Sanford Gordon

1853 - 1936

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Marilyn Buehrer marilynsoriginals@msn.com April 26, 2010

Source: Grandmother's letters (Martha Blanche Caton Gordon)

Author: Marilyn Buehrer, great-grandaughter

This is a long story, but I will jump to the where the Sanford Newton Gordon family moved to Cochise County, Arizona in 1912. The following is from letters my grandmother Martha Blanche Caton Gordon wrote to me in the 1960s. "Sanford Gordon's brother, Audie (Audubon), had written such glowing reports on the big opportunities to homestead in Arizona that Sanford decided to have a public sale and sell the family farm in Rich Hill, Missouri, and homestead in the land of such wonderfulness. They left Rich Hill on the Frisco Railroad on December 27, 1912, going through Sprague, Missouri, where we were living temporarily after our home in Rich Hill had burned two weeks before. I, Blanche Caton Gordon, went to Rich Hill and rode the train with him back to Sprague. I was a very sad and blue person, having him leave. (Blanche and Sanford's son, Fay Ward Gordon, were engaged at this time.)Brother Beal was on the train, too. (Dr. R.S. Beal, also of Rich Hill, MO, became the senior pastor of The First Baptist Church of Tucson in 1918.) Brother Beal came to our seat and said a few words and asked us if we were married. He wasn't married either at that time. Sanford Newton and Nancy Jane Ward Gordon and their daughters Bessie and Iro (neither ever married), located in the Whetstone Flats 11 miles west of Fairbank, in early January 1913.

Sanford Gordon, Bessie and Iro and Fay each homesteaded 320 acres that all cornered together. Mrs. Gordon wasn't permitted to homestead because her husband had. They built three one-room shacks to give the impression they were living on their claims, and a four-room house on the father's claim where, of course, they all lived, but they put up quite a pretense of using the other homes with meager supplies and appearances of having been lived in. Their nearest post office was Elgin. It was to that address where my letters reached Fay. Now it wasn't any life of ease to get things going on the ranch with no water, no houses, no fences, no car...only a team and wagon. Fay drove up into the mountains to cut posts to start the fencing. The drilling for water was a long drawn out affair taking almost a full year with losing drilling bits in the hole and all sorts of disappointments galore, but all were grown and quite determined to make a go of it. They all pitched in to do their bit. Bessie donned coveralls and rode horseback along with her father.

Mrs. Gordon (Nancy Jane Ward Gordon) raised poultry and gardened. After they once got a few milk cows, they sold eggs, cream and butter to the soldiers at Ft. Huachuca which was about 12 miles southeast of the ranch. By this time, Bessie had a car and drove the provisions in her blue Whippet to the fort once a week, sometimes more often. Roads were just trails around mesquite trees and brush. Neighbors were miles away. There was no phone. They stuck and stayed until they finished the three years it took to prove up on the claims.

Fay went to Tombstone and worked on the jury and made enough money to buy his ticket back to Missouri, buy his wedding suit, shirt, tie, hat and shoes and met me in Nevada, Missouri on May 5, 1916, the day we were married. On October 1, 1927, with two young daughters and a baby son, Fay and I left Rich Hill in our 1926 Ford touring car and headed for Arizona. Before we left, Fay joined the Masonic Lodge as he felt being a mason would help him make good acquaintances and be of helping in obtaining a job. In Phoenix, the masons were strong and did assist him, but in Tucson he didn't get much support.

When we reached the folks ranch in Arizona, they weren't at home, but we went into the house and made ourselves at home. They had laid in a nice supply of groceries and knick-knacks which really looked and tasted good to us. They soon arrived home and we had a very happy visit with them during the month of November. They were very friendly with ranch families far and near and entertained and visited with many of them. They attended church services and basket dinners for miles around, shopped in Tombstone, Nogales, Ft. Huachuca, and some closer, smaller places. Bessie drove the family in the Whippet and was an excellent driver. They had a good monthly income from the products they marketed at Ft. Huachuca. They all had lots of clothes and were doing real well financially and enjoying a very comfortable life on the ranch.

That Thanksgiving, all of us were invited to a fine dinner at one of their ranch friends. I guess my eyes popped when the woman pulled a large pan from the oven with two turkeys in it. Another place we visited, the couple lived in two tents, one was fixed up for cooking and eating and other was sleeping quarters. We sat and watched her prepare the meal cooked on a tiny wood stove with a very little oven and up on the stove pipe was another oven, somehow encircling the stove pipe. She fried the chicken nice and brown then took the flour sifter and sifted quite a bit of flour over it, then filled the skillet with milk and simmered it all in the oven. Very good! They were Mr. and Mrs. Chambers and parents of George Chambers of Tucson who has been a very prominent Tucsonan for many years. We returned to the ranch and the folks for Christmas and the holidays. We attended a school program at Rain Valley School near Sonoita where all three children were given a dandy treat along with all the regular children of that school.

In 1932, we were living in Tucson. Fay was hired on a half-time basis with the state highway department making $64.00 two weeks out of a month. This was a political job and you had to help support and work for the party in power or else be fired when a new party took over. He got pretty much involved in politics and we had party workers meet at our place once in a while. He made good contacts and Judge Lee Garrett and Evo deConcini were two of his good friends. Fay was election inspector for a long time and it was through him that I got interested in politics and served on the election board for so many years. A few political strings were pulled and he got full time work on the highway, a job he worked on with pride for more than seven years. Fay's next job that paid really well was guard duty at the Consolidated Aircraft Co. south of Tucson on the Nogales Highway. Fay died on October 16, 1954 and was laid to rest in the Masonic Plot of Evergreen Cemetery in Tucson. Brother Beal conducted a very impressive service. He was always Fay's favorite pastor.

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