Journey Through the Years, An Autobiography Dedicated to My Sons: Boyd, Shepard, Calvin and Larry by Margie Quate
Some years ago I was contacted by Robert Quate who had seen the website and then Stevi Quate who generously sent me a copy of Margie Quate’s autobiography. It is a fascinating story both of early life in the Snake Valley and then Margie and husband Graham Quate’s life in Central America and Asia. I have transcribed some pages which are relevant to the story of Isaac and family. Here are some excerpts.
Early Days
“My mother, Ruby Estelle Gandy, was born in Fillmore, Utah. The father, Isaac Gandy, came from England as a young boy. The mother, Harriet Parsons, came across the plains in a covered wagon. Her young life was pretty rough. She told of leaving a good farm in Missouri to come to the gold rush of California. Her father found no gold and died of T.B. in Placerville, Calif. The mother took in washing. My grandmother Harriet helped, and one story was told that she rubbed so hard on a grey shirt that it was in shreds, but the owned didn’t ask for payment. Grandmother married, much against her will, to an older man, Isaac Gandy, at the bidding of an older sister. Women were scarce and wives were in demand. She never did enjoy married life, but did her part in caring for four little girls as they came along.
Grandfather Gandy I remember as a gentle, white haired and bearded, medium sized man. On one visit he brought me a little puppy in his coat pocket. I sometimes visited these grandparents when I was very small. They lived in a lonely place, down in the meadows, several miles below Gandy, Utah. There was a little spring close by the house, where we gathered fresh green watercress, which is so good on hot bread. Our drinking and all water came from this spring. My time was spent helping with the regular home tasks and even making a cake standing on a box to reach the table. Grandfather Gandy died soon after, and grandmother made her home with one or another of the three daughters left. A tombstone, marble upright slab, was shipped from London by his remaining sister over there. The grave is in Garrison, Utah. The sister also sent $500 to each of his three daughters. My mother bought forty acres of land to enlarge her home farm.”
“Grandfather Gandy was the greatest rambler of the lot”, Graham Quate 1969
First settlers in Snake Valley included Margie Lake and son Edwin who became Your grandfather; and Lizzie Schumacher and her son Fred. Ed Lake married Stella Gandy; who sometime after being widowed, married Fred Schumacher. Another early settler was Isaac Gandy, father of Stella. This Isaac Gandy was your Great Grandfather. He immigrated from England as a very young man; was a most efficient horseman; operated a personally owed stage line between Salt Lake City and the newly discovered mines nearby. Eventually he sold the stage line and set out to find new lands to conquer. In Snake Valley he purchased a sizeable ranch under the Burbank Lake; split it in three pieces and presented the pieces to his three daughters: Emma (wife of Uncle Jim Robison), Molly (Dee Heckethorn’s Grandmother) and Stella, your own Grandmother. Ed Lake homesteaded a piece of land adjoining Stella’s property and later they married. My grandmother was a close fiend of Stella. Ed and Stella lived at first in a log cabin, which you have seen many times, and it was there that I first saw your mother; she was lying in a crib, and was only a few weeks old.
This story will ramble a little, but that is fitting since most of he characters in it were what might be called ramblers in the best sense of the word, and your Grandfather Gandy was the greatest rambler of the lot. After giving the Snake Creek Ranch to his daughters, he bought the fine Rowland ranch, 5 or 6 miles west of Baker; sold or traded that and acquired the Silver Creek Ranches which later were acquired by the Bellander Brothers; sold it and moved on to Warm Creek where a post office was opened and given the name of Gandy, and there it is today, still on the map.
From a letter by Graham Quate to son Larry Quate, 1969.
Read more excerpts from Margie’s autobiography here.