Ford I. Gano History – Tape 7 Side B
Well, I sure did a miserable job on the other side, side one, Elizabeth, or you can straighten it out the way it should be by simply saying that the Western Milling Company office was located at the main ranch on the Tremaine Farm at the railroad crossing, and was simply an office building in which I was headquartered, plus the working operations, which I tried to describe on the other side. The big grinding mills, seed house, and etcetera, as well as corrals that housed the feeding situation that Western Milling carried on with the animals that were raised to be fattened out. This was simply cattle, it was no other animals raised here. They did not handle sheep, they did not handle chickens, or rabbits or etcetera.
Now, I don’t know whether on one of the other tapes I described the operations of the milling company or not. I simply supervised and managed the four divisions of the company, which included the hay operation, the milling operation, and the cattle operation, the marketing operation, with the help I had there in the office, which included the girls who weighed the products as they were brought in from the fields or the farms, the [break]
The Tremaine office was located on the railroad siding, where cars could be brought in from the main line in Mesa, and placed out there on the siding for the products were shipped out. Sometimes we were shipping cattle, most of the time we were shipping the hay, and the byproducts of the hay were taken to the milling company, were sewed up in sacks, and loaded up on the railroad cars, and shipped to various people who wanted the ground up feed
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My primary responsibility was to market the products that we produced at the milling company. The girls took the phone calls, and passed on the information or hooked me up to clients that needed to talk directly to me as manager of the company, etc., etc. Now, in marketing the products they’re in, I had to travel quite a bit to the West Coast and the East Coast. I think I described it at one of other place along the line, one of the trips the former manager of the milling company had taken me to kind of break me in, to show me how to get along and how to meet the people who bought the products. These of course were very important clientele. So most of this kind of an operation was made by plane. On one operation, Stanley and I had gone by car, traveled around the areas we were marketing in, and made a trip. One operation we had gone out to New York, that was when I was learning to operate the situation, and while in New York, we took in a few sights. It was a big trip, and quite exciting for me. I got Stanley, he took me to all the beautiful areas of that big New York City, I think, the Ice Capades, which I can still remember to this day, and the trip down there to the seashore, ocean to New Orleans by boat. We left the upper East Coast by a
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…the Atlantic ocean side, and actually this ocean liner we were riding in, did not get out into the ocean. Most of the time we could see the land, so we always felt safer. I always felt a little safer, riding down there, I never did get over the feelings I felt from the seasickness I got on that trip. But I got over that in a hurry because of the fun I had on that trip.
Well, we came clear on down to New Orleans, and we took the railroad train back in to the other areas we wanted to go to. Well, that was my biggest trip as I got broke in to that business. I never did try to make that trip again by myself, but I took several trips to many of the points back there, which included Chicago, and Boston, clear on down to St. Louis and New Orleans and again back by car. I usually had someone along with me to help do the driving when we went by car.
We had cars that were leased to us by the company for our travel needs.
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… West Coast area that we sold to, I usually traveled by plane, leaving Phoenix and landing at Los Angeles, using that as a sub-headquarters, I would rent an automobile and go to the different locations I needed to go to.
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I really enjoyed the 10 years I spent there at Western Feed and Seed, which was the name of the company we were in, that I was operating. The last year I was there, I had some health problems that had come up. This was on top of Nellie’s tuberculosis problem, which came, was very depreciating to all of us. Her doctor had to put Nellie into a health resort there which was between Mesa and Phoenix, where she spent 3 months of her life. During that time while she was there, well just before she went into that facility. Kathy was born, our last daughter. She was a charming young lady, too. I’ll have to tell you more about her later on. But in the meantime, it was very, oh I had some of the most low feelings, low periods of my life, while Nellie was in the sanatorium.
I was enjoying my time in the church there, and while living Mesa, going to the fourth ward, I was called to be a records clerk. They had a financial clerk that took care of the financial part of the bookkeeping, but I was the records department clerk. I kept track of and care, and met with the bishop once a week to see that this department was going the right way it should. So, it was a very enjoyable time, except for the time that Nellie was in the sanatorium. It was very hard on her. She missed her new little daughter, as well as all the others, very much. Her mother had come up to live with us and of course help take care of the children. Actually, she had built a house, up there adjoining the lots that we were on, so she could be near to the family there, and she took care of the children during the time that Nellie was in the sanatorium. It was a pretty big job though.
After Nellie got out of the sanatorium, we learned that there was a member of the church living in England who was a relative of the Waddington family, who would like to come to America, if they could find a sponsor over here for this sister. So Nellie volunteered for that sponsorship, with the understanding that she would be able to work off the costs of the trip and one thing or another, by helping us in our home while Nellie was recuperating, getting her health back. We did this, and the girls got a real big kick out of having a nanny living right there in the house with us. She was a real interesting character, and we all enjoyed her very much, and she took care of the girls in very good fashion, and so relieved Grandma Waddington and a lot of the work that Nellie was doing at that time.
Nellie and I were both busy with church callings. Of course, we had moved, I should say that at one time, oh I’m getting mixed up here again [break]
I confuse myself sometimes and I don’t know what I’m saying. We were living at about 600 block on 4th street, which was an old brick house when the first Mormons came into Mesa. It was owned by Ralph Fuller, who lived in an adjoining house, and who had sold the old house to us, very cheaply I might add, so we could afford it, and while we were living there, the ward was moved out on 4th avenue. This was a new ward which was put up, called the 9th ward. And while we were getting ready to move into the the 9th ward, we were in the 7th ward which was out there also. So we’d been in 4 different wards while living there in Mesa. And in the 9th ward, the bishopric was the same as it was before, and I was again called in as recordkeeper in the recordkeeping department [break]
I was an official part of the bishopric, although I didn’t have any say in the operation of the ward. At one time, none of the bishopric could go to the general conference in Salt Lake, so Bishop Allen suggested that I make the trip if I possibly could. Well, I, in fact, he sent me out there as an official representative of the 9th ward, and I really felt important, and I really enjoyed for the first time in my life listening to the President of the Church, and all the officers of the church speak directly to us in that great big house.
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To meet in that big tabernacle with all the other bishoprics and etc of the various wards that came in, it was a tremendous sight and a beautiful experience to wander around that building and see all the flowers and all the tremendous adornments that they had put up for those meetings. David O. McKay was the president at the time that I was out there, and I did get to shake hands with him on one occasion.
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… at home in Mesa. As I said, the last year that I was there in Mesa, and operating Western Milling Company as manager, I had some poor health of my own. I was getting hard of hearing, I couldn’t hear very good, so I went to every doctor, every clinic both in Mesa and in Phoenix, to see if I could get it cured, but they could never do any good for me, although I had some of the best medical services that were available at that time for that situation. I just couldn’t keep myself upright, I wasn’t able to walk straight without falling over or something. I was getting dizzy quite a bit of the time. So the last summer I was there, Brother Heyward, my supervisor from Western Farm Management Company, said, well, maybe you’d better take a vacation for a while. Why don’t you just go up to Snowflake for the summer, and see if you can’t get over this situation. So the family and I did that, we rented a house in Snowflake, and my girls and wife and I really enjoyed that trip up there. Grandma did not go with us on that trip. We rented a house, and went to the ward in Snowflake, and enjoyed our lives very much while living there. We came back and renewed our acquaintances that we had made there prior to our becoming members of the Church. So I always amazed everybody by meeting them, whom they had known as Mr. Gano, by now becoming Brother Gano.
But I enjoyed the situation very much. Much of the time we spent up at the mountains there at Show Low, at the lakeside, up above it, where Nellie’s relatives had a cabin rented, and we would go up there and visit, and I would go fishing. I enjoyed a lot of good trout fishing while up there. Well, so much for that.
In the next to the last year, in other words the 8th year with Western Milling Company, I had a chance to buy a new car direct from the factory, in other words I had to take possession of it back at the factory. This was a cooperative deal where the Western Farm Management company, who bought all their cars from one company, which were Studebakers, by the way, I bought a car from Studebaker in Mesa to be delivered
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So in 1951, I’m not positive about that date, I made arrangements for Nellie and I to go to South Bend Indiana, to pick up a new Chevy touring car. We saved about $500 I think by picking it up back there, the freight we were saving, and some kind of dealer cost that was knocked off. Well, Nellie and I had a nice trip by train from Mesa Arizona back east to the midwest, and at that time, we came in to Kansas City, the place was just about floating in water, the Mississippi river backed clear up into the Missouri river, and the whole midwest was just under water almost. So we just had to creep along with the trains, because many times it was actually traveling in water as we traveled along the banks of rivers. But we made it through all right. We finally reached South Bend, and made arrangements to have that car delivered to us. And boy did we feel free and happy when we took off in that car of our own, brand spanking new. Well, we had had a brand spanking new car earlier, because I had bought a new Ford passenger car after Nellie and I got married. So we had that new, and used it a good deal until it got old enough so we would want a new one. This one really felt good.
Well, to make another long story short, while we were back here picking our car up, we made a trip back home through the Midwest, and remembering the Flake people whom we knew in Snowflake, we thought maybe we might stop by this area, and get acquainted maybe, and remeeet and enjoy some of our old acquaintances. So we made our trip back from South Bend, through Keosauqua.
Here in Keosauqua, we met our old friends that we knew back there in Snowflake. They showed us a good time, and we stayed here a couple of days, and then headed on back home. But while here, I was quite impressed by the farming situation, and I was even thinking quite a bit at that time about getting into farming in some way or another, because of the health condition that I had there at Western Milling Company. I couldn’t stay upright sometimes to take care of my business. But driving on back to Mesa we had a lot of time to think about it, and when we got back to Mesa, after hugging our kids, and loving them and so on and so forth, being back with our family and showing off our new car, we decided at that time, and talking it over with Grandmother Waddington, she decided that she might want to come back with us.
To get back to the straight of things, while living there in Mesa Grandma Waddington had bought two lots right next to our own rented house on 604 4th street, and she wanted a house built, so I made arrangements to have the contractors build a nice little 3 bedroom bungalow type house that would just fit her in good shape. The 3rd bedroom was made into a sewing room, she liked to sew and do things like that. Well, we had that built, and she moved into it. Also, Nellie and I had decided to have a house built back here. This was before thinking about getting into farming, of course, so we contracted and made arrangements to have a house built there in Mesa Arizona, on the lot next to Grandma Waddington’s. Now I say Grandma Waddington had bought two lots, one of which she gave to Nellie, and we had our house built on that.
I also might mention that at this time, this location on south Hibbert Street, about 342,344 South Hibbert Street was only about one block away from the Mesa Temple, and while in Mesa we spent a lot of time in the Temple, doing Temple work there, which we enjoyed because that was so new to us. Well, that wasn’t the only reason we enjoyed it, but we did enjoy it because we didn’t have that privilege down there in Yuma, or in any other place, like Gilbert. Now, our house was located right next to Grandma Waddington’s, and Nellie planned it out room by room, window by window, and went over it with the architects stem to stern, and finally had it set up so the contractors could get it started. We’d only lived in that house…
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1 Kathryn Elberta Gano was born 14 March XXXX, in Mesa Arizona.