Zahrah E. Preble (1880-1934)

Née Ethel L. Preble
Singer, Dancer, Music Teacher, Camp Counselor, Playground Director, Author, Public Speaker & Performer
Born August 17, 1880, Berkeley, California
Died April 27, 1934, South Pasadena Sanatorium, South Pasadena, California

Zahrah Ethel Preble was born on August 17, 1880, in Berkeley, California, to Charles Sumner Preble (1855-1939), a civil engineer and former surveyor-general of Nevada, and Ella Melana (Thompson) Preble (1851-1929) of Ohio. Zahrah appears to have been an assumed name. In the U.S. census of 1900, a twenty-year-old Zahrah was enumerated as Ethel L. Preble. Ethel L. Preble graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. A mezzo-soprano singer, she studied under Lydia Sturtevant (1876-1938). 

Zahrah E. Preble taught music in the public schools of Escondido, California. She was also a camp counselor with the Camp Fire Girls in California. From January to November 1921 or after, she was a playground director with the Bureau of Clubs and Playgrounds in the Panama Canal Zone. Zahrah interpreted the song and dance of American Indians, including the Zuni tribe of the American Southwest, for children and adults. Her lifelong interests seem to have been music, dance, childhood education, and American Indian culture. She was a member of the Casa de Adobe committee and Los Fiesteros de la Calle Olvera in Pasadena or South Pasadena, California.

Zahrah wrote her first letter to Weird Tales from New York City. It was published in the issue of July/August 1923. By the time her second letter was published in September 1923, she was on expedition with her future husband in the American Southwest. Here is the complete text of her letters as they were published, with introductory comments by the editor, Edwin Baird:

Letter to "The Eyrie," July/August 1923, page 91:

We recently had something to say on this page about the amazing similarity of stories written by dissimilar people, and Miss Zahrah E. Preble, 12 West Seventy-seventh Street, New York read those remarks and sent us a neat solution of the mystery:

"Dear Mr. Baird: I was particularly interested in what you had to say about the sameness of the manuscripts you have to read.

     "Perhaps this will offer at least a partial explanation. All the stories are attempting to portray a mysterious or weird happening. Did you ever think about the tone of voice people invariably use when they begin to tell you about such things? It immediately takes on a quality which indicates the abnormal theme they are going to give you. That tone of voice unconsciously colors the very words which are used, whether written or spoken, and so we find diverse stories told to achieve the same effect will he told in the same tone quality.

   "Another reason is that the human brain will respond to repetition of ideas just so many times before becoming half-hypnotized. After singing through a dozen songs, no matter how different they may be, I find that my sense of hearing is so drugged by sound that the freshness of perception is worn off, and so the songs all appear alike. Also, when typing for several hours in succession, the sound of the machine drugs my senses, and I find it hard to follow the sense of the words I am copying., although I try to keep alert, so as to make alterations as I copy.

   "This may help you to solve the problem. Anyway, I have enjoyed WEIRD TALES, and as I have taken them in small doses, with sufficient intervals between, they strike fresh each time, so are more enjoyable."

I understand what Zahrah Preble was trying to say, and she makes some good points. Nonetheless, I think that a lack of imagination is the best explanation for the sameness of stories, themes, language, and concepts in the early Weird Tales.

Letter to "The Eyrie," September 1923, page 79:

Among these letters that we mention is one from Zahrah B. Preble of New York City, who recently joined the Hendricks-Hodge [sic] Archeological Expedition that journeyed to New Mexico for the purpose of digging into the prehistoric customs of an ancient people. Miss Preble is now with the expedition at Zuni, New Mexico, and from there she writes us thus:

     "My dear Mr. Baird: I am convinced that the Zunis are adepts at rain making. The sky had been cloudless until the old priests started to the Sacred Lake, 60 miles away. Then faint wisps began to form into clouds. But no rain fell until day before yesterday, when the rain priests from Zuni came out to the sacred spring in Ojo Caliente, and met the returning pilgrims from the Sacred Lake. Here we were allowed to witness a most wonderfully impressive and reverent ceremony. I think we are perhaps the only white people, with the exception of Frank Hamilton Cushing and Mrs. Matilda Stevenson, who have ever been allowed to see this part of the ceremony. But our camp was given not only that privilege, but the one of taking motion pictures of it, so that the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, would have the record. Before we left the mountain ride the rain was falling in torrents. [Boldface type added.]

     "Yesterday the ceremony was augmented by the more spectacular and better-known 'Rain Dance,' in Zuni. It is a beautiful and solemn performance. Rain fell last night in copious quantities. Today it is raining as I write this, and the music of the waters is drumming on my tent fly. I say that the Zunis are great rain makers, and that Faith is the keynote of their ability!

     "So far, I have been too busy absorbing new sights and sounds to do much writing, but, if the wind does not blow too hard each day, I hope to accomplish something before long.

     "There is an interesting historical tale of the murder of Father Latrado, right in front of the old Spanish Mission church, in 1670, which is one of the most picturesque parts of the Hawikuh ruins. Perhaps I can reconstruct that scene sufficiently weirdly to make a good yarn for you. I will keep it in mind."

The implication here is that Zahrah had written to Baird before and would continue to write to him, also that this letter at least, as published, was only an excerpt from a longer letter left unpublished. If correspondence like this was in the papers that Leo Margulies kept in his garage and that he ended up destroying because they became infested with insects, then we have just one more reason to withhold from him our forgiveness. What a terribly irresponsible thing to have done.

By the way, the expedition was actually called the Hendrick-Hodge expedition, but I haven't been able to find out who was Hendrick. Hodge was Frederick Webb Hodge, Zahrah's future husband. Frank Hamilton Cushing (1857-1900) was an American anthropologist and ethnologist who lived among the Zuni people. Matilda Coxe (Evans) Stevenson (1849-1915) was an American ethnologist, geologist, and explorer who also lived among and studied the Zunis.

* * *

Tall and aristocratic in her appearance, Zahrah had blue eyes and brown hair. She was one of four girls. Her sister Amy Elizabeth Preble married Waldo Edgar Dodge on January 11, 1913. Zahrah married a man with a rhyming surname, archaeologist, ethnologist, and author Frederick Webb Hodge (1864-1956), on September 2, 1927, in Bexar County, Texas. At his wife's death in 1934, he was director of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles. Mark R. Harrington (1882-1971), Bruce Bryan (1906-2004), and Johns Harrington (1918-1992), who also wrote for Weird Tales, were also at the Southwest Museum. Johns Harrington's middle name was Heye, presumably for George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), who, despite his very teutonic name, was a native-born American, as well as an archaeologist, collector, and founder of the Museum of the American Indian in New York City. At one time, he had the largest private collection of American Indian artifacts in the world. There is an extant photograph of him and his wife with Hodge and a number of Zuni men.

Zahrah Preble wrote a children's book called Tomar of Siba: The Story of a Gabrielino Indian Boy of Southern California (1933). It was illustrated by her sister, Donna Louise Preble (1882-1979). She had planned to write more, but death intervened. Zahrah's husband handed her notes over to Donna, telling her that she was the one to finish her sister's work. The result was Yamino-Kwiti, Boy Runner of Siba by Donna Preble (1940), which I believe was reprinted as Yamino-Kwiti: A Story of Indian Life in the Los Angeles Area.

Zahrah E. Preble wrote magazine and newspaper articles, including the following:

• "Jottings from the Pacific Coast" in The Oil Miller (Jan. 1921)
• "Burbanking Your Child" in The Juvenile (June 1923)
• "Child Culture's Oldest Cradle" in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 24, 1923)
• "Simple Camp Cookery" in American Cookery (1923) 
• "Catching Motion on the Wing" in Complete Novel Magazine (Nov. 1925)
• "Eight Lives for a Horse" in Fawcett’s Triple-X Magazine #21 (Feb. 1926)
• "The Art of Indian Women" in The Forecast (June 1929)
• Articles on Indian life and culture for Compton's Cyclopedia

This is by no means a comprehensive list. Thanks to the FictionMags Index for the two pulp magazine credits.

Zahrah Ethel Preble Dodge died on April 27, 1934, at South Pasadena Sanatorium, South Pasadena, California. She was just fifty-three years old.

Zahrah E. Preble's Letters in "The Eyrie"
July/August 1923
September 1923

Further Reading
"Zahrah Hodge, Museum Head's Wife, Mourned" in the Pasadena (California) Post, April 28, 1934, page 4.

Zahrah E. Preble (1880-1934), in a passport photograph from 1921.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley