Mining Engineer ~ Missouri ~ Oklahoma ~ Bolivia
President ~ El Cedro Mining Co. ~ Guanajuato, Mexico
President ~ Drilmex, S. A. ~ Mexico, D. F.
Dudley Eugene Blaise Canterbury
1908 - 1988
Dudley Eugene Blaise Canterbury was born November 24, 1908 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was the son of Eugene Frank Blaise, independent oil producer and owner-president of the Farmers National Bank of Tulsa, and of Greek Miller Blaise Canterbury, Tulsa, Chicago and Los Angeles real estate developer.
Dudley was a great nephew of Hon. Bayard Taylor Hainer, who was appointed Associate Supreme Court Justice of Oklahoma Territory by President William McKinley and who later served as chief counsel for the Federal Trade Commission (1925-1933).
Dudley attended Ecole Gymnase (Paris), Fairfax High (Hollywood), Central High (Tulsa) and Colorado School of Mines prior to going to work as a mining engineer for the Admiralty Zinc Company, which his father headed as president from 1929 until the company was sold in 1936.
Dudley and his father founded El Cedro Silver Mining Company at Guanajuato, Mexico in 1936.
Dudley was also affiliated with American Mining and Smelting Company at San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and at Coatzacoalcos, Vera Cruz, Mexico; with Patino Tin Company at La Paz, Bolivia; with Tellepsem Builders & Construction Co.(Rio Grand City, Texas) ; with Celanesa Mexicana, S. A. (Rio Bravo); with Hoyland Fagersta Steel Company, Mexico City; and with Tecnicos y Fundiciones, Mexico City. He served as president of Drilmex, S.A., Mexico City at the time of his retirement in 1974.
Dudley married Clara Olive Snyder, daughter of Mabel and John Abbott Snyder, Missouri bus line founders, at Joplin, Missouri on December 26, 1934. They established a home in Mexico in 1937 and sired two sons, Dudley E. "John" Blaise Jr., born in 1937, and Thomas M. Blaise, born in 1938. In early 1939 he abandoned the three of them. At the time, mine workers went on strike at the family mining company in Guanajuato and Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas expropriated the assets of 17 legally established American, British and Dutch oil companies. A worldwide boycott of Mexican oil thus ensued, when Cardenas began selling Mexican oil to Nazi Germany, thus fueling World War II.
Dudley was later reported to be living in Hollywood, California in an apartment house owned by his mother Greek Canterbury. When ordered to appear in a Los Angeles court and answer charges of failing to support his wife Clara Olive and their two sons, Dudley failed to appear in court. He soon after returned to Mexico.
In November 1949, Clara Olive was granted a divorce on grounds of desertion of her and their two children. The following year it was reported by the State Department that Dudley was hired as a mining engineer for the Patino Tin Mining Company in Bolivia at an annual salary of $25,000.00 Clara Olive was thus awarded $250 monthly child support by a Bolivian court. However, the judgment was soon after reduced to $80 monthly when Patino Tin Co. was nationalized by the Bolivian government, at which time Dudley returned to Mexico, where he was employed as a mining engineer in Coatcoalcos, Veracruz, then as a plant engineer and manager by the Celanese Corporation in Rio Bravo.
When Clara Olive, Tom and John went to Dudley's office at Celanese just before Christmas in 1955, Dudley refused to see them. Tom returned to Mexico the following summer, when he enrolled as a freshman at University of Mexico, following his graduation from high school, when he went to his father's home to meet him. He found his father, who volunteered as a Little League baseball coach to other peoples sons, to be somewhat distant and evasive.
Although the two of them had dinner together on several occasions, Tom's father never volunteered to help Tom out in order to enable Tom to continue his college studies. Tom thus enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1957, after completing two semester of college as an honor student. In 1961, Tom returned to Mexico City for a brief visit with his father.
Dudley died at Montgomery County, Texas in 1988 at the age of 80. He never in his life sent his two sons, John and Tom a birthday card or gift of any kind, nor did he answer any of the letters they wrote to him.
- Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico -
left click on photo to view photos
of Dudley and family he abandoned ~ Clara, John and Tom ~
Blaise Family & Home
Guanajuato - Mexico City
1937 - 1938
Views of Clara & Dudley
Clara Olive 1928 - NPS
Clara Olive & D.E. Blaise
Honeymoon January 1935
Clara, Dudley '35 & Tom '96
view 1 view 2
D.E. "John" Blaise Jr.
1937 - 2002
U.S. Army
age 23
1962
view
Tom Blaise Gallery
an autobiography
Thomas Mitchell Blaise Shepherd
Tulsa Oil Man
biography 1 biography II
Blaise Family Mexico City 1938
Dudley ~ E. F. Blaise ~ Clara Olive ~ Marie
Blaise Family Guanajuato 1938
Clara Olive ~ Infant John Dudley Jr. ~ Dudley ~ Gene
His Son Tom
Architecture of Tom Shepherd
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Dudley E. Blaise & Clara Olive Snyder Exchange Wedding Vows ~ 1934
Clara is the daughter of Mabel Mitchell Snyder & John Abbott Snyder