I’m Mary Anne Sanford, Gordon’s Sanford's eldest. I hope I have something of interest for you here. But first, in memory of Gordon, I want you to be sure and turn off your cell phones, if you have not already. Gordon hated cell phones. He thought they were all cheap and tinny and we should just toss them all away.
Thanks...
"It is not intelligence alone that brings success, but also the drive to succeed, the commitment to work hard, and the courage to believe in yourself. Know that your dreams must come from your heart's deepest desires. Only then will the barriers come down before you. To know your heart, you must know yourself. You are who you decide to be, not who other people decide for you to be. Be noble. Stand on the higher ground. Create your life and then go out and live it."
---Unknown
Gordon was an extraordinary man, a man of principal, honest inquiring, giving of himself to others, a true example. Not only to his children, but also to his multitudes of friends and the coworkers from his time of employment.
Gordon started his life as the son of a Joe and Jeanette Sanford, a hard working mechanic and his wife, in Fort Collins, Colorado. His families, the Sanford's and the Riddles, were of hardy farmer stock who had emigrated there from IOWA and MISSOURI from their family roots
from the Mid-east coast in the late 17th century.
Joe and Jeannette took their little family to Kern County, California in the 1930’s where Joe worked as a Mechanic in the oil fields. Gordon attended school in Bakersfield and graduated in 1938. He began his college studies in Forestry at The university at Fort Collins, Colorado and when World War II came on the scene he went into the Army Air Corps and served at Gardner Field in Taft California, and later as a P51 Gunnery Instructor. He was discharged with the rank of First Lieutenant in 1945.
He married Freda Inez Newman in 1945 after a courtship that began during the war. According to Freda, he was a real cutie, but very quiet. Initially, they lived in a truck that Gordon had outfitted to serve him as he served in his first assignments with the US Forest Service.
They served at Stevens Pass, Washington where Gordon worked on the Ski Patrol and Freda worked in the Diner. Gordon hated to ski and I doubt he did much while he served there.
In 1949 they had their first child, ME, who was born in Wenatchee Washington. About 6 months later, Gordon transferred to the Ranger station at Glide, Oregon where he served as an assistant to the Ranger. In about 1951, he accepted a station at the Diamond Lake Ranger District.
It was here he built up many of the relationships that Gordon would nurture throughout his career and into his retirement. The Diamond Lake Ranger Station was deep in the mountains of the Middle Fork of the Umpqua River and in these days a ranger would manage much more Rangers today. His family had grown to three with the addition of children Jim in 1951 and Julie in 1953. He had dormitories full of summer workers, Cooks, a blacksmith and a herd of horses. He would go out and actually fight fires and come back so dirty his young family would not recognize him.
In 1954 he transferred to the Rigdon Ranger Station in Oakridge, Oregon where he again was the District Ranger. In 1958, Gordon and Freda again packed up their home and moved to Portland, Oregon where he served in the Forest Service Regional Office.
Gordon was never one to simply accept the status quo. While he lived in Oakridge, he bought a Studebaker station wagon. and when in Portland, and on a trip to Washington DC he bought a 1962 Mercedes Benz.
Gordon loved recorded music, despite the hearing loss he had in his left ear from when he was flying in the military. And he had a small music collection that he and Freda had accumulated. When he lived in Portland, the phenomena of STEREO recordings burst on the scene and Gordon became quite conversant about of Amplifiers, Speakers, turntables and so on. He also bought a color television , the cabinet of which was designed by a famous designer and eventually he used his extensive wood working skills to build a cabinet of the same design to house his stereo equipment.
In 1962 Gordon bought his first house in Beaverton, Oregon. It was a new modernistic home of California design. At the time it was unique by Portland standards. This was the golden period. Gordon was 33.
In 1964 the Sanford’s again pulled up stakes and moved to Fairfax, Virginia, this time Gordon had taken a position with the Forest Service Washington office. He spent the last 13 years of his career working in the nations capitol during the time his children went through those painful teen years and moved to adulthood.
Gordon customized this house, finishing the basement and landscaping the yard in his own way. A planner, Gordon would work from drawings, long thought out, the wholeness of his designs would always show the attention to detail that he made in anything that he did.
Always one for a good joke, Gordon once was on a business trip to Odessa, in what was once the Soviet Union. He was gone for 6 weeks and when he returned he arranged to meet Freda at Heathrow airport in London, England. When Freda went to meet him at the appointed time she was confounded that she did not find him and was annoyed that some stranger was watching her.
As it turned out it was Gordon, playing a joke on her. He had grown a moustache and his hair had grown longer. Freda had simply not recognized him.
One by one his children found relationships and made personal changes. Jim and Jennifer, Julie and Fred married, then I moved to Oregon in 1973.
Finally, in 1975 Gordon retired, after 33 years with the Federal Government (including his military time)
He and Freda made several trips to Yucatan, Mexico where they would explore the Mayan ruins. One different trips they took Jim and Jennifer, and myself. They also went with George and Helen Kansky, and his friend Jim James and his wife.
In 1980 or so, He and Freda, along with daughter Julie and her husband, Fred, moved to Bakersfield, California, where he bought his brother, Richard's, home.
Gordon commenced to enjoy his retirement. He had brought with him his 1929 Model A sedan that he had purchased while in Virginia.
The story behind that relates another of Gordon’s characteristics.
Gordon purchased that model A from his 6th grade school teacher who had only driven the car to church and was a first owner. He had maintained contact with her for 50 years or so. When she was ready to sell he went to Fort Collins and bought it from her and drove it from Colorado to Virginia.
Gordon maintained relationships with many people had had come into contact with in his life and if they would write back, they would be rewarded with a lifetime of cards and letters. Many of Gordon's correspondents are now gone now but these contacts served to enrich him and them for years.
Gordon became active with the Bakersfield Model A club, much as he had been when he lived in Virginia. He bought a classic Ford Mustang and became quite active with the Golden Empire Mustang club and his lifelong interest in Forestry focused on cactus where he became quite the expert and was a charter member of the Bakersfield Cactus and Succulent Society.
Starting in about 1969 or so Gordon and Freda began an interest in Genealogy. Now, I being a busy teen, didn’t know that much more was going on then they would go to the national archives. But Gordon eventually was able to use his analytical sills and trace his family patrilineal lineage back to Pierce Sanford, an individual who lived in orange Co., Virginia in about 1750. Prior to Gordon's work little was known beside the family stories but he managed to contribute to his descendants a precisely researched ancestry that can be added to in the next generations.
I’ve since taken that start provided me and now have done work on Freda’s roots as well. My database now comprises about 8000 names. I wouldn’t have this without Gordon and his work.
After Gordon retired I, like many children became busy. And after another 4 or five years I commenced visits to Bakersfield on a regular basis. His activities, including the car clubs and other interests kept Freda and he quite active.
Later, in about 1990 time began to catch up. Gordon was diagnosed with prostrate cancer and Freda showed signs of dementia.
This was the hard part for him as he came to accept that the end was coming.
But Gordon planned and worked. He provided for Freda, He finished his book “The Grandfathers Letter” relating his genealogy work - to be published in one generation. He got his affairs in order and as time closed in on him, he and I wrote his obituary and his remembrance card.
Leaving as little as possible undone in his design for life.
Gordon, an extraordinary man of his time, an example for the future.
This page created 4/20/2004, last edited 04/21/2005