Gene Wheadon, the 77-year-old farmer who recently passed up millions of dollars for his 70-acre farm to dedicate it as permanent open space, died Tuesday, May 13, apparently of a heart attack.Wheadon called relatives late Monday night and asked for help, but he didn't say what was going on, said his niece Jan Wheadon. By the time his brother-in-law arrived, Wheadon had died. He was sitting under a big tree in his yard.
"He had a heart attack that was so massive. He didn't suffer," Jan Wheadon said. "You know, people calling here have been shocked, we just saw him out working just yesterday."
In his last days, Wheadon was thrust into a community controversy over where to put a much-needed road connecting I-15 to Highland Drive. Transportation planners and city officials are weighing the option of building a four- to six-lane road either through Wheadon's farm or along a different route through dozens of homes.
It was for this reason Wheadon turned down millions for his land, opting instead to lock it all away in an open-space easement.
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt held a March press conference on the picturesque farm, where he praised Wheadon for his generosity and touted the first easement in Salt Lake County.
Because of that, Wheadon's picture was published on the front pages of both Salt Lake daily newspapers.
But Wheadon's farm is still under consideration as a possible route for the road that may skirt the edges of the land. For that reason, he started attending Draper City Council and transportation planning meetings to protect his land.
Gene Wheadon was a throwback.
He was born in 1919 in South Jordan and grew up in the Great Depression. As a result, he acquired a keen sense of the importance of farmers who feed the people. He talked passionately about raising chickens, vegetables, soil and farming like there was nothing else in the world. To a city person, Wheadon's farmer talk seemed barely un-der-stand-able.
"I could have sold that land now . . . and got millions of dollars out of that," Wheadon said in a recent interview at his farm. "You know, I was offered $4 million for 55 acres. I told him, `Nothing doing, I don't need the money.' I don't want to sell the farm. Money is no good; you can't eat money. City people don't understand that."
His property was strewn with trucks and farming equipment accumulated over the years. Wheadon was the archtypical Utah farmer who kept all his old equipment on hand just in case he needed a certain bolt or a spare fan belt, thus saving a trip to the market.
When the Deseret News wrote a profile of him in March, the farmer offered to pay back the reporter in tomatoes.
The other thing about Wheadon was his love for his wife.
"I had the neatest wife that ever was born. She died seven years ago," he said of Deane Fitzgerald Wheadon. "We used to run chickens, 3,000 laying hens here. I didn't want to have children. I have seen women die in childbirth, it scared me . . . I miss her so much."
Wheadon said his wife persuaded him to purchase the Draper farm in 1939. They started raising chickens and actually slept in the chicken coop until the newlyweds had enough money to build a house.
In the early 1980s, Deane Wheadon's arthritis put her in a wheelchair. Wheadon cared for her with sensitivity for her needs.
"I never left her. . . . When I'd go to the grocery store - the store is only a mile away - I would turn off the gas (to the house) because if there was an earthquake, I didn't want the house to burn up with her in it," he said.
"When I married her, it was like going to heaven."
There will be a viewing Friday night from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Draper LDS First Ward Chapel, 13366 S. 1300 East. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the ward. Burial will be in the South Jordan City Cemetery, 10650 S. 1000 West.