe family from which she is descended. "Well," I say, "this is the first visit we've had in nearly 45 years." "Oh," she replies, "we visited in 1978."

She is correct. A short visit after attending her husband's funeral. I had forgotten about that; she hadn't. "I meant," I clarify, "a long visit where we could reminisce about those days when I used to hang around your house so much that you named me 'Ubiquitous Bill." She laughs and the twinkle intensifies. "You know I was only kidding. We always enjoyed having you there."

In 1944, when I was 15, my family moved to Holbrook, Arizona, where my father began surveying for a highway across the Navajo Indian Reservation. I was a stranger in a strange town, thrown off-balance by the barren red-rock geography of the small town that straddled U.S. Route 66 in the high plateau country of northeastern Arizona. But not for long.

On the first day of school, I met young Donnie McCleve, who, like myself, was a troutfishing fanatic. We struck up a quick friendship, and before long I had installed myself as an almost full-time after-school resident at Donnie's house. Mrs. McCleve, with her pleasant voice, winning smile, and boundless exuberance, became my "home-away-from-home" mother.

I realize today that I liked the McCleve house because it reflected a very healthy family life-style. Cyrus McCleve, Holbrook's city manager, was always away during the day. So Mrs. McCleve was the captain of this slightly disorganized but always happy ship.

I moved away from Holbrook after a year, but today, across a 45-year gulf of time, I have a strong recollection of the McCleve home: the living room was actually a music room with a big upright piano, various other instruments lying about, stands with sheet music on them, stacks of sheet music on sofa and chairs, a violin case in a corner. And once, for a time, a large tuba.

An adjoining front room was Mrs. McCleve's beauty shop. She started it in the early '20s after only two weeks of formal training and kept it operating successfully for more than 40 years. Behind the two front rooms was a large dining room and beyond that a kitchen.

This is a typical segment from a typical day, as I recall it: Mrs. McCleve moves briskly out of the beauty shop, carrying a brush or comb. She breaks stride to close an instrument case in the living room and picks up plates as she passes through the dining room. In the kitchen, she pops open the oven, removes a roast, places it on a platter, and delivers it to the dining table. Then returns to the beauty shop. In a matter of minutes, she is back again. This time she quickly spreads frosting on an angel-food cake and adds it to an ever changing, never entirely diminished smorgasbord.

Food, as far as I know, was always on the table for anyone who wanted to eat. It was not uncommon for me to pass through the dining room and find a lady in curlers downing a hearty meal. And, of course, I was a continuing nonpaying diner myself.

Mrs. McCleve was a true Arizona pioneer, born in St. Johns in 1895. Her mother was a Kempe, her father a Greer. While she was still a toddler, the family moved to a remote ranch between St. Johns and Holbrook. She was the sixth of 11 children, two of whom died in infancy. "The winters were sometimes bitterly cold," she tells me. (St. Johns is nearly 6,000 feet above sea level.) "The dirt roads were very poor, and we had to ford the icy streams. I can remember one wagon trip in weather so bad that we were in real danger of freezing. When we finally arrived at the house, Father made all of the children run in a circle until he got a roaring fire going.

I ask her to tell me more about her ranch life in those early days. She smiles, and I know that her memories are pleasant ones. "My father was a stern but fair disciplinarian. I never heard my mother raise her voice to anyone. There was lots of love in the family and never a quarrel." She tells me that ranch people had to be self-sufficient back then. Her family had an orchard, a garden, raised their own cattle, and had milk cows and chickens. "We made our own cheese, our own soap. We made shampoo by pounding yucca roots," she tells me. "We had no phones, of course, or any other form of fast communication. I remember a time when my older brother Riley rode a galloping horse for many miles to warn the people downstream of an approaching flood. Our entertainment was very simple. When we went to town, Mother would give us a couple of fresh eggs, and we would race to the local store where we could trade them for candy.

When Pauline was eight, the family moved into Holbrook, and