May Alice 'Mazie' Buchheim Gates

Mazie teaching Sunday School at the Heady Ashburn ranch, mid 1950s

b. September 2, 1916 Santa Ana, California
d. July 17, 2006 Mesa, Arizona

 Mazie met and married John when she was 16. She soon found herself riding horses on roundups, helping feed cattle with John in various pastures during the winter months as well as during annual roundups on the Heady-Ashburn and Kihekah ranches, both of which John was managing. Each day of the roundup all the area ranchers got together at the Heady-Ashburn for breakfasts that Mazie prepared and served at 6:00 a.m. She provided eggs, sausage, potatoes, homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee, which the cowboys always looked forward to. Then, Mazie and other ranch wives, who were all great cooks, would make and deliver lunch in their pickup trucks to wherever the men were working.

 Mazie taught Sunday School at the Heady-Ashburn ranch to many of the local kids. She loved gardening, growing roses and vegetables, and sharing them with neighbors and people living in Patagonia and Sonoita; she took fresh eggs and milk to residents in Lochiel on the Mexican border. She taught herself Spanish by listening to tapes so she could speak fluently with ranch hands, with vendors in stores in Nogales on both sides of the border, and with other Spanish-speaking people.

 After Sunday church services in Patagonia, she took flowers, greeting cards, and homemade bread and pastries to various elderly and homebound people to cheer them up.

 John and Mazie were devoted Christians, and they started an annual Easter sunrise service at the Heady-Ashburn ranch for people to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. John and their son Bob built a large thick wooden cross which they placed on top of "Bull Hill" near the barn and corrals. Families from all over southern Arizona would bring their camping trailers and tents to stay for several days at the ranch headquarters. Mazie would make hundreds of her famous cinnamon rolls and give them to everyone on Easter morning to eat with their "cook your own" breakfasts, along with John's cowboy coffee. It was a time of great fellowship, fun, and observing Easter in a special way.

 In 1972, after years of managing the ranches, John retired and he and Mazie moved to Sonoita, where they built an adobe home on 10 acres. Several years after John's passing, Mazie sold the Sonoita home and moved to Tucson in 1988. Mazie passed away at the age of 89 in Mesa, Arizona.

Written by Betty Barr with contributions from Jed Morrison, Mazie's grandson.

Click below to return to:
History
A-D
E-H
I-P
Q-Z

SCS 9/18/24