Photo: Carlanthe Turner.tif

Carlanthe Turner, affectionately known as “Mama,” was born in November of 1913 in Texas. At the age of 16, she moved with her aunt to Oklahoma, where she met Jimmy Allen “Black Boy” Turner. They married in 1931 and did farm work in Manitou, Oklahoma. She gave birth to three children, Robert Lee, Artie Mae, and Franklin Delano between 1932 and 1937. The Turner family moved to Chandler in 1939, when Jimmy began experiencing health problems and needed to live in a drier climate. They selected Chandler because Jimmy’s cousin, Marty Phillips, lived there. In Chandler, Carlanthe had four more children between 1942 and 1949: Madeline, Dorothy Jean, Jimmy Richard, and Freddy Ray.

Jimmy eventually worked as a contractor, transporting many people from the South in his truck. He partnered with Billy Woods to bring people out to Chandler. Their oldest children, Robert and Artie Mae, were some of the first African-American students to attend Chandler High School upon integration in 1949. Carlanthe was active in the church her family attended, Mt. Olive Baptist Church. She worked in the fields, and then later in life, worked at Arizona State University cleaning the hallways and dorms. Carlanthe recalled that her husband was a hard-working man as well: “His daddy left home when he was fifteen years old. Jimmy started working to take care of his mother and his baby brother … he started working at fifteen, doing a man’s job, and he did up until the time before he died … He worked up until the time he found out he had cancer. “

·         Photo: Turner Children.tif

Her granddaughter, Sherrie Larkins, submitted her grandmother’s recipe for peach cobbler. She says that when growing up as a little girl, the peach cobbler was one of her favorites. “The aroma of the peach cobbler met you at the front door. At that point, you knew that she was cooking my favorite peach cobbler. Often, I would tell her, “Mama, I sure would like to eat one of your peach cobblers,” and she would say, “Sherri, come and get it!”