Correspondence with and pictures of classmates

Bonnie Henry: Our self-service-gas pioneers

Bonnie Henry

You may not have known the lady but you certainly knew her name - particularly if you pumped gas 'round these parts during the '50s and early '60s. Blakely was her name - same as the chain of gas stations that pioneered pump-your-own fuel in Tucson. The stations were started by Vince and Ruth Blakely, who arrived in town in the late '40s, hauling everything they owned behind them in a cotton trailer.

Vince died in January of 1999. Ruth died last Wednesday. I met them both in the spring of 1987, when I went to their house to get the story on the gas stations.

I got it, all right. "We came to Tucson with $5,000 - all the money we had," Ruth told me. "The night before we opened in August of 1949, I was at the station helping clean up. Our three kids - the baby was only 7 months - were asleep in the car. "Vince reached in his pocket, pulled out three pennies and said to me, 'Well, we better make it 'cause this is all we have left in the world.' "

Make it they did. In the end, Vince owned several stations in town, as well as others in Flagstaff, Globe and Miami, says their son, Bill Blakely. Besides letting customers pump their own gas - for 23.9 cents a gallon when they first opened - the stations also gave away with every fill-up a white frosted tumbler decorated with cactus. Several reside in the back of my cabinet.

The stations were also known for their car giveaways. Every 51 days, "You'd get a ticket for the drawing with so many gallons of gas," Vince told me. Old photos show country-Western bands and hula dancers pacifying the milling crowds before the drawings.

Vince sold his stations to Gulf Oil in the mid-'60s, turning his attention to tennis and boating off the waters off Mexico. But in 1974, he suffered a stroke. A subsequent fall leading to a brain injury put him in bed, paralyzed for life. When I met him, he could only stare straight up at the ceiling. There by his side was Ruth, devoted to the end.

"She dedicated the rest of her life to him," says sister-in-law Ruth Gieszl, who met Ruth Blakely in the fifth grade. Born the youngest of 10 children on Sept. 12, 1923, Ruth Blakely grew up in Gilbert. During World War II, she went to work as a switchboard operator at Williams Field. There she met Army Lt. William Couch. After the two married, Couch was sent to the European Theater. In November of 1944, his plane was shot down and he was killed, leaving behind a wife and 5-week-old girl.

After the war, Ruth married Vince Blakely, who had also grown up in Gilbert. In 1954 they built their dream house on Tucson's Northwest Side, where Ruth lived until the day she died. Here, she raised three kids and planted trees and flowers.

She was also known for her sewing skills, says daughter Linda Blakely. "At one point, Daddy decided to collect old clothes for the people of Nogales and people donated them at two of his gas stations," says Linda. "We got truckloads of clothes. My mom brought all those clothes home, went through them, washed everything, fixed buttons, mended things, then folded them according to size and repackaged them."

Ruth Blakely is survived by a sister, Madge Aspey of Flagstaff; daughter Linda Blakely, of Bronxville, N.Y., sons Bill and Bob Blakely, both from Tucson; three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Services are at 2 p.m. Thursday at Bring's Broadway Chapel, 6910 E. Broadway, with visitation from 6 to 8 tonight. Burial will be at East Lawn Cemetery, 5801 E. Grant Road.

The email addresses that I have are listed on the Internet in the class list, which is on the homepage at
http://technidigm.org/amphi62.htm#classlist

Under each name on the list, there is a link to their personal page and another link that, when you click on it, should open a new email from your browser, allowing you to easily send an email to that person directly, just as you might have done without the link. That link also shows you the email address. No one else gets that email but the recipient. The email addresses change as I get new information. (The only one that usually does not work is Eva (Adcock) Riley's, for which I usually get a mailbox full error. Don't know what that is all about, but it could be an automatic blocker.)

If you want to send an email to everyone at the same time, the email address is
<amphi1962@technidigm.org>

The 38 email addresses that are currently in this amphi1962@technidigm.org remailer are listed below, including a couple of people from '63.

You are so kind to do all of this. I would love to have Larry Vance's e-mail address if you have it. Was Bob Nichols' address on the list? Also, I have Janet Matthew's address, must look it up and will send it to you. Any e-mail addresses that people will allow to be passed on? Have gotten so lazy about writing real letters!