Mitt’s Mexican Background

While researching the historical background on the book written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark and later the movie, “The Ox bow Incident,” directed by William Wellman, I happened on the name of William Flake. He found the three innocent men hanged by a vigilantes near Heber, Arizona — and played a roll in the life of Mitt Romney’s family.

At the time, 1880s Arizona was the center of Mormon religious persecution, culminating with the sentencing of several prominent Mormon leaders to the federal prison in Detroit, the city where Mitt Romney was born.  Romney’s great-grandfather Miles Park Romney was among those arrested — however he was held in a Prescott, Arizona jail.

Deciding he couldn’t get a fair trial, the moment he was able to post bail, Romney skipped and fled to Mexico with his then four wives and their children. Flake was the one who posted Romney’s $2,000 bond.

Flake lived to the age of 93, passing away on August 10, 1932 in Snowflake, Arizona, a town he founded.  Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake as well as Speaker of the Arizona House and later State Senator Jake Flake are his descendants

Miles died in Mexico in 1904 before his family returned to the United States.  Mitt’s father George, was born in Mexico in 1907 and immigrated to the U.S. with his father, Gaskell, and the rest of his family when Mexican revolutionaries drove the Mormons out in 1912.

Later, as Governor of Michigan, George, a moderate Republican, instituted a state income tax. Then in 1964, he ran against Barry Goldwater in the Republican presidential primary, refusing to endorse Goldwater after he won the nomination.

Mitt, whose real first name is ‘Willard,” was born March 12, 1947 and according to Wikipedia is an “American businessman and the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2012 election.”  He was also the Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

Incidentally — Miles never did pay back that $2,000 in bail he owed William.