[1] His mother wrote a book published in 1910, The Pathway of Western Literature, which was used in many California Public Schools.

Mayor Gaines' brother Clarence was connected with the Redding office of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

His uncle Edward C. Stewart was president of the Union Safe Deposit Bank in Stockton, California.

[1] Their oldest son, William Stewart Gaines, could claim to be a British subject when he reached his 18th birthday because he was born in London in 1924.

The group's honorary chairman was Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of California.