HISTORY
OZMENT’S WRITTEN HISTORY
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In a written family history she compiled, Kim Ozment explains that her grandfather Tommy Lara rarely discussed his childhood with her parents. He told them he had been placed in an orphanage after being abandoned by his father, Carlos. But Ozment says her own research, along with research her parents conducted years earlier, found no record of any orphanage in Phoenix at the time. She located a 1920 census report showing Tommy living with his father Carlos and Carlos’ second wife, Frances. After that, she believes he was left to fend for himself on the streets of Phoenix. According to Ozment’s account, Tommy found work and shelter with a man who owned a bakery. The baker allowed him to sleep on flour sacks and sent him to school. When he returned from classes, Tommy learned the trade. “He told my parents this,” Ozment said. She said while attending school, her grandfather befriended a boy who noticed he wore the same clothes each day. That boy asked his mother if Tommy could live with them. “The name of the family was the Ethridges,” Ozment said. “Their son Ernest was the one that became friends with my grandfather.” Ozment says the family treated him as one of their own. “We are very grateful to her for her kindness to Grandpa,” Ozment said. “I have the 1930 census where Tommy was living with the Ethridges.” Ozment said her grandfather and his brother Enrique, or Henry, did not remain together after they were abandoned. “I wish they had,” she said. There was a long-standing family story that Henry later hanged himself in a New Mexico jail cell. Ozment said she contacted court officials there, who conducted a records search. A news- paper article confirmed the account.
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FLOUR AND FORTITUDE Granddaughter of Buckeye Bakery’s Tommy Lara sets record straight on hard childhood, legacy
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BY DAVID KENNARD
K IM OZMENT DOESN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT HER grandfather, but she’s heard stories about the beloved Buckeye legend who was abandoned as a child, sleeping on flour sacks in the back of a Phoenix bakery before opening the Buckeye Bakery. Still, Ozment said she wants to set the record straight. “I’m here to honor my grandfather,” she said. Ozment was in town with other family members on Jan. 24 to celebrate Buckeye Days, to watch the annual cattle drive through the center of town, but mostly to find a connection to her grandfather, Tommy Lara. Lara died in 1970, not long after Buckeye Mayor Robert T. Bonnes declared Dec. 19, 1969, Thomas Lara Day.
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“That story was true,” she said. “But we’re glad my grandfather
survived growing up.”
InBuckeye.com | March/April 2026
March/April 2026 | InBuckeye.com
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