While his peers and the nation grapple with the new paradigm, the story of Matt Gaetz doesn’t begin in the state of Florida, where he and his father Don both served in the state House of Representatives and Senate, respectively. In fact, the Gaetz family legacy of public service stretches back to the turn of the 20th century here in the Peace Garden state.

The Gaetz family’s story in North Dakota begins with Rep. Matt Gaetz’s namesake, his great-grandfather Matthew Louis (M.L.) Gaetz. The son of a veterinarian from Wadena, Minnesota, M. L. Gaetz was an active railroader for 52 years, having first come to Minot as a trainmaster in 1917. After a few stints elsewhere, he served as the division superintendent for the Great Northern Railroad in Minot beginning in 1930. In his obituary published in The Minot Daily News on Oct. 15, 1955, it was said that “the name of Matt Gaetz and the Minot division of the Great Northern were practically synonymous.”

M.L. married Ethel Andrews at Devils Lake in December 1907. Their growing family added three sons and a daughter, the youngest of which was Stanley Jerome Gaetz, who went by “Jerry.” Jerry Gaetz was the only one of the three sons to follow in his father’s footsteps into railroading, working for the Great Northern Railroad and even serving as the trainmaster for the Skagway-to-Whitehorse railroad when he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II.

In a story appearing in the Tuesday evening edition of The Minot Daily News published on Dec. 29, 1942, Jerry was interviewed about the trials and tribulations of keeping the trains running on time despite the drifts of snow, lack of resources and the various hazards involved.

Stanley “Jerry” Gaetz. Submitted by City of Rugby

“We had to build our own shop, almost from scratch,” Jerry was quoted as saying in the article, “Some of the things the boys had to rig up in the shop to get needed work done were like Rube Goldberg inventions.”

After the war, Jerry married Olive Knutson and settled down, starting a family of his own. He worked as a trainmaster in Rugby where he was eventually elected mayor, serving two terms between 1958 and 1962. Running under the slogan “Unbought, Unbossed, Unbowed,” Jerry made his mark on the state Republican Party, even declaring himself “North Dakota’s most Progressive mayor.”

As mayor, Jerry was noted for advocating on behalf of Native American workers and their families, and for pushing the city of Rugby to invest in the community’s claim to be the geographical center of North America. In a twinge of historical irony, Jerry also initiated a campaign against the Minot School Board when they threatened to fire Wayne Sanstead, a high school debate coach who had recently been elected to the State House of Representatives as a Democrat.

Former Rugby Mayor Dale Niewoehner was just in high school himself when Jerry was Rugby’s mayor. Niewoehner recalled a time where Jerry pulled him out of class for the day after hearing him express interest in railroading to bring him along to a track laying.

“I wanted to learn more about trains. It was sort of wintery and he came to the Upham school and asked the principal if he could take me with him. Hard to imagine something like this happening today.” said Niewoehner. “He took me with him to Westhope to watch the track laying, and he demonstrated how to check the road for ice. When we got back to town, I had missed the bus, so he chased it down. He was kind to me.”

Charles Crane/MDN The front page of the April 16, 1964, edition of The Pierce County Tribune pays tribute to former Rugby Mayor S.J. “Jerry” Gaetz, who died of heart attack after giving a speech at the State Republican Party convention the week prior. Gaetz’s grandson is current Florida congressman Matt Gaetz.

However, what cemented Jerry into North Dakota political apocrypha was his tragic death at the 1964 state Republican Party Convention. Jerry had begun a term in the North Dakota state Senate that year but had decided to run for lieutenant governor as a challenger in the Republican primary. Jerry was also serving as the chairman of the North Dakotans for Goldwater and gave a speech at the convention in Bismarck in support of the Senator’s presidential campaign. However, after descending the stage into the crowd for handshakes, Jerry suffered a heart attack and collapsed, an event captured and broadcast on state television and seen by his teenage son Donald.

Jerry Gaetz was administered to by doctors in attendance and was taken to a nearby hospital but did not recover. He was buried in Rosehill Memorial Park in Minot. This tragic moment would prove to be formative for Don Gaetz, eventually inspiring him to run for his local school board and later for state Senate in Florida. Don would tell the Associated Press in 2013 he was driven to seek public office to “finish my father’s work.”

Don Gaetz later provided financial support along with a treasured photo of his late father to Niewoehner when he was working on a project to hang photos of Rugby’s former mayors in city hall. His son Matt Gaetz, the younger, of course, would follow in the footsteps of his grandfather as well, crediting their legacy of “prairie populism” for his successes at the ballot box.

The congressman’s grandfather’s credo and influence is evident in his rhetoric surrounding McCarthy’s ouster, where he routinely assailed his critics and shamed his colleagues who “grovel and bend knee to the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership.”

Don and Matt Gaetz are both set to appear on the ballot in 2024, with the elder Gaetz recently announcing he will be re-entering politics to run for a vacant seat in the Florida state senate. Matt Gaetz is presently amongst the names being considered for House Speaker.