By William "Bill" Peck

(Note: Morton Bodfish was a famous Chicago Banker and Congressional Lobbyist during World War II. He moved to the Wickenburg area in the 1950s and worked the Mesa Bonita Ranch late in life. He died in 1966.)

I was down 300 feet and the well had been a bummer from the start. I went to Morton Bodfish and asked him if it was all right to move over and start a new hole. There went ten days of my labor. He asked what it was going to cost him and I told him that we had agreed upon a price for a single well, not an abandoned hole, and that the price was still the same. He said it was OK to move so I went about my work and he sat beside the rig and watched everything I did for the next week. When I gave him the bill he wrote a check for that amount and said I was the first man he had met that hadn't tried to screw him. 

Morton had a small house of about 1500 square feet just east of highway 89 where it climbs out of Sol's Wash. A sign, "GDLE", dangled from the ranch gate and the property glided down toward the Hassayampa River. His foreman's house that adjoined his was of similar brick construction and about the same size. One might have passed the two a thousand times and never guessed that perhaps the richest man in Wickenburg called this home. 

One night my phone drug me out of bed at 3 AM. It was Morton and he was in his cups. He wanted to talk about building a golf course on his property below his house and he wanted me to do it. I explained that I had never in my life played a game of golf, but he insisted and I told him that that was going to be a lot of work, therefore I needed to get some sleep and that I'd drop by the next morning at 10 o'clock and we'd discuss it. I had no intention of building a golf course, but to water it, he needed a well. 

He sat at his kitchen table, a smallish thing covered with oilcloth in an equally small kitchen. A half empty two-liter bottle of vodka and a pitcher of orange juice told me that he hadn't tapered off during the night. He was surprisingly astute despite it all. He was crying. He told me that he was going to die; that he had cancer. He said his wife was down in Rio having a ball. He said he didn't care if she stayed there. He told me that his son had been one of the pilots that had fought in the naval battle of Midway, and when they couldn't find their carrier that, one by one, they ran out of fuel, and dropped into the sea. It was his only son and he had built his life upon him. He had never been able to accept his son's death. 

He went back to the cancer. He picked up the phone and asked the operator to connect him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and when the connection was made, asked to speak directly to one of the Mayo doctors. They talked for some time then he handed me the phone. I didn't know what for nor did the doctor. "Who was I and what was going on?," he asked. I gave him a brief run-down and then he asked again, what he should do. I told him he was the doctor and handed the phone back to Bodfish. 

Morton filled an iced tea glass about half full of vodka, then the rest of the way with orange juice. He went to his desk and returned with a check made out to me for $10,000. This was in the 60's. He insisted I take a retainer and that I was still to build his golf course. I told him that I wasn't a lawyer and didn't operate by retainer and tore the check in two and handed it back to him. We had some words about this, and then he gave up and asked me to drive him downtown. 

We took his old Jeep and he directed me to the depot. We went inside and returned with the Santa Fe agent, who Morton explained, was the only man in town that would talk to him. We went other places but his assessment of the town's attitude was right and people that had encountered him when drinking just turned their backs. He said that he had recently been teaching a course on economics or business at Arizona State University and it was the only rewarding thing that he had ever done in his life. By now, the iced tea glass was nearing empty and I was becoming weary of convoying him around town. I don't know why I did it, only that he seemed to be the loneliest man that I had ever met. 

When we got back to his place, he explained that he was Chairman of the Board of Midland Marine Bank and Maryland Casualty and Trust. (I think that is correct.) He got hold of his broker and instructed him to dump his stock in Maryland Casualty.

"My God! You can't just dump it!" his broker said. I could hear the broker beg but Morton was adamant and hung up on him. 

I could see things were totally out of hand. I took him by the elbow and nearly carried him to bed and pulled the covers over him and left. A week later, I read in the paper that they had buried him two days before. I was the last person to see him alive yet no one even contacted me. 

It was only after much time had passed that I deduced it was his intention to give me his fortune. For one brief afternoon I had become his missing son. 

(William Peck is a long time resident of Hillside.) 

If you are interested in writing short histories of Yavapai County and the region for the Courier, contact the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives at 928.445.3122. 

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (pb015i75-296)
Reuse only by permission.
Morton Bodfish (shown far right in front of a dance hall) was certainly better known as a Banker and Lobbyist. His financial holdings were extensive, certainly enough to make him one of the wealthiest men in the Wickenburg area when he moved there in the 1950s. He had an idea for this article's author.