The History of Mesa, her Shotguns, and her Shotgun Weddings, brought to you by Maids on the Spot.
In the year 2001, the first year of business for Maids on the Spot, my very young daughter asked me if she could have a shotgun wedding. She had never been afraid of guns and had fired a few herself, so she was certain that she wanted her wedding to be one. We had an impromptu father-daughter conversation that night at which point my daughter declared that she absolutely did not want a shotgun wedding!
You might think this writing is about misunderstandings… but it’s not. I’d rather say a few words about shot-gun weddings. Did you know, for example, that on February 14th 1878 – Valentine’s Day, the first shot-gun wedding in the city of Mesa was performed. That’s because before this date, there was no city of Mesa even though there were likely more than a few shotgun weddings before that date.
1898: Gern Blanston and his daughter Fernhilde, see the light as Mesa City delivers electricity to its homeowners. Fernhilde and Thaddious Finch don’t see what the fuss is all about. Thaddious finds the light switch and the lights go out. Thaddious and Ferhilda were married 9 months later. Gern’s shotgun locked and loaded!
1902 The First instrument of social media is invented. The telephone! Soon those instruments would somehow gain intelligence, lose their curly cords and party lines and become far more dangerous than shotguns themselves. These weapons of mass hook-up destruction would become parents favorite means of restriction to their teenage children. The restrictions do not work. Shotgun weddings continue in Mesa and throughout the world.
1926 28 years of dust before the first vacuum cleaner would be sold to Mesa homeowner Beatrice Dorothy Ferguson. Carpets and rugs throughout Mesa would rejoice. Either Beatrice or the vacuum started such a revolution that year that Beatrice was buried with it when she died some 55 years later. There is no evidence that Dorothy had a shotgun wedding nor that a shotgun was involved in her death. But this event did bring vacuums to Mesa, and that is as important as the first cars entered Mesa City four years earlier in 1922.
2001 Hoping to avoid shotgun weddings of their own, two very fussy dads with many young impressionable daughters began utilizing the modern inventions of vacuums, cars and even telephones (along with a very important collection of cleaning processes, supplies and talent) to provide the city of Mesa house cleaning as a service. Those daughters grew up as did the Maids on the Spot. Some would even work for us. Do you remember them?
2022 The city of Mesa is 124 years old. Maids on the Spot is a young 21. Shotguns still exist, and I suppose, so do shotgun weddings. And Maids on the Spot will still be here with them, adding quietly to Mesa’s history cleaning one residential house at a time.
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