- Longtime Yuma-area resident Richard "Dick" Winder marched to the beat of his own drum.
"He liked to try new things," said Winder.s daughter, Diana Wheatcroft. "At his service, we played Frank Sinatra.s .My Way..'
Born May 17, 1915, in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Winder passed away Oct. 5, 2004, in Yuma at the age of 89.
Growing up, Winder moved around a lot because his father was an electrical engineer and did a lot of work setting up dams for water power.
Winder majored in chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He was married in 1939 to Caroline Beardslee, who passed away in 1985.
After they married, he and his wife settled in San Fernando Valley and began farming, but the taxes and water prices were so high, he moved his family to the Bard Valley in 1951. There Winder grew cotton, grapes, citrus fruits and Medjool dates. Wheatcroft said her father planted seedless watermelons before anyone else.
Winder built his own packing shed and hired his own pickers to be in control of his operation, rather than selling to Sunkist prior to harvest. His son Gary said Winder was the first to open a fruit stand in the area in the late 1950s and farmed organically, a rarity at the time.
"He was a do-it-yourselfer, always had new ideas," Gary said.
Beginning in 1972, Winder built four geodesic domes on his property with the help of his son Alan and friends and neighbors. The first and largest became a store called The Dome, which opened on March 5, 1974. The store, popular with winter visitors, would typically be open from late October to April or May. Winder sold citrus fruits, dates, candy and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Wheatcroft said her father would go to Los Angeles to buy candy such as licorice and chocolate. He also bought a machine that would grind nuts for fresh peanut butter.
"He was always adding stuff on," said Winder.s son Gary. "He had a successful fruit stand for years out of the packing house (before) he decided to open The Dome."
Gary said his father also had a thriving mail-order business with an active list of 10,000 customers ordering dates, fruits, nuts and candy. He recalled his father having an organ brought into The Dome as a curiosity. It stayed there about four or five years.
"It took up a third of The Dome," Gary said. "That thing would blast your ears."
The three smaller domes were used for packing and storage. The dates were dried on flat, wire-bottomed frames to dry before they were packed and shipped. Huge boxes of candy would be repackaged into smaller portions for sale in the store. Oranges, grapefruits, lemons and tangelos were packed into boxes 4 feet wide and 4 feet deep and then sold.
Kena Taylor, Winder.s granddaughter who lived on the farm for several years as a teenager, remembers her grandfather as being very hard-working. "I always remember him just getting up and going to work.'
Though he wasn.t one to express emotions, Winder had a soft spot for his daughters and granddaughters, Taylor said. "One of my favorite memories (is when) he kissed me once on the cheek."
Taylor said her grandfather laughed often and couldn.t pass up a good joke. He picked up Spanish from his employees, she said, and they.d always be laughing and joking as they worked.
Winder sold the farm in 1991, when he was 76, and leased five acres on the Cocopah Indian Reservation. He built a home using two Land and Sea containers facing north and south and adding large glass windows with sliding doors facing east and west.
"He didn.t want to get a building permit," Gary said. "He was pretty unconventional."
"In one corner, he added a kitchen, dining area and office," Wheatcroft said. "There are no walls, it.s one huge room."
In 1995, Winder married Doris F. McElfresh, who passed away in 2003. The couple most recently resided together at Emerald Springs in Yuma, where Winder lived until his death.
Winder is survived by four children: Alan (Frances) Winder of Phoenix, Gary (Lana) Winder of Murrietta, Calif., Diana (Ron) Wheatcroft of Del Mar, Calif., and Peggy Winder of Sacramento, Calif.; 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his oldest daughter, Virginia Louise, in 1963.
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1915 - 2004 (89 years)