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 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.
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