1918 – 1996

Married: Sara Dotson

Children: Ginny Perdue, Ed Stanford

5 Grandchildren and 4 Great Grand Children

Harold Edwin Stanford was born to parents, R.D. and Myrtle Meredith Stanford, on November 23, 1918 in Oklahoma City, but his family moved to Donelson, Tennessee in 1919 when he was just 6 months old. He grew up in the ante-bellum home "Bellair" on Lebanon Road with siblings, R.D. Jr. and Myrtle. His favorite time as a boy was spent on the family farm, where his father had Hereford and Angus cattle. He graduated from Donelson Elementary and High School. Later he graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1940 and then enlisted in the United States Navy.

In 1947 Harold began Stanford Farms where he established a herd of registered Aberdeen Angus. In 1959 he moved to Wilson County and bought a farm on Big Springs Road, where he actively farmed until the dispersal sale in 1991.

Stanford Farms showed the Supreme Champion Bull at the 1962 American Angus Futurity and the Grand Champion Supreme Champion Bull in the 1966 American Angus Futurity. However it was it 1972 when the first Chianina/Angus cross calves were born on his farm that Mr. Stanford began his work as one of the founding breeders of the Chiangus breed. Stanford Farms is assigned the 96th member number of the American Chianina Association. Mr. Stanford believed intensely that Chianina genetics should be used on his excellent registered Angus herd. He has been described as a visionary breeder, pioneer and the ultimate cow man. Mr. Stanford was not one to follow fads in the cattle business. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s when bigger was supposedly better, purebred breeders of all breeds could not get their cattle big enough, fast enough. He was breeding the same type of cattle when he dispersed his herd in 1991 as he was 19 years before. He never wavered from the kind of cattle hat he liked and belief that the cattle industry would eventually return back to his kind of cattle. Mr. Stanford developed the most valuable maternal genetic line in the Chiangus breed, but his most enduring legacy is the genuine and sincere interest in giving advice to younger Chiangus breeders. When he dispersed his herd in 1991, he had two aged Angus cows that were 17 years old. He didn’t have the heart to send them to the sale barn, so he gave the cows to young Chiangus breeder, Tyler Winegardner. Several popular show animals are a direct result of that generous gift.