F03 REFERENCE NOT TO B£ 7AKEK FROM TH!S ROOM KurribcSdt County Library Winnemucca, Nevada

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MARIAN ERSKINE GRAUVOGEL F03 REFERENCE NOT TO B£ 7AKEK FROM TH!S ROOM KurribcSdt County Library Winnemucca, Nevada

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MARIAN ERSKINE GRAUVOGEL page 9 LD: Did he stay a pipefitter and plumber working for C. B. Brown's?

MG: For awhile he went to Reinhart's. He quit C. B. Brown and worked for Mose Reinhart for years and was still a plumber.

When my dad got in legal trouble with the bank, it was Mose Reinhart and the Masons that kept him out of jail.

Did you know Lucille Erskine? Mona Ellifritz's mother. Lucille is my step­ mother. My dad married her and then I had Larry and then she had Mona and then I had Lyle. She was wonderful. Lucille was a dear friend for 62 years.

LD: Of course. And she was a wonderful waitress.

MG: Yes. She was remarkable. She was awful good to me. And the fact that we were having babies at the same time. You know that was a very strong tie. She was 92 when she died. Her name was Kleckner. She was born on a ranch in Elko and then she and her sister were looking for jobs. At one time going to San Francisco and Seattle was a good place to get a job, and it was exciting so they went over there.

LD: Was Mona the only child your father and Lucille had?

MG: Yes. One was a still-born boy. Before that Lucille didn't have any children until she married my dad. Oh she wanted a baby and they had this little boy. My dad was a lot older than she was. It was heartbreaking for Lucille to lose the baby. She had been married in California. Her folks were all in Elko so she came back here. She worked in the Hotel Humboldt for many years.

LD: So she earned the household money from being a waitress?

MG: Yes. She was the sharpest lady. I don't know how she did it. She would get these tips and she'd save them. She had a sense of values. She'd pick up a house that nobody else would live in and six months later she would have it ready to rent. My dad worked like that too.

LD: Then you and Donald finished school here and went all through these school systems?

MG: Yes. What else was there? (laughter)

LD: Who were some of your friends that you went to school with? What year would you have graduated?

MG: '34. Let's see. Pauline O'Carroll. She and I were buddies. Vera and page 10

Verna Bullis. Emilie Dillon came in from Golconda for high school. Jim Callahan and Leland Pearce. He was a very close friend of my family. Harold Egoscue. Willy Arbonies. Gil Prida.

LD: You would walk to grammar school?

MG: By that time we lived close to school. It was two blocks.

LD: Do you remember some of your favorite teachers?

MG: We had the most marvelous school, and it showed. People prospered. My grandmother was on the school board for 25 years. Mary A. Erskine. See they use to have two boards. They had a high school and they had a grade school. She was getting a little senile. My first grade teacher also came to my retirement. Bessie Sanders. She was from here. Second grade, Mrs. Watts, Third grade was Mrs. Pike, and the First grade was Jenny Smith. These people taught for years and years and years.

LD: You knew who you were going to have then each grade?

MG: Yes.

LD: Was there a separate Indian school when you were going to school?

MG: Yes. It's still here. The building is here. There was an Indian school in back of us in the old Grammar School. When they built the new grammar school in 1927 they abolished that and brought the Indian kids into regular classes.

LD: Did you play with any of them and were friends with them?

MG: Sure. They had a different recess, though I did know some of them. Once they came into our big school, yes. During adolescense I didn't have any prejuditions. I didn't know what that was. We had some black people. Robinsons were wonderful. Adelle Robinson, I just loved her. Well, one of the best people I've ever known. Talented family.

LD: Did you ever know a lady named Grandma Mims?

MG: Yes. Tall. I'd forgotten about her too.

LD: In grammar school did you have a talent for music?

MG: Oh well, I had a talent for music when we lived in Reno and I was four page II years old and my mother took me to a silent picture. "Little Old New York", I think that was the name of it and I think Marion Davies was in it. The organist played the Blue Danube Waltz and I was just going out of my head, and she said, "Quiet Down". I told her when we got out of the theater, "What was that song?" And she said, "Oh I can sing that." And all the way home she sang that Blue Danube Waltz. I kept at her and I kept at her till I finally got a record of it. All of these people in my family sang and danced. That's the first time I think music really hit me as something ethereal. My mother said, "I got so tired of that darned song." She knew a lot of the words and I couldn't remember the words, (laughter) Then my grandparents were very musical and when we went to live with them they had a piano and they had one of these old crank up record players you know. All kind of music. Good classical music.

LD: I wonder how they acquired that taste.

MG: I talked to other teachers or musicians and they say that what you hear as a very young child is the music you are going to remember. One time I was with Emmy, she's my daughter-in-law, and this man was a janitor and a black man. He was cleaning up in that part of the building and he sat down at a piano and he started to play jazz. Gee. So I told Emmy, "I just love that." She said, "I'll introduce you. You listen to him. He's good." She said he works nights playing in one of the hotels. So he later was going through all this improvation in jazz and I said, "You know I have tried for years and years to do that and I don't get it." I watched his big, black hands and I thought I can't believe this. He said, "Well what kind of music did you hear when you were very young." I said, "Classics." He said, "Not only that, but you're the wrong color." He said, "I heard jazz from all the time I can remember, so improvisation was already there."

LD: How long ago was this?

MG: Oh three or four years. Emmy was very active in the Oakland Museum for awhile. She was into a lot of things in the Bay Area. She's an artist, a craftsman, a decorator. That's Larry's wife.

LD: Let's go back to your grammar school teachers.

MG: O.K. The fourth grade was Mrs. Leach, the fifth grade was Ethel Kibbee. And then we had in the seventh grade a man. Mimi was on the school board so she would invite these people to dinner. Oh she was swanky. This teacher I just loved. He was so handsome and I was in the seventh grade, (laughter) I picked up the nickname of Pete or Peter and I didn't like it. The teachers always called me Marian. The kids called me "Pete" One time he was talking to the seventh grade class and he said, page 12

"Now did you get that Pete?" And the romance was over. That was the last year he taught school. Did you know Wendell Vine? He came from Iowa. This was Stanley's brother. He finally taught in Elko. Ethel Kibbee taught school for 51 years.

LD: Was she a good teacher?

MG: Oh my gosh. She was out of this world.

LD: How about principals?

MG: When I entered school here there were two men, a principal and a vice-principal. This was in the old building, and they got in trouble for being too hard on the kids. They got fired and a fellow named Roger Corbett was real young and he came. That was the year they wanted to work on getting a bigger school, which finally was opened in 1927.

LD: How about clothes Marian? Were your clothes homemade, or store- bought?

MG: Mostly homemade.

LD: By your grandmother?

MG: Yes. And I learned to sew when I was very young. That's what you did.

LD: People told me they didn't have a lot of clothes.

MG: No. But of course my mother kept sending me clothes and I had my grandparents getting me clothes. I wanted to learn to sew and my grand­ mother had an old sewing machine, although for that time it was very good. She helped me. Pauline O'Carroll's mother was very good and I used to hang out there a little bit to watch her sew.

LD: What was her maiden name?

MB: Backus. Rhoda Backus. Her father was Levi Backus and he had mines out in Golconda so Pauline started school there and then she came into us at 4th grade and we've been good friends. It was a very good life. I can't remember anybody dropping out of school. You just took it for granted. I can't remember anybody being bitter about it. Of course that staff of those eight people, and this was all done in that one building. Another thing the staff in the high school was so smart that we didn't know we were poor. We didn't know we had problems. The principal was a wonder­ ful man, Mr. Wooster, and he was so smart and when the banks closed he page 13 had all the kids get in the auditorium and he said, "This will pass. Let's just turn out the lights and go to sleep and we go ahead with what we were doing and go make the best of it." And I thought so many times he had problems but he never took it out on anybody. He gathered together the whole school and explained what happened to our economy and things like that. So then we were kind of up against it. We didn't have any money and Isabelle, the one that taught music there, Isabelle MacCallister, Isabelle Loring taught us to be resourceful.

LD: In high school?

MG: Yes. She taught english and music. We were to her dying day very close friends. My class couldn't afford a yearbook, so we made our own. Mrs. Hudson and people like that. They got right in and said, "If we don't have money, we've got brains and we'll do this, and we'll do that, and we'll have it and we'll graduate." We were kept so busy and we didn't know much about it. And my grandparents supported us.

LD: Do you still have that year book?

MG: I think I do.

LD: When you were in grammar school, did you do a lot of musicals?

MG: There was a teacher here for dancing. Mrs. Oastler. They built the American Theater and downstairs in the Nixon (Opera House) is where we had the studio. I danced from the time I was four. I took dancing lessons when I was in Reno when I was four and then we moved here and I went ahead.

LD: What was Mrs. Oastler like?

MG: She had a lot of talent. Her husband had been with the mines and that's where she met him. He had some money and then they built the theater in 1916 - I argue about that - some of them say 1915. Apparently he'd had some background in things like that. She understood a lot about dance, but not the kind of dance you have now. They used to call it "fancy dancing". But she had talent, and she taught a lot of people. She could get them to do things.

LD: Were there a lot of the kids around town that took the dancing?

MG: Quite a few, but it took $5.00 for 12 lessons. Another thing she did, she spotted talent. I know darn well unless my grandfather paid for those lessons that I got that for free. For some years she did that. The old page 14

American Theater was big enough that she could take the screen down and you had your recital right there. She had an organ that I've never seen. A double organ with two rolls. She played these pieces on the player piano and she'd have to study that for what was going to be on the final picture. She'd let me sit up in front with her and then she'd play something. We had to be quiet, but she'd explain. It might be only six or seven measures, but she could cancel that and put on different music on the other roll.

LD: When she was in the American Theater with the silent movies, she didn't actually play the organ?

MG: No. She couldn't play an organ, but she could manipulate. Dancing lessons were done to the phonograph.

LD: Were there any other music teachers here?

MG: Excellent. Mrs. Bell taught piano, and at that time when I started piano she was the only piano teacher in town.

LD: Do you know her full name?

MG: May Bell. And she was excellent. It's something that I'm very grate­ ful for because she knew what she was doing. She had three kids, her husband died, and she did that for a living. She wouldn't take you until you were in fourth grade and now they can take them younger.

LD: Were there a lot of people took lessons?

MG: Yes, there were. In that time it was fashionable to have a piano in your house and to play it so Pauline (O'Carroll) had lessons, Backuses had lessons and all from Mrs. Bell. And it earned her a living and got her kids raised. Lots of students.

LD: When you were around Mr. and Mrs. Oastler did you meet any of the stars?

MG: I met Gary Cooper. I remember when they had the film "Winning of Barbara Worth" made and the stars had to come here because there wasn't anyplace else to go. Ronald Coleman. Vilma Bankey. I think those folks had never been out on the desert. (Margaret Butts was in on that). The thing I remember about it was I went in to buy an ice cream cone in the drugstore and this guy was standing there waiting to be waited on and he was so tall and I was kind of short. I remember I asked Mr. Oastler, "Who is that guy?" They were awfully good to me. Mrs. Oastler also designed and made all her costumes. At her expense. People could sew then. page 15

LD: Was she fun to be around?

MG: No. (laughter) She meant well, but she was quite severe in some ways. She was awfully good to me in some ways, but she never had any children. Well, she was supposed to have a child and she fell down the steps. (They drank a lot, and that's how she lost the baby). But they did a lot for us. That's true.

LD: Did you perform at the Nixon Opera House?

MG: Oh yes. Everybody did.

LD: Downstairs was the studio, but you performed on the stage?

MG: We performed on the American Theater's stage for awhile and then we did some on that floor before the place was remodelled because I still remember the stage on the Nixon was the one that had the rake. First time I danced in there I danced a solo for something my mother was in. I was six years old and I had done a dance in Reno when I was a little younger and I had the costume. It was called "A Chinamen's Great Dream." So Mrs. Bell played the Chinamen's music and we got in there and here was the piano and here was this floor that was going just like this (sloped) and I told my mother, "What's the matter with the floor? I can't do that." She said, "Yes, you can. You won't fall or anything." It made me feel funny and finally on the way home, and we walked, I said, "Why do they have it tipped like that?" And she said, "So the people can see better." And I said, "If they want to see better, why don't they get some glasses?" (Laughter) She let me know that a couple of times. If I'd get carried away she'd say, "Why don't you get some glasses?" Mrs. Oastler would do a whole show there on the raked stage. Now the rake is usually in the audience area. Then they remodelled the upstairs and so this rake was like this and so they wanted a flat stage because they wanted the auditorium to be raked. And it worked out pretty well. It's very interesting. You know when the Nixon got burned down it was one of the last of those buildings. There's one left I think. Piper's Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada.

LD: Did a lot of the townspeople come to see the performance?

MG: Everybody. Well everybody went to everything because you walked to things. Once we said something about graduation and people said we can't do this and we can't do that and Isabel said yes you can. We wanted a dance and we had to get somebody to play. We said, "We haven't got any money." And she said, "Well you can charge 25cents for everybody that comes in there." And we raised enough money. And all through the de­ pression we were putting on shows because we wanted to go to a dance. page 16

She and Mrs. Hudson, the English teacher, were just wonderful. None of us had money for fancy clothes and we didn't have robes for graduation. J.C Penney Company had some little white robes and we didn't have anything on our heads. The girls all wore the white robes and the boys wore white shirts and dark pants. These people were so resourceful.

LD: Do you remember at home the depression being a big burden to your grandparents?

MG: We never knew. We were never put up against that. At that time children were I think more protected and they didn't have TV.

LD: As far as eating or any of that you didn't have any big hardships?

MG: We didn't. I don't know what my grandparents went through. Plenty, I guess.

LD: All during grammar school then you kept up with music, with piano and the dancing. Would you be in charge of little groups?

MG: The teachers always did a lot. I was still learning. I had taught dancing for some years. We had programs once in a while. The whole idea of kids performing in public really began to go good after I was grown up because so much has been learned about what makes you learn and the idea of the arts, and I say this with good reason, is that it increases the self-esteem so much that they want to do it. People say, "That's a bunch of frills and it cost too much." Baloney. Every one of those kids that danced at that school thought they were Fred Astaire or somebody like that. They were serious. When I see kids now they say, "Remember the time we did the square dancing for you?" I said, "Yeh, I sure do." They say, "Gee, I had a good time." But now when it comes to budgeting what's the first thing to go - the arts! And it's a crime. We had some little plays and programs on that stage they've still got over there in the grammar school, but the teachers were the directors. I helped. In high school I was in a lot of plays and dancing.

LD: For recreation with your grandparents or you and your brother, would you go out in the evenings?

MG: Everybody went dancing at the Nixon on Saturday night. Old, young, any color.

LD: Would they have a full band? page 17

MG: Yes, but it would usually be a local band. Of course you still had to pay and the bands were having trouble too.

LD: Did the Robinsons play for the City Band at the swimming pool?

MG: Adelle, they all were very talented, but I don't remember the instruments. Bruce Hubbard had a good dance band. He later taught in Monterey for a long time. There was always a dance band because what do you do Saturday nights? You went to the dance.

LD: And that was always at the Nixon?

MG: Sure.

LD: Can you remember any more of those dance bands?

MG: Yes, I'll have to think. Bud was in some of them as we went along. Bruce Hubbard had the most successful one. Leland Pearce was a very close friend of mine and my mothers. He played drums.

LD: In high school, did you dance still?

MG: Yes. Isabel taught me tap dancing. She gave me piano lessons. We couldn't afford the piano anymore so she gave me lessons there at the high school. We were always doing something. I'll tell you one thing. We didn't have any kids taking bone head math and bone head english because it was a kind of school where if you didn't pass it you didn't pass.

LD: Were there fellows around town that would dance too?

MG: Oh yeh. All our classmates.

LD: What else were you interested in in school?

MG: Well, I loved it I know that. I liked to write and I didn't like math­ ematics at all. I still can't add worth a damn. English, I love. There were two in my class in grammar school that didn't get a Palmer Method award. James Edmonds and I, we were rotten writers. Still are. After I was older and I was pretty close to Ethel Kibbee, our teacher, and I said, "Why did you do that?" She said, "Because you're a rotten writer, and so was he." (laughter)

LD: Where did you shop?

MG: Oh we had good stores. Rinehart's had a good department and several page 18 very good grocery stores like Rinehart's had one and the Safeway was here and they were enough. I think some of the stores closed down a little bit during the depression, but came back.

LD: Where would your grandparents shop for food?

MG: Reinhart's. Well my grandfather worked there. I guess it wasn't called Safeway. It was where Dick Morall had a store.

LD: As far as games?

MG: We had games all the time. There was so much going on and with kids it was different. If it was snowing everybody went with a snowball thing. And we got bicycles and everybody did that. We'd go after school and play out in the street.

LD: You never had to work?

MG: When I was a junior in high school I went to work in the Eagle Drug Store on weekends or holidays. That was my first job.

LD: Did you go to the river?

MG: To begin with there was a pool behind the Episcopal Church. But before that we'd get somebody to take us out to Reinhart's Dam or something like that. Swimming was always a big thing and when they took the pool out of the Episcopal Church and got this big pool I was a lot older then and everybody swam out there.

LD: You mean the one that was behind the Nixon? Do you remember the band playing?

MG: Yes. There was a little balcony on the upstairs of the Nixon and the balcony extended out a little bit over the pool and the city band would come in the evening and play out there. It wasn't a really big bandstand but they'd play and we'd swim. It never occured to us that that was a fire trap. No. And there was never an accident.

LD: So would the adults be on the lawn?

MG: All over. There would be people all over. They had benches around there and you could watch the people swim.

LD: Would they take picnics down? MARIAN ERSKINE GRAUVOGEL

Linda Dufurrena: Today is May 25, 1995 and we are at Marian Grauvogel's house beginning an oral history.

Whenever I think about music and school I think of you. How long did you teach?

Marian Grauvogel: I taught 15 years at the grammar school and 17 at the Sonoma Heights. So it was a long time. I substituted right after World War II for three years. There was only two of us. Me and Helen Heward. There just weren't any teachers. They all went on the war thing, where they made some money, (laughter)

LD: Did you always teach music?

MG: No. The first three years I substituted at the grammar school kinder­ garten through eighth grade. And that was the best education I ever got. (laughter) When you go on just that much notice.

LD: Where did you get your schooling?

MG: Winnemucca Grammar School and Humboldt County schools. I got to college in 1944 accidently. I was married and had two children and intended to stay home and have a lot of kids. Never did get a girl. I got two boys. My husband and I were divorced when they were very young. He went into the navy and I didn't know what I was going to do. I had some financial support and they needed - at this time so many teachers had dropped school and gone into the war support industries - so they were desperate for teachers and the state, or the University of Nevada, offered some crash courses to people who would come back to teaching, or come in and start something that they could use. It was called War Emergency. We went the whole six weeks there. So I took my kids and went to college. Took Larry and Lyle.

LD: Had you had any training before that at all?

MG: Well the training I had was that I taught dancing and I had music all of my life and other things would come up. So the actual training is what I got here like if there was a dancing teacher I'd go over there, if there was a music teacher I'd go there. But I find at looking back that almost every member of my family danced and sang and played an instrument. I had Girl Scouts and taught Sunday School and was in Rainbow for girls.

LD: Let's go back and start with when you were born, and where and who your parents and grandparents were. page 19

MG: No, I don't remember much eating. It just wasn't done. Bruce Hubbard had the biggest band and he's the one that started the band over here at the high school. I had a dancing class and I had recitals. Isabel and I had good sized classes. If you could charge a kid a dollar apiece it was a lot of money in those days I'll tell you. I was going to have a recital at the Nixon and Mr. Wooster called me and he said, "How would you like to have a band at your recital?" And I said, "Oh yeh, where am I going to get a band?" And he said, "Well Mr. Hubbard has got a new band. I heard them and they are pretty good. You know that would make a real good show." And it was wonderful. See the Nixon had that place where you could put the orchestra and so we had that and then the stage was for the dancing. It was elegant I'll tell you.

LD: Did you perform then?

MG: No, I was teaching then. I played the piano for the performances. I played for those whole school dances and if a kid didn't have a partner I would go down and dance with him or her, because you can't do that to children.

LD: Did you learn by sight or by sound?

MG: To begin with we moved to our grandparents house, I want to say out of self-defense, they had to give me music lessons because I stood there all the time just a banging around and singing songs and my dad came in one time and he said "Oh my gosh I sure wish you could take lessons." Mrs. Bell wouldn't take me until I was in 4th grade and so I fooled with it and I fooled with it and our grandfather - I give him a lot of credit for this. He was the only one who realized that when you're doing all that fooling you're learning something and I wanted to play. So finally I got to take lessons.

LD: But you didn't play by ear?

MG: Not when I was that young. I did when I was older. I can play a lot by ear but then when Isabel and I started the dancing classes and I was still single she played most of the time and I led the dancing and it worked pretty well.

LD: You knew how to sew, so you could do costumes?

MG: Yes. I realize that these parents had these kids dancing and they really put out (by making costumes, etc.).

end of first interview page 20

May 31, 1995 - Second interview - Marian Grauvogel

Linda Dufurrena: You and I were just talking about Mrs. Kibbee. I didn't know her at all. Was she married?

Marian Grauvogel: She was divorced. I was her guardian the last few years of her life. There wasn't anybody else except for one sister, and she died. It was a most interesting family because they grew up in Virginia City and fortunately I did remember some of the things that she said because they are just awfully funny. Then she was my 6th grade teacher.

LD: And you said she won the first outstanding state teacher award?

MG: In Nevada. I had the plaque for a long time. The state education people decided that they would acknowledge people that had been in great respect. She said that one of the teachers spotted that and sent her name into this committee. So she got this award. And she didn't want it. She taught 51 years. Anyway she did do it. Before that she was always good for telling stories, some of them were decent and some of them were not. I've got them. I had a lot of experience in public speaking and she said, "I'm going to go and do it because Louise says I have to do it. I don't want to go and I don't want to make a speech but they put pressure on me, so you write me a speech." I said, "You don't need me to write me a speech. Just tell them the cannibal story." (laughter) Then she had to go and buy a dress and be real dolled up.

LD: Did she have a family?

MG: She had been divorced and she had two little girls. One girl (Elsie) was a sophomore at the University of Nevada and she died. After that Ethel made the best of it. She was still a remarkable teacher. The kids loved her.

LD: What happened to the other daughter?

MG: She married a very wealthy man in San Francisco and first her husband died and then she died. By this time Ethel had been in the hospital for the old folks for some time. She was ninety-something then.

LD: You talked about keeping histories of people. What are you doing?

MG: Well, I got information organized for this lady in Reno, she was page 21 going to the University of Nevada and she was doing some of it for a degree. Information on Ethel Kibbee and Nora Roberts. And this Kathy, she picked these women, and she said, "It has been suggested that you might be one." Then I didn't hear from her. I still have her address.

LD: It would be nice for the library to have a copy of what you have gathered.

MG: We could do that.

LD: Going back to the first interview, I wanted to ask more about some of the things we talked about. Can you remember what wages would have been when you first started teaching?

MG: It was very little. Schoolteachers weren't paid very much, but I couldn't remember that because I wasn't the teacher.

LD: But when you started substitute teaching and then went to the crash course. Did you get a degree with that crash course?

MG: No. It took me 18 years.

LD: So that war department crash course at the University didn't give you a degree?

MG: Oh no. 18 years it took to get a degree. I went every summer. And I went to San Francisco to get a minor in music. We didn't have it here yet. During the year a lot of things had to close down and of course arts and sports - well everybody was in trouble - so then it kind of had to build up again. I remember how little Ethel was paid. I have her first two contracts. Even at the time Ethel retired she only made about $550. in her pension. She owned her house and all that, but when it came time - see the county helped her - and when that was all over that had to be repaid, so I sold her house which I thought was the honest thing to do. But we didn't have this gorgeous pension system until after she retired. People that organized this pension for the teachers, and anybody employed by the civic offices are all in that. It's one of the best pension systems in the United States and some of them are losing out because they are trying to get them into social security. Well that's baloney. And those men that started that thing were so smart.

LD: As far as you're concerned though, when you went and took a crash course and started teaching were you paid less than the regular teachers? page 22

MG: I don't know. You know teachers were so much in demand. As I told you after the war a lot of the teachers didn't come home. I think that we got at least as much as the teachers did and there was only two of us available all the time. So we were pretty well paid in that way, that it wasn't just come and go too much.

LD: Who was the other one?

MG: Helen Heward. She's still alive. She's in a nursing home.

LD: So you two were substitutes?

MG: Yes. There may have been others. We worked nearly every day as substitutes, and I think it was Marge Peraldo that did the high school. I really enjoyed it and I kept taking courses and I went to college a lot. I graduated after 18 years, and we had a party, (laughter) I told my mother, "Why I'm not going to make a big thing of that." And she said, "Why not, you've been at it long enough."

LD: And you took your two boys with you when you went to that crash course. Did you have relatives to live with?

MG: No, but I had wonderful friends. There was really nothing to rent, but my grandmother looked at the Nevada State Journal and she saw this ad for a little house and she said she had a hunch that I ought to look at it. Doris Damon took me over to look around and find something. I wouldn't leave my children, and I'm glad I didn't.

LD: You said all your family had musical talent. Would you and you family get together in the evenings or on holidays and play and sing?

MG: Yeh, we did have some of that. And they always had a whole bunch of records and they'd sing with that. It was there in my mother's family and my uncle played several instruments and was in the city band after he got out of the hospital.

LD: I was going to ask you about Harry and being a guinea pig.

MG: He was in a big hospital in Palo Alto and they took these men that had 'shell-shock1. Of course the action was only in Europe as far as they were concerned but they had to ship them clear back to California.

LD: And you said he had a head injury? page 23

MG: Yes. The ship sank and he got hit in the head by the ship and the Americans were able to get quite a few guys out, but then they had that long trip on the boat coming back.

LD: Did he mention what he thought they did to him?

MG: After he was normal again he read everything. A kid that never finished high school, but he read and read until his dying day. He invest­ igated some of it and then he made some friends in California and he realized after years and years went by that they did wonderful things and they had to do a little experimenting, I guess.

LD: He didn't say what they did to him?

MG: No, and I say it took 12 years after the accident.

LD: Did he get a pension from that?

MG: Yes.

LD: Did he work?

MG: When he moved back here he went to live with his mother and father again and he took a job in a men's shop and he stayed there quite a long time. Holman's. They got along fine for years and years and then Sam Holman sold the store and he wasn't happy with that so he took other jobs, and one of them was working in a casino and he just loved that. He did everything in the casino, but also he was a gambler and any pension he would have a good time. He used to go to the VFW and he went to Eureka for a meeting and he met a lady who was a widow and they got to be pretty good friends, she was very wealthy, and they got married and moved to Utah for awhile and then they moved back to San Francisco. She died and after a few years he married another rich lady, (laughter) And they went on their honeymoon to Las Vegas. Oh, my mother was mad. He said, "You know my first 50 years of my life wasn't worth a damn, but I've sure had a good time since then." Well he lived to be 87.

LD: He didn't seem to have any ill effects from the injury and treatment?

MG: No. He was completely normal. That's why it took so long. My grand­ parents used to go and see him and stay with my aunt in San Francisco. At first he didn't know them and it just about broke my grandmother up, but little by little he began to recognize her and that tie they said too has helped some of those fellows. His ship was sunk just out of Spain some­ place. page 24

LD: Were you in any Red Cross efforts?

MG: No. Because I went to school and then I married very young, and then I had the two boys.

LD: Do you remember seeing a center for Red Cross?

MG: They were doing knitting and they were involved in it but I had two kids.

LD: When we were talking about all the entertainment that used to come to the Nixon Opera House, can you remember what types would come?

MG: Oh, all. Pansalee Larson has a record of all that. Pages and pages of everything that went on in the Nixon. We had community concerts for some years and we had lots of plays and local concerts, band concerts. Because we had such a fine stage we would get lots of performances.

LD: Were there opera stars?

MG: Not so much opera. We had a choice of what we could get. Opera wasn't going here. A long time ago when the Nixon was built there were operas. Then we got to having more and more activity in there because that was the place to go.

LD: Did you go and see the prizefights?

MG: The prizefights were only during the rodeo. See they did that right on that beautiful floor. One time we had to put on a dance recital and we had to go around and fill up the nail holes. At that time they kept it clean. That was a wonderful floor, it wasn't a hard floor, it was easy to dance on. Lot's of people went to the fights. First you went to the parade and then you went to the rodeo and then after a few hours you went into the fights, and then they pulled the curtain and then you danced, (laughter) Formal. For years we wore long dresses. I was working in the drug store and I had to get home and change clothes.

LD: Did you go on picnics?

MG: My grandfather Erskine took us out to the ranches, and he loved the West and he wanted to see all this and so I met a lot of people. The Recanzones, The Peraldos, some are still out there. I can't remember much about picnics. I know we learned how to swim in Reinhart's Dam and we would have a little picnic out there. It was too far to walk. Somebody page 25 would take us and somebody would bring us back to town.

LD: Would you go up Water Canyon?

MG: Oh, as kids we'd even walk up there. Pauline and I used to push bicycles up there so we could come back on them. I don't know how we ever lived. A lot of the kids and school people had little parties up there.

LD: Tell me about the transportation when you were real little. Did you ride with teams or anything like that?

MG: No, they were still using some teams but because of the National Mine some of the trucks began filtering into the community and also Haviland's Garage was one of the first ones. It grew very slowly. Did you read my brother's book about the motels? Well, that told about the transportation because even when the Victory Highway went through it was all gravel. It took five hours to drive to Reno.

LD: Do you remember it being really dusty around town?

MG: Oh brother. You mean it's changed, (laughter)

LD: Do you remember any cattle drives?

MG: Oh yeh, we used to have cattle right through the town. And sheep. Sheep was real big and the sheep people would have this big thing about running them through the town. I think they had to put them on the trains here. And then they'd all go down to the Martin (Hotel) and have a big party. I went to one. Gee it was fun. But now, they tell me there aren't too many sheep ranches. You can't even get much lamb in the grocery stores.

LD: Did you learn how to drive young?

MG: When I was 37. You know you didn't have cars. The only time I had a car I stopped it on the Western Pacific tracks and couldn't start it again and so I didn't drive for many years. You know people said, "Did you have to walk?" Well, everybody walked.

LD: So when you went to Reno to live and went to the university did you go by train?

MG: Somebody took me. I walked for awhile from way out of town to the university and then I was able to get a bicycle, so I rode the bicycle to school. And over the 18 years I finally did have some transportation. I got page 26 a car only it wouldn't go in reverse, (laughter)

LD: Who taught you how to drive?

MG: Carl's (Grauvogel's) mother. I couldn't drive when I married him and he wasn't too excited about it either. She said, "Everybody has to learn how to swim and how to drive a car." And I said, "Well I can swim." And she said, "Well you tell Carl you've got to have a car." I was walking from the river over to the grammar school for years. So Carl started teaching me to drive, but it was a disaster. So I told his mother, "I can't do it. He just has no patience. I don't understand what he's talking about, and I don't know left from right." She said, "Well, I'll teach you." She started to drive when she was about 20. Lived up in Elko. She was elderly then.

LD: What was her name?

MG: Olive Grauvogel. She worked for the railroad for years and years. She had patience. We'd go out in the country someplace and then we'd practice. She wouldn't say one word. She was encouraging.

LD: Were there many women that worked for the railroad?

MG: No. There had to be some because there was these little stations all over Nevada.

LD: What did she do?

MG: She was a clerk in Elko and then over in the country near Reno and part of the time in Utah because you know they bid on the jobs. She and Carl moved quite a bit and then she retired. You know that little house right across from the Western Pacific? She had that built. You see that little house that has all rock on it. She had that property. So she retired and lived there and then World War II came along and they drafted her so she had to go back to work. She said, "What do you do? They haven't got anybody." She wasn't too old and the depot was right across from her house so she worked.

LD: How about her husband

MG: They divorced when Carl was quite young and she raised him alone. He went to a college in Southern California and he was going to come home and he got on a railroad and then he wouldn't go back to school. Well, Lyle (Damon) almost did that. He had a chance to work on the railroad and make all that big money and he said he was going to stay on the railroad and wasn't going to go back to school, and oh boy did he hear some words of page 27 wisdom! He said, "I'm never going to make any money being a school­ teacher."

LD: We were talking about so many men drinking when you were young. Do you remember women drinking?

MG: Well, not so much because this was during prohibition and it was frowned on. Everybody knew where the places were to go. Then when it was legalized that's when the bars just sprouted right up.

LD: Women weren't allowed in bars then?

MG: No. There were no women in bars until later, I would say after World War II a lot of that started.

LD: If you had people over to the house, would women drink?

MG: During prohibition you had to be careful what you did, but after it was legalized, yes. The prohibition was a loss. Everybody knew where the places were to go. People are going to drink a certain amount anyway and in this country there were a lot of wines. I didn't drink anything until I was about 28. Anything. And both my mother and father had problems with that. My mother got ahold of herself.

LD: How about your grandmothers?

MG: Oh my God, they wouldn't touch a drop. Oh no. And my grandfather Erskine, no. Once in awhile he would have a beer and he used to make what they called 'near beer'. That was legal. He liked that and then he'd make root beer for my brother and I. My gosh it was good. I was dead against liquor for a very, very long time and then when I had such a shock in my life and I began to mix with people that are not from here then I would go to places and have drinks. Then I saw the light and quit.

LD: When you were young did you use home remedies?

MG: My grandmother was a nurse and my mother knew all about folk medicine. Everything.

LD: Did you practice that a lot?

MG: Well it works. There were things they could do that doctors weren't doing. They were very helpful to me.

LD: Would they fix teas for different illnesses, or what would they use? page 28

MG: I can't remember. I remember for baby's rash they would brown flour and of course cool it completely and put it on the rash and the next morning it was gone. I've used it and I think it's great. You use it like talcum powder. My mother was in high school and was with Judge Ducker and he liked the open road and he liked the Indians and he'd take her out and show her some of the ways the people lived. My grandmother was a little more specific about it. If there was some kind of medication she would question it, but she got up on it pretty well. She knew what to do.

LD: Anything for flu or colds?

MG: When that flu epidemic hit the doctors here asked my grandmother if she would help take care of the people. She made her rounds every day and some of them lived and some of them died and then when that was all over she didn't go to work anymore. I never had flu. One of the things about earaches was to warm up an onion so it wouldn't burn and stick it in your ear.

LD: Just a piece of onion? Did it work?

MG: Yes. At least they said it did.

LD: How about gardening and canning?

MG: Oh yeh. Always had a big garden every summer and my grandmother did a lot of canning and preserving. It was just wonderful.

LD: Did she teach you how to cook?

MG: No. She wanted me to stay out of the kitchen. She would call it a one-butt kitchen, (laughter) She once in a while would let us make fudge or tafee, my brother and I. We did do the dishes and we did bring in the coal and we did take out the ashes. She taught me how to make a bed and how to keep things dusted. She was very particular about the cooking. Well, she was a nurse, she was particular about everything. She did it all. She liked to do it.

LD: How did you learn how to cook?

MG: I got married and I learned from Mrs. Damon, (laughter) She was a marvelous cook. She grew up in Utah on a ranch. She was LDS. They were next door and she taught me a lot.

LD: You would have the coal and wood stoves to cook with - and to heat with also? page 2

MG: I was born in Winnemucca. Where else? (laughter) My parents were Alice Wagner and Stewart Erskine, so I was Marian Erskine. Wagner originally was spelled Wagoner. It was Dutch and my grandparents immigrated to the United States around Detroit. My grandfather had the gold bug and my grandmother was very young and they eloped. So they came west.

LD: And what was their name?

MG: Waggoner.

LD: Did you know them?

MG: Oh yes.

LD: Did they say how they came west?

MG: Trains were running by then. Then my mother, Alice, was born in a mining camp in Idaho. When the mines were over they went to California and my grandfather was a barber so they stayed there a little while, but things didn't work out too well for them. Then he heard about Winnemucca, Nevada and all the mining that was going on. So they came over here and got a little place to stay.

They had three children by that time. Florence was the oldest, and then my mother Alice and then uncle Harry. One boy died while they were in the mining camp in Idaho. There was some big hotels on Railroad Street where people could stay, you know where the Martin (Hotel) is now that is. My grandfather went to work in one of those places as a barber on Railroad Street. Both the places where he worked have burned down since. He still had the gold bug and they would walk up Winnemucca Mountain and he said he was one of the first prospectors on Winnemucca Mountain, but I think there were some claims before that.

LD: It's an old mining area, and I'm surprised how many big settlements there were on the back side of Winnemucca Mountain.

MG: So my mother and family lived in a small house here. On my dad's side my grandparents - one was from Canada, Nova Scotia-New Brunswick. My other grandfather, Havelock Erskine, went to a trade school in New York, and at that time my grandmother wanted to be a nurse. You could appren­ tice yourself to a doctor. It's a good story. He was going to school in New York because you know he had to have some kind of a trade and my grand­ mother went to a work for a doctor in Boston. (That's Stewart March, and that's where we get all of the Stewarts. Stewart March was the doctor's page 29

MG: Yeh, at first. They got an electric stove but they kept that old stove because it was so practical and it would just about warm up the whole house.

LD: And how about lights?

MG: We had electricity by the time I went to live with my grandparents. The other grandparents (Wagners) didn't have any electricity for a long time. It didn't all come just "bing" for everyone. I guess it was when Harry came why then he insisted they had wiring. They had a well.

LD: How about holidays? Did you celebrate holidays?

MG: Oh yes. Christmas was always a big deal. Thanksgiving was another. We didn't have all these special three day holidays because they actually didn't exist at first.

LD: For Christmas would you celebrate like they do now with all the gifts?

MG: Oh yes.

LD: Do you remember many Chinese or Japanese?

MG: This is very interesting. When I was with my parents before we went to live with our grandparents we lived across the street from Chinatown. It was just fascinating. We played with the Chinese kids. I can remember the Joss House and we couldn't go in the Joss House, but underneath the Chinatown residence there was a tunnel that we didn't know about but the Joss House had it because it was a secret religion. Bud, when he was very young, he and some of these other monkeys around here, found that place and they would crawl under and look up and see what was going on at the Joss House.

LD: Did you go into the stores?

MG: Yes. There were several stores imported from China. There was one great big garden and a man would bring fresh produce around. He pulled a wagon all by himself.

LD: Was the garden right there?

MG: It was right there across from the Joss House. The most interesting thing happened. This girl they called Maggie was my age. We used to walk page 30 to school together and her dad knew some english and she got along pretty well. They called her Maggie Tom. Her brother also. So we went to school with them and came home with them and then they were deported for selling opium. There was a lot of opium down there. I've got some of those flowers, (laughter) Anyway, years and years went by and when I was teaching in the grammar school Al (Lowry) came into the office one time and he said, "Are you going to have any time that you can come into the office a little bit?" And I said, "Yeh, it'll have to be recess." You know you never stop in the middle of school to go to the office unless you're raising hell. I went in the office and here was this man and he said, "You knew Maling Tom when she was a girl." I said, "It was Maggie Tom." He said, "She was in your class?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Did you know the family very well?" I said, "Well Mrs. Tom she didn't speak English." She was gorgeous. She had maids.

LD: Oh my. Chinese maids?

MG: Yeh, they brought them here. They had the store. He questioned me for quite awhile and I said, "Look, I was in the second grade. I just remember Maggie and we had a good time. What's the matter?" He said, "Well she has escaped from Red China and she wants to marry an American-Chinese and we don't know if she's a communist." I said, "How would I know? I'm not a communist?" She said, "If she can pass this information or something, she can marry this guy and move to the U.S." I was so dumbfounded with the whole thing and he couldn't tell me, but I've often wondered what happened to her.

LD: Was there a big to-do about communism when that all started?

MG: Oh for heaven's sake. Was there ever. There was a Russian author that I admired very much and I wanted to read all his stuff because he told the history of communism. Everybody was into it to know just what was happening. At first it was easy to get the books or when I was in San Francisco you could get all kinds of stuff there. I didn't see his name for a long time and he wrote another one. We used to get the New York Times at the school and I'd steal it over the weekend and bring it back Monday because it was a wonderful paper. There was an ad in there by this Russian man. Somehow I got something in the mail from the Communist party asking me to join. Bud was working in the post office and I got scared to death. I only wanted the darn book. I stuck it in my purse real fast and thought, "What in the heck, I can't even mail this." (laughter) I got rid of it without anyone in the world seeing it. It was that bad.

LD: How about Japanese? page 31

MG: Very few. I think some of Frank's (Kihara) people were here. They grew up in Ely. The only thing I can remember about Japanese people is they had the cleaning and laundry.

LD: Were there several Mexican families?

MG: There were a few. When World War II came along they had a lot of men that had to go into the service and they didn't have anybody to work on the railroad tracks and so they got these "Nationals" to come up. I had Mexican friends, but a few, not like it is now.

LD: Did you have a certain religion?

MG: I was baptized in my mother's church, which was the Episcopal Church. Then when she left and we went to live with our grandparents they didn't approve of the Episcopal Church and they said it was too Catholic and we were to go to the Methodist Church, my brother and I. We did that for quite a while. You went to church. One time they had a lecture and it was at night and it was open and when we got there it was one of those people of hell-water and brimfire, or whatever you call it, and Pauline and I got scared because we were all going to go to hell see. So we left and went home. My grandfather said, "You're home awful early." I said, "I'm scared." He said, "What are you scared about?" I told him and he said, "Well, you don't have to go there anymore. That isn't right." Then my grandfather was a Christian Scientist and so I went to the Christian Science Church for nine years. Then I married and that family didn't approve of the Christian Science Church so I stayed home for awhile. What was I going to do? Every once in awhile my Grandmother Wagner would take me to church with her. The Episcopal Church. She was hilarious. As I told you my grandfather (Erskine) was too smart to let us be estranged from our grandmother (Wagner).

LD: Where was the Christian Science Church?

MG: Next to where Tina Garteiz is now. Right behind the courthouse.

LD: Who would have been the head of that?

MG: They had readers. They don't have what you call a minister. They publish the Christian Science Monitor.

LD: Was it a good-sized congregation? page 32

MG: It was at that time. Yes, there were quite a few. Of course it's changed since then. I know why. In the place where they advertise all the Christian Science places, Winnemucca has the ad in a little tiny place at the bottom of the page. I kept telling Frances Zilkie, she's the head of it now, I said, "You've got to advertise, because nobody knows you're here." I don't know if it's going to build up or not.

LD: Are there quite a few people now?

MG: No. Oh four or five I guess. Some of the teachers. I have nothing against it. There are some things I couldn't accept, but I went along with it. It was mostly my grandfather. I thought he walked on water and so did a lot of other people.

LD: He would go regularly?

MG: Oh yes.

LD: And your grandmother, did she go?

MG: Well, they went to the Methodist Church for a long time and they belonged to the Masonic Orders, including Eastern Star, and my grandfather stayed in Masonry, but my grandmother got sore about something at the Eastern Star and so she didn't go to any church again ever. She just walked right out.

LD: Do you remember any of the pastors, or heads of the Methodist Church?

MG: I know there was Donovan because his boy was in our class. Beth Bodily would remember some of them.

LD: Was the Episcopal Church stong here?

MG: Yes. You know the building that is the (Humboldt County) Museum was the church for many years. After the vestury sold the church we started losing members because they didn't want that church to go off that corner.

LD: It seems strange they had a swimming pool there.

MG: The only swimming pool we had was out at Reinhart Dam and it was dangerous. A couple of kids drowned. The town was building up pretty much and the Episcopal Church had the property. Wes Frensdorff was a pretty good manager. page 33

LD: He was wonderful, wasn't he?

MG: Oh wonderful.

LD: Did you belong to any organizations in your earlier years?

MG: We had a bridge club. There was something all the time.

LD: Getting back to the Masons, do you remember anything about the cross burning up on Winnemucca Mountain?

MG: Yes. The Ku Klux Klan did that. It was very, very sad because the people who were doing that were ostrasizing certain religions, certain people. I can remember that my grandfather kept it from us, but then kids talked about it. I can't remember seeing it, but they took me up and showed me where it was. He tried to explain to me how these things occur. One of these people was a Catholic and a doctor and just a wonderful man. They tried to put him out of business, but so many objected.

LD: There must have been quite a period of time when those feelings were pretty strong.

MG: Oh yes. And then having gone to every church in Winnemucca just about when I was growing up. The Catholic Church was being built when I was a kid and naturally a beautiful building like that is a palace for a kid and I wanted to see it and I wanted to go in it and I asked a lot of questions and nobody would have anything to do with me but Tina Garteiz and so we'd come from grammar school and I'd say, "How can we go and see what's in there?" And she said, "You can't. It's against God. You can't go in unless a priest is with you." And so every once in awhile I'd go there and I'd peek in and nothing happened and so I got a date with this kid and he said he'd take me and it was a Midnight Mass.

LD: Oh, I'll bet you loved that music.

MG: I did. And my grandfather wanted to know why in the devil I wanted to go to Midnight Mass. And I said, "Because I want to see the building." And he said, "Well it isn't ours you know." I said, "I don't care."

That's one of the most beautiful small churches I've seen, and I've seen them all over.

LD: And the acoustics are wonderful. page 34

MG: Oh kid. I was just really taken. Of course then my grandfather got a little shaken.

LD: Changing the subject - do you remember hobos in town?

MG: Oh do I. Both railroads were loaded with them and they'd get off the train you know and start around begging in town. People were very generous with them. Well, it was kind of tough times.

LD: Do you remember seeing any women hobos?

MG: No.

LD: How about earthquakes?

MG: I don't remember any earthquakes.

LD: Were you aware of prostitution when you were young?

MG: Yes. Only that there were certain places that we couldn't go. When my mother was a girl why they used to go and sneak down amongst the bushes and watch the people go in that first house. Mama said it was elegant and they wore pretty clothes. I think somebody caught them and her mother was absolutely crazy that she'd do that, (laughter) You know what they used to do when they had this other Chinese cemetary and the Chinese would put the dinners and other things they used to put on the graves. The kids would wait until dark and they'd go and take all the food.

LD: When you were married and then divorced, it was at a very young age?

MG: Yes, I was 28.

LD: As a woman, how were you treated?

MG: I was always treated fine in Winnemucca.

LD: I guess we should back up here. When you graduated from high school, what did you do?

MG: I was working at the drug store, and I had to go back to school to get algebra and Ernie was in the CCCs.

LD: Your husband was?

MG: Ernest Damon. I was so dumb, so naive, we got to running with a page 35 drinking crowd, a lot of drinking, this was just before World War II and I told Ernie, "I can't do this and take care of these kids because it's just too much." When we started going out with these people, they were all married and every one of them got divorced later.

LD: Can you tell me a little bit about Ernie? Was he from here?

MG: Oh yeh, his dad worked on the railroad and Ernie was born in Ogden and his job transferred here. He went to school here, from second grade I believe. Then he was an accountant. He wanted to go to college but the depression was still on and they said they couldn't afford it. That was the worst thing they ever did because he had talent and boy was he a ladies' man. He wanted to marry me when I was still in high school. My grand­ father said, "If you marry him you're going to ruin his life." And I said, "Why?" He said, "The kind of company he keeps is not what you want, or need."

LD: Was he quite a bit older than you?

MG: Two years. I've known him since a little kid. Doris, his sister, is still living. She lives in Reno. We're good friends. They were a very good family, the Damons.

LD: Where did you marry?

MG: In Mimi and Grandpa's house. The thing was that Ernie's family didn't approve of the Episcopal Church, somebody else didn't approve of this, and then my grandmother said, "Well you know, we can do this right here." And it was just lovely. Bill Jones was the best man. By that time everybody was so broke. Ernie was the garbage man. He and Bill had this garbage collection. There wasn't any other job when he got out of the CCC. Bill nudged Ernie and said, "Hey, ask the judge if we can haul his garbage." My dad doubled up and had to leave the room.

LD: Do you know how Ernie got on the CCC?

MG: He had to. There weren't any jobs. It was graduation time. He didn't even get to go to graduation ceremonies. I always resented that. They went to Elko to the CCC. Up at Lamoille and some of those places. He kept writing me every day about wanting to get married. Of course when you're that young your head isn't screwed on right. I said something once about college and everybody said I'd never make it.

LD: Then you got married. Where did you live? page 36

MG: Over on Railroad Street.

LD: So then you had children right away? Two boys?

MG: Yes. In a decent timespan. (laughter)

LD: What are their names?

MG: Larry Damon. He's quite famous in the Bechtel Company. And Lyle Damon, he's the coach, and retired after many awards.

LD: So then you stayed home. And did you teach piano and dancing?

MG: Dancing. There wasn't anybody doing it. People would ask me and ask me, and so I did.

LD: Did you have a piano in your house?

MG: Yes. Damons gave me the piano after I was married. And then I moved to Yerington to teach for two years and I took the piano and they banged it all up and I couldn't ship it back here when I moved back.

LD: The divorce must have been a really big decision for you.

MG: It was absolutely devastation. Of course our values were different then on things like that. It was terrible and I didn't get over it for a long, long time. Well even now I think people don't realize what you go through. When the course came up at the University of Nevada I didn't know what I was going to do. Mr. Corbett was the principal here then and he called me up and he said he wanted me to have a talk with him. I thought, "Oh God. So does everybody else." But I went over and he said, "You know, you have qualities of being a very fine teacher and there's an opportunity at the University of Nevada that people can go and have this crash course and I think you'd do just great."

LD: Isn't that nice.

MG: After this thing developed, I had some status in the community because of when we were kids and then being in Masonic Orders. They were very loyal.

LD: So then you just packed up the kids and went. Did Ernie stay here?

MG: No. He was in the Navy. page 37

LD: Did you have help with the children? Did someone help you take care of them during the course?

MG: Yes. I rented the little house and the grandmother next door took care of my kids. I didn't know what life was. Some of it was alright. I kept in touch with my mother and her husband advised me to divorce and I talked to lots of people who said the same thing. I thought maybe it was the best thing to do. So I got the divorce.

LD: Then you came back here and did your kids go through the whole school system in Winnemucca?

MG: Yes. That's when I started this substituting.

LD: And you were teaching dance?

MG: Not right away. I was going to the Episcopal Church and they had a big room downstairs with a nice floor and I wasn't making very much money. I got child support. I did that on the Saturdays. My kids always had family.

LD: Have the boys been friendly with their dad?

MG: Absolutely! Because of my parent's divorce and some of the things that were difficult with me I knew how it felt, though I had these wonder­ ful grandparents, about your parents. So when we moved back from Yerington I went around to everyone that was concerned and said, "Don't you ever say anything against their father because he had to live here. I was living here." We were still friends. Ernie married and had a son and they moved to Reno.

LD: Then you started teaching full-time?

MG: Yes. As my credits were building up they had special certificates for people that were in that situation, but you had to keep going to school.

LD: When did you start teaching full-time?

MG: 1961. There was such a shortage of teachers before that that I was really teaching full-time.

LD: Was there any one particular school that you liked better than the other when you were substituting? page 38

MG: I loved that grammar school. I grew up there. I also went three or four years to the old original grammar school.

LD: Do you remember how they acquired the statutes in the grammar school?

MG: Yes. When the new building, the Winnemucca Grammar School, was put up it was so elegant that we thought we were going to school in a palace, and we were. It had that much care and respect and it had all those niches around the halls. There wasn't anything in them and so different organizations in town would buy a statute. One was from the Civics Club, or they helped pay on it and different things like that. My class, when we graduated from grammar school in 1930, you know that minuteman that's there? We bought that. We had some money and Mrs. Gillman - you had to learn Robert's Rules of Order - and Mrs. Gillman knew what to do. We had this fund and we thought we'd like to have a big party but we were in the depression and parties were kind of expensive and Mrs. Gillman said, "You're such a wonderful class, you should have something that everybody can remember." And somebody, I don't know who, said, "Let's buy a statute." So she looked in a catalog and we counted our money, and raised a little more. Now somebody is reputing that over there in the school, but I know we bought that. The Booster Club helped pay it.

LD: Who built that school?

MG: That was a very complicated thing. There was some scandal attached to it. Mr. Corbett was principal by then and - when my grandmother was on the school board and all of this money for this building was going back and forth she went to a board meeting one night. That was just three of the people on the board, and the architect was there. She was the clerk and she had to keep the record and things like that. This architect started passing checks around to the members of the board and my grandmother questioned it. She said, "Well you don't owe us anything, not yet." And she got upset and she wanted to go to the telephone for a minute. She went and called my grandfather and she said, "There's something wrong here and I don't know what to do and I'm not going to sign the checks." I don't know how it all was. And she said, "What shall I do?" He said, "Stay put." He went and got the smartest lawyer and those people were kicked off the board. Then they had the building in limbo and they got that straightened out and got two more guys to come on there. One was a very fine business man and another one had a bunch of ranches who had a big house here and was very rich. They put him on the ballot and elected him. The whole state got kind of into it and all the schools were concerned about it. I would say that Mr. Corbett was the driving person to have the building finished. page 3 name). So she went to train with this doctor and one time my grandfather got sick and he had to go away for some medical attention and he met my grandmother and they married there in Boston. He worked there for quite a time. My dad was naturalized in Massachussetts.

LD: What did your grandfather do in Boston?

MG: He was a plumber and steamfitter. Later they went to Berkeley, California where there was some work that he could do. My grandmother's brother had already immigrated here. Then it was in a slump and for a while he couldn't get a job in his own profession so he started running trolley cars. My dad started school there, in fact he went to Berkely High School two years. Then grandpa kept watching the papers, the San Francisco papers, about where there was an opportunity for a steamfitter or plumber. And in the Call Bulletin Charlie Brown had put an ad wanting a steamfitter.

LD: Charlie Brown from here? C. B. Brown?

MG: Yes. C. B. Brown.From here, (laughter) So he wrote him a letter and said he would like to take a job and they wrote back and forth and in a very short time my grandmother and grandfather decided to come to Winnemucca. From Nova Scotia and Boston. She hated it here! She said "Look, we got off the train and Mr. Brown took us up Bridge Street and there were ten saloons and two churches in this town." My grandfather loved it.

And then Mr. Brown found a house for them to rent. My dad finished high school here.

LD: What was your grandmother's name?

MG: Marianna. My grandmother wanted me named after her and the rest of my family said it sounded too French, so it's Marian. And I'm glad of that. She was Scotish as the king's plaid too. Both of them.

LD: Did she come from Canada also?

MG: Yes. Marianna MacKenzie.

LD: We have a MacKenzie.

MG: Everybody does. We went up there. I met so many MacKenzies I couldn't keep track of them. page 39

LD: Would the school district supply you with any musical instruments or music?

MG: No, we had school teachers and we had books to sing out of and things like that. I think there was a little orchestra at one time but it didn't last. Then the band teaching became popular and most of it was all taken over by the high school. They provided all our materials. The only thing I can remember as far as instruments is a great big xylophone. It's still around someplace. Guitars and those came later.

LD: As a music teacher, would you just try and teach the very basics?

MG: Yes. By the time I was teaching it everything had changed and things that I studied at San Francisco and places like that and all of those con­ ventions, well it was a whole new world. It was swell for me. They did a lot of dancing. When Mrs. Shoecraft put on this big show with all of the kids on the stage and Mr. Ewing played the piano, before the new building, and so there must have been some performances they could draw on.

LD: Who was Mrs. Shoecraft?

MG: Shoecraft came right after Ewing.

LD: They were music teachers in the grammar school?

MG: Yes, and Mr. Ewing, oh gosh he was good. He was retired from somewhere else in the south and he didn't have a certificate so when it came to hiring someone like that the state became very particular. He didn't want to do that but Miss Shoecraft was already qualified. She stayed quite a while. Her brother was the principal of the high school and he called her and asked her if she would come here and work in the grammar school.

End of Second Interview page 40 June 14, 1995 - Third Interview

LD: Marian, every time I think of you I think of the song, "Home Means Nevada". Did you always play that?

MG: As soon as it was published. It really is the state song, but a lot of people think it's "When It's Nightime in Nevada". There was a getting to­ gether of all these songs for the states and that's when I was first aware of it and got a copy of it. That was a long time ago.

LD: Did you know Bertha Raffetto, the songwriter?

MG: No.

LD: Joyce Vetter and I studied about her when we did the videotape to the state song. Joyce remembers you when she plays the state song too.

MG: She's very good. That makes me happy.

LD: What did you think about that song?

MG: I think it's spendid and it encompasses about everything that is really important, if you look at it that way. A lot of these state songs don't tell the whole story. This "Home Means Nevada", that's very popular all through the west.

LD: Did you play it as a march tempo?

MG: Yes.

LD: We found other songs that Bertha wrote that were love songs and she wrote them at a march tempo, (laughter)

MG: Oh, well that's alright. So did Souza, and he did alright. He wanted to compose opera, but he was in the service and he got so popular playing marches and so much he had composed that I think he never had time. He did a lot of other things. He did some compositions beside marches.

LD: Did you ever write music that was published?

MG: None that was published. I learned several instruments and I wrote poetry. When you said, "Do you like to write?" I started wanting to write when I was a little kid. Of course I didn't know what I was doing, but as I went along it got to be a pretty good deal. I just studied the music and learned how to play it. page 41

LD: You did write down plays and performances though.

MG: Yes. Well that was more for the school. I wasn't going to pay $50 for a royalty, (laughter) Besides we were just coming out of World War II and during the war there weren't very many music classes. The men were drafted and many things changed during the war. That's when I got into substituting in the grammar school.

LD: After they came back from the war the music changed?

MG: Well, for instance we didn't have a football team during the war. There were so many people gone. The coaches were gone, so soon as the war was over people began contributing to things like that. One of the things I belonged to is we raised money for the football outfits after the war.

LD: During the war you depended more on music?

MG: No. We didn't have music teachers. I had taught a lot of dancing, but there was a time when there just weren't available people for all the arts. Of course when your country is at war and you get drafted, you go.

LD: Do you think music was more essential during the war?

MG: Yes. Now the big composers composed wonderful things you know. People like Irving Berlin. When I came back from Yerington and was going to substitute here they didn't have a music department. I talked to Al Lowry about it and I said, "Now if you ever get one, I'd sure like to have it." He said, "Well we'd like to have you, but there'd be some things that you'd have to be studying." Reno didn't have a music department either.

LD: Had there been a music department before the war?

MG: Yes. Some of those things were curtailed. It wasn't for the whole five or six years. It was after we got in it with Japan. Many of our (men) teachers were drafted.

LD: After the war stopped there was a period of time they still didn't have music?

MG: They had to start from scratch.

LD: When they did make money available for a music department were you one of the first ones teaching? page 42

MG: I got it. And Lyman Bruce came the same year. So you can't beat any­ thing like that. Al (Lowry) was just wonderful. I taught 5th grade right after the war when I came back. It was after that we had enough money for regular music.

LD: Was that all you did was teach music then?

MG: Yes.

LD: How would you handle that?

MG: Well, we had space over in the grammar school. We had that room. I had to get a minor in music. I had to go to San Francisco to do that. I spent about three or four summers. It was the most wonderful education because at that time San Francisco State was very high in education then. Later that's where Lyle (Damon) taught. I stayed with Isabelle MacAllister, who had taught music and kindergarten here and was living in San Francisco. You know to come from here and then go to a big city, it was a whole new world. I just couldn't believe it.

LD: Then you came back and you had a music room for yourself?

MG: Yes.

LD: Were you in on buying what instruments they needed?

MG: Not too much. Lyman of course was teaching band and he did this very well.

LD: Lyman was teaching at the high school?

MG: Oh he sure did. He was splendid and we got along fine. I had his kids in school. I still hear from them occasionally. He and June.

LD: Do you know what year that was?

MG: I think it wasn't until around 1950.

LD: Did you make out the curriculum?

MG: Yes.

LD: Would the kids have one day a week they would come to you? page 43

MG: Each class had two music classes as week. When I was in San Francisco I took some courses in dancing. I always had dancing, but I mean folk dancing. It was just marvelous, and I bought all the books I could. I played music for the kids in a big gymnasium that was right next to the shower room, which was right next to the music room, and so they would have one time of music and singing, and one time of dancing. It was very practical. As time went on it wasn't just history and geography. It's what they sing, and the way they dance. I saw them do it in San Francisco. They were just wonderful.

Then Nora Roberts, she always had good ideas too. Gee she was smart. When I was teaching she was still teaching 8th grade. She saw these kids practicing these folk dances and we bought records for that. Nora said, "You know, we ought to put on a show sometime because that is so nice." She said, "I just love it. I like to do it myself." And so she and Al and I talked and we said, "We want to put on a dance festival." He said, "Paul (Costa) will kill you if you get a bunch of kids in on that floor." We had to take off our shoes!

LD: Paul Costa was the janitor?

MG: Yes. Our school was spotless, all the time. Kids knew it. Mrs. Kibbee when she got a first grade class she had the most outrageous introduction I think. She said, "Well, do you think I'm pretty?" And they all shook their heads, (laughter) And she said, "Well, whose school is it?" And they said, "It's yours." And she said, "No, it isn't." And they all said, "It's Mr. Costa's." And she said, "No, it isn't. It's your school and you've got to take care of it because if you don't, you're going to get in trouble with Mr. Costa." (laughter)

LD: That's when you started the big dance festivals then?

MG: Yes. It was to fit in with the series of geography we studied. The music for kids in school.

LD: I'll bet you were in seventh heaven!

MG: Oh yeh. And Mr. Lowry said, "I don't know how you're going to do it." I said, "It works. I saw it in California." Then I took a lot of lessons too. Miss Roberts was the one who said we ought to put on a show, and she never let up. (laughs)

LD: Did all the parents come? page 44

MG: Oh yes. I've still got some of those programs. Then of course the schools grew and the community grew and they had to take some of the kids over into the new school (Sonoma Heights). Nora was going to be the principal. So we had to split up. Half of it was going to be the primary grades and the other fifth to eighth grades at that time were in the grammar school.

It was hard to decide to leave the grammar school. Al told me, "You can take it either way. You can either work here or you can go over to the new school." And I said, "Yeh, with Nora." He said, "I know how you feel. I hate to see her go too, but she's the best principal we can have." Of course I drove her crazy, (laughter) One time she said, "You know you've been driving me crazy since you were ten years old." I said, "I know it, and I didn't mean to." But we had a relationship like a parent, she was my fifth grade teacher. I talked to Al a lot about moving and talked to my family. It was hard to leave, but I always wanted to teach kindergarten music and that was the only place that they needed it. I ought to write something about that because oh, it was wonderfull. The things those little kids say and do.

Then Nora said, "Now we can still go along with our dance festivals. And I said, "Yes." But we didn't have a big gymnasium or things like that, and I said, "Where are we going to put the festivals?" She said, "Let's have them outside!"

LD: I remember going to a couple of them.

MG: A couple of times we got rained out and a couple of times we got snowed out. The last day in May! You know those kids just loved that and they were serious about it.

LD: Would you play regular American songs?

MG: Yes - mostly in singing. We had lots of folk music. Of course we always had square dance. That's considered a national dance. Most of it was co-ordinated with what you studied in history and geography. I'd even show them a map and show them how they danced in a place called Moscow. One little boy said, "I know what that is. They jump on the ground and they kick their heels up." (A Russian dance.) And I said, "Yeh, they do. I can show you how to do that."

When I think of what most parents did with the costumes they provided I think I had a lot of nerve. The costumes were kept in a closet and used from year to year. page 45

LD: What happened at the grammar school then? Did they get a music teacher?

MG: Yes. They had quite a few people as time passed. They never had the dance program. It was a lady that was teaching out in McDermitt and she only stayed a year and she married a cowboy. She was a good teacher.

We used to have a little show with the music they learned and of course they were big in band then. So it all kind of worked together. We also had a girl's chorus.

LD: Didn't you write a 50 year play at the grammar school?

MG: Yes.

LD: How did that come about?

MG: The committee asked me to do it. You know the gymnasium at the grammar school is the shell of the old school. There were eight grades and they did it all in there. Of course it was a smaller town and when Mr. Corbett got here and things kind of brightened up and there was plenty of money why then we got the big school. (Winnemucca Grammar School)

LD: The 50 year play was a history of Winnemucca?

MG: No. I wrote a little play and used those early teachers names and some of the things that really happened. It went over really well. And Mr. Corbett was there. He died July I, 1995.

LD: Can you tell me about putting together a group of guitar players and performing at Mass?

MG: I had an awful time learning to play guitar because I couldn't find anyone to teach me. I kept reading books and then I had a class over there and the kids were in sixth grade and these three boys were teaching them­ selves how to play guitar. They had books on it. I said, "Will you teach me?" They said, "You teach us." And I said, "No, I want to know what you're doing." Those music books it would show the chords. The war did that. Got the instruments like guitar so popular because the men liked, and women too, liked to have music. And look what it did! Rock 'n Roll. Every thing.

Carl had an old guitar and I didn't know how to play it and asked him if I could have it. He said, "What are you going to do with that?" And I said, "I'm going to play it!" He said, "Well there's nobody to teach you." And I page 46 said, "I'll get a book." So that was a struggle. Anyway I used that old guitar and finally learned how to tune it. I took it to school and I played one of their little songs, very easy, and even first graders loved it. Well, that was the time. One time one of the little kids said, "What's all those little numbers on the top of the music?" And that's kind of hard to explain. You can do it with a piano pretty good, but you can do it better with a guitar. I'd play a chord and we'd sing and talk about the chords. They were serious about it.

One day one little kid said, "I want to learn how to play the guitar and my mother said, "Will you teach me?" I said, "I don't know whether I can." He said, "Yeh, you can." And so I took some kids that said they wanted to play guitar and boy they just swarmed in there. I really had to study because I didn't know how to go about it. They stayed after school for lessons.

It started out to be big and then when they saw what it did to their fingers, you know you get a little ridge in there, and some of them dropped out. Three of them became professional.

LD: Do you remember those three?

MG: Well, Joyce Vetter and John Iroz and there's another one. We started them in second grade and there was a place that sold those little beginner guitars so the people weren't out too much.

LD: Did you and Ellen Lau do something with guitars for mass?

MG: Yes. I played in the Catholic Church quite a bit. I played that big organ too. It's beautiful, but see now I have arthritis.

LD: When did you start getting arthritis?

MG: The only time that I can really remember that I noticed that I was having some problems, I tripped over a guitar cord and I went forward on a cement floor. I got right up of course. I had a roomfull of kids. It was kind of sore and all, but I thought, "Well, it isn't broken." Of course they were all upset about that. They said, "Does it hurt?" I said, "No, not too much." And my wrists didn't swell up, but later it fused. Now percussive motion isn't too bad, but I gave up playing guitar

LD: Can you play the piano still?

MG: Not as well as I did once. I don't play in public. I play in church. page 47

LD: It's hard for you to maneuver?

MG: Well, I have to transpose things because I can't even reach an octave . The physical therapist in San Francisco said, "Play every day even if you get down to playing Chopsticks with one finger, do it." And so I kept it up for the exercise.

LD: Do you still?

MG: Yes. Well, I love it. I couldn't play the accordian anymore because of the way you have to hold it, and that applies in banjo and guitar. I didn't like to give up that accordian and I still have a twelve-string guitar that's just beautiful. I have a piano and organ.

LD: Getting back to the guitar mass, would you write music for that?

MG: No, we'd just get sheet music and read that and play it. The kids got to play a lot in the community. Depending how much the kids were learning and those who could read the music and read the chords and count would be the ones that would entertain. It got to be quite big too. The little kids like second grade kids were the beginners.

LD: Did Ellen play guitar?

MG: No. She came to one of my classes in the grammar school. She had a PHD in music and she said nobody ever taught her how to play guitar, but she could read it. She came into the top class. When the kids find out how hard it to learn to play an instrument then they start straying away. I'd tell the parents, "Don't let them! You paid the money for the guitars."

LD: Did you teach adults also?

MG: Just Ellen. I didn't teach out of school. That was a full day. Ellen is such a marvelous musician and she had so much to share with us. We just had the best time. She went wild over that guitar.

LD: Now she put on a lot of performances herself out at Grass Valley

MG: Oh, they were almost professional. It was beautiful. And they got all those little xylophones. Now that's really a teaching skill too.

LD: Weren't you one of the first ones that used the Orffs?

MG: Yes. And I got that in San Francisco. page 48

LD: You mean you went to school to learn that?

MG: Yes. I went one summer for "Orff - Kodaly". Those were the two men that invented this system that can teach anybody to read music. Orff did the instruments, how to make sense of it and have it stay with you, and Kodaly was a great Hungarian teacher that got caught up with the Nazis. For awhile they were going to abandon all of the local music. It happened that they did Kodaly a great favor because he got digging into early gypsy music and things like that that we never got to learn. Beautiful! When I was in Europe one time, I think it was Bulgaria, I met a lady and we visited about music and she said, "When I went to school we learned music at the same time we learned what's two and two." And I said, "Yeh, I know that." She said, "You know the Orff-Kodaly System?" I said, "Not for the instruments because I don't play enough instruments, but the singing part and the scales are taught."

Then there was a school in Oakland, California and they had a seminary and Mdme. Kodaly came. Kodalay had died by that time. She came over and lectured at some of the places that he'd been and why and how he did it. And they came from all over! They (Orff and Kodaly) agreed that there has to be an easier way for kids to learn. They have to learn younger. Of course those Slavic places really kept their own kind of music going.

LD: I'm amazed at how quick kids learn those Orff instruments.

MG: I am too. And also the Suzuki system of learning violin. It was a Japanese fellow and he figured this out to teach the little kids. Of course Japan is very musical. He wanted some way to show these little kids how to play a violin, so in the first place he had to find someone to invent a little violin and then he would teach. You see these wonderful kids coming out of the orient that play the violin, that's what started that. They are really inventive and it almost all happened about the same time.

The xylophone is so visible that you can even put your letters on there like A,B,C,D if you want. It's the closest thing to learning piano because it's there and you can see it and touch it. He started it and then it extended to heavy music and a lot of composition. I believe they were working on these at the same time. Now with the Kodaly system, it's all singing. The first place is the scale. You teach kids little songs, like "Doe, a female deer" and stuff like that and they love it. Kodaly used it all through the war. He wasn't allowed to sing the patriotic songs, anything of Bulgarian that are just beautiful. So he went digging and he picked up all this old gypsy music. And the Nazies said, "Oh that's fine." That's just as native as you can get. He had a very interesting life. It wasn't known here in the United States for a long, long time. He was so gifted. Now the system is page 4

LD: You went to Nova Scotia?

MG: Oh yes. As soon as I could. As soon as I retired. Another one of my grandmother's family moved to Los Angeles in 1923 and the descendants are still there. They got in on the developing of the movies and stuff like that. My grandmother's sister with her husband and three children. They had to start from scratch those people. But the opportunities in L.A. and Hollywood and places like that were so right there that they did very well.

LD: So you knew both sets of grandparents then?

MG: Oh yes. Very well and that was wonderful. As I say, the Erskines raised us really.

LD: Did your grandmothers have a profession?

MG: My grandmother Erskine was a nurse, but my grandmother Wagner didn't. They didn't have very much money. She could do everything, but she was always at home.

LD: Was your grandmother Erskine a nurse here at this hospital?

MG: No, but the big flu came on and so many people in places like this were dying and she hadn't been working because she thought it was unladylike if you had children. So Dr. Giroux asked her if she would work for awhile because he said it was terrible. She said she would do that, and they didn't have cars or anything so she had to walk from house to house to take care of people for Dr. Giroux.

LD: Are the first homes your grandparents had still here?

MG: The first place they got was on Second Street and it was on the corner. They rented it. Mr. Brown helped get it. He was a wonderful man. There were two families that were so helpful. Reinharts and Browns. They did everything. They started stores here.

When I was born my grandmother did the delivery with Dr. Pope. They used to have babies at home. We didn't have any shots.

LD: Did your grandparents Wagner live on Railroad Street?

MG: No, they lived on 3rd Street. Railroad Street was the swanky part of town. That was where the nice grocery store was and things like that. Because the railroad came and people built there. page 49 taught in most schools. Another one that we have a great deal of love for is Leonard Bernstein. He'd get these kids in a concert hall and play really heavy music and have those kids in his hand. That's what it takes. He'd explain everything.

LD: You actually did quite a bit of travelling, is that right?

MG: Yes. I didn't do the real big travelling until I retired. That was 18 years ago. I had made up my mind when I was quite a bit younger that I was going to see the world. I told my mother about it once and she said, "Do you know that would cost $6,000!" (laughter) That's how long ago it was. I said, "I don't care. Every time I get a penny I'm going to put it in there." So I saved my money. And then I had a windfall and boy we sailed then.

LD: She went with you?

MG: Only to Mexico and around the states. I didn't go on extensive traveling until she died.

LD: So when you'd go to these places would you always be on the lookout for new ways to teach?

MG: Well, it's hard to get into that. I learned a lot about Mozart in Austria. Of course that country they do that sort of thing. On these Europe trips I heard a lot of music and things like that but it was not a teaching situation. Well, just to be there is a teaching situation. Lyle and I went to an opera in Hamburg and my gosh! They put it on I'll tell you. In a long intermission they have food and drinks and they wear long dresses and tuxedos. I felt like a 'country cousin', (laughter)

We saw and we heard a lot of music, but you're not in a situation where you're doing music.

LD: Back to the Orffs. When you took the class then you came back and started that in the schools?

MG: I was only able to teach the Orff system in about the last six or seven years because it's an organization and it was getting very popular in the U.S. and some places had it and some places didn't, so it was hard to get a definite place to find out where to get the information. And then one lady that was in that seminar in California found that it wasn't copyrighted so she took the whole thing. It spread so fast. She was published but people heard how she did it. page 50

LD: Is the Orff instrument the same thing as a xylophone?

MG: No the Orff instrumentation covers all instruments. It doesn't cover singing, but the thing about the little xylophones - they were expensive too. Ellen got them - she got everything she wanted, (laughter) That's what I told her and she said, "Well, they haven't got anything here." But you see a kid is learning by what he sees and what he hears and that he can move around. You can't keep him still otherwise they'll give you trouble. But you can see on a xylophone the same as you can see on a piano. Then they would learn these little songs on the xylophone.

LD: Where would you learn about music?

MG: I grew up in a musical family. I belonged to the Music Educator's National Conference and I got credit for it. We travelled around. One time it was in Hawaii. A friend of mine went with me and we had a swell time. 1969. Once in Utah. You know Utah is strong in music. I got to go to one of those in Atlantic City and one in San Diego. Every year there was that opportunity. The MENC had that so organized that you could learn more in three days than you could in three years listening to someone else. New York, I went to one there.

LD: Didn't you have something to do with opera in Reno?

MG: I went to the operas as much as I could. I did not perform. When I was very young I was exposed to classical music by my grandparents, and also by my mother and father. They were very much with that kind of thing. I heard good music and as I grew up I could hear these records and I didn't know what it was about. There were operas here when the Nixon Opera House was first built.

LD: But you say there wasn't really much opera here?

MG: No. Things changed later. Everybody went to everything. I always had it in the back of my head because what you learn when you are a little kid, you remember. When I was married to Ernie we got a nice phonograph and a friend, Leiand Pearce was a musician. He was just like a brother to me and he had visited in San Francisco and he brought home a record. He was crazy about music, but he also composed. He had this record that was part of an opera. I said, "What is it?" And he said, "Well it's a story. Did you ever hear anything like that?" I was really young. Just out of high school. He said, "You can buy these records." I think the records were about $2.00, and that was expensive. Anyway, he got into it, and he studied and he composed. He never did much with it, but he was an excellant musician. He grew up with my brother and me and I didn't realize I hadn't told my page 51 kids he wasn't my cousin and Larry said, "Well he must be your cousin." I said, "No." (laughter) He had a player piano and I would go up to his house and play some of the rolls.

I got to studying and reading about operas and Leiand Pearce started buying the records. I've got most of his collection. He died about 20 years ago.

LD: Would you go down to Reno to watch the opera?

MG: No. They didn't have one in Reno, so one time when I was visiting my mother and my kids were little bits of kids we went to San Francisco and I got a hotel room and I got a ticket to "Carmen". I made my mother stay in the hotel and take care of my kids, (laughter) She never forgave me. I went to the opera house alone. I got a taxi over to the theater and when I got out of there I didn't know how to get a taxi so I walked to the hotel in San Francisco about ten blocks. Imagine! The Reno opera has been on for 25 years. My mother and I decided that we would have to go right away and see that. So I started going to opera in Reno and then reading on opera and all that. When they first opened the Pioneer Theater we always got a front seat. From then on you didn't go to an opera unless "Alice" was with you. She had friends and connections in San Francisco so she went to quite a lot of the San Francisco Opera. I had a pass on the railroad. After I married a railroad man I was on there often. Then Reno started to grow. It was a small place when they had it. They didn't realize what they were getting into. Finally they got the Pioneer Theater and they had everything there.

LD: Do you still go?

MG: Yes, but now my health has inhibited some of it. I buy season tickets way ahead of time, and Lyle and Karen go with me. They love it. It's very expensive and if you miss it you haven't accomplished a thing ex­ cept contributing to the cause. But I'm going as much as I can. Another thing that made it possible is Lyle and Karen. As long as my mother lived she'd trail me around and say, "When are we going?" We had fun.

It's been something that you just don't get enough of. And always there is something to read in music. Now there are some operas that I think are reasonable and some I don't care for.

LD: How about other types of music like rock'n'roll? Did you learn all that?

MG: I learned boogie. About the time that rock'n'roll came out some of page 52 these lyrics were not suitable for class. Westerns were alright, most of them. You had to watch that too because Nora said we couldn't have any wild words going on in the music room. It used to be that music was composed to be nice. And it soon got kind of rough. You can't do that to children, but they are doing that to children. Not the schools. TV does it.

LD: How about the blues?

MG: Oh man! Oh I loved the blues and I loved jazz.

LD: Did you teach the kids that?

MG: Oh songs that were reasonable for them. If they'd heard something that they thought was really good, and it was suitable. You have to be careful.

LD: How about punk rock?

MG: There were some good ones. As far as Elvis Presley, he had a very great influence and some of his stuff was lovely and it was well-sung. Some of the shows were right, and some of them stunk. Oh, but my mother. You couldn't say that. She loved him. Even if he made a movie and laid down during the whole thing, she still thought he was wonderful, (laughter) I still have a lot of his stuff, but it wasn't something that you could use all of the time in the schools.

The Beatles had a new idea on their ways of approaching music. I thought they were pretty good too. When you have a little kid and they are playing the guitar and he starts some of this Johnny Cash stuff, some of it was fine, some of it wasn't. Nora was there all of the time to see what they were singing, (laughter)

There was this kid that came to school one day and he said, "You know there was this guy on TV and he makes his feet go clickety-clack and he jumps all over the place. Did you ever see that?" I said, "Yeh, and it's called tap-dancing. They put little metal things on their shoes and then go clickety-click all around." And he said, "Boy I'd like to do that." And I said, "You get the clickety-clicks and I'll show you what they do." So one time in the dance festival we had the fifth graders do a little tap dance. It was cute. It was easy. Tap dancing got to be really big from Fred Astaire. And then it was out for quite a long time because of rock 'n roll. It didn't go together. You can't put that together. It is back now.

LD: It was hard on western music for awhile. page 53

MG: Yes. There's another thing. If the western music is suitable, o.k. But if you have a western song, and there are plenty of them about this guy leaving this woman and now she's sleeping with someone else. We can't do that. They do it on TV.

LD: We should get back to where we left the last interview. After a period of time you met Carl Grauvogel and married him? Do you remember about how old you were?

MG: Oh, I knew his son in 3rd grade. I didn't know the family. Carl Jr. (Skook) He was a lovely person. A very fine person. I taught him. When he came to kindergarten the first day, I always used to go over and see the new crop you know. They were so cute anyway, and he was there. I said, "Who is that?" The teacher said, "His name is Carl Grauvogel. Isn't he cute?" I said, 'Yeh, I'd like to take him home and keep him." Then Carl came to one of the shows we put on when we were still using the big gymnasium and I told him how much I enjoyed the little boy. Skook and I are still very good friends. Dean is his brother. They both live in Alaska.

LD: And so then you met his dad Carl?

MG: My grandfather knew Carl's mother in church. I don't know, it was partly through school things and partly that. When I first met him he was not married, nor was I. Little by little, it was partly through the kids. Dean was five years younger than Carl Jr. He was three when I got him. I've got to write some of the things he did because he was so funny.

LD: So then you eventually got married and you did take Skook home with you. (laughter) So then you had the four boys?

MG: Yes, but they were so far apart. There was twelve years between Larry and Dean. Carl's mother lived right across the river and she took a lot of care of him because I was teaching. We all either worked or went to school. Dean didn't like going to school. He wanted to stay home with grandma.

LD: Did your boys enjoy music too?

MG: Yes. They had very different ideas. Larry went just wild about jazz. He got some drums when he went to college (UNR) and the first thing he did was go into an all-black group at a casino and he wanted to sit in with them and play these drums. And they kicked him out and threatened to beat him up. He said, "Why?" They said, "Because this is not for any of you white so and so's." I guess they got real tough. How did we know that? We thought black people and white people were the same ones! When he got page 54 going to college he found places where he could hear that kind of music. Lyle leaned very much toward classical music, still does. He was coaching for a long time and he went to Europe every summer.

LD: Did you go to Europe?

MG: I went one summer and we stayed nine weeks, because he'd been there three times before with this basketball camp. He was supervising teaching the American schools in Europe. They weren't teaching basket­ ball in the schools and these parents were either people working for the government or had businesses.

LD: Were they different places?

MG: No. They had to select a place and rent it, and most of the time it was in Switzerland. I think it was there for about 12 or 13 years. The year that I went they didn't make the reservation early enough for this crowd of kids to come in and play so they took us to Bonn. I couldn't believe, being American, it was so elegant. They gave us free apartments and those little PX cards you get to go to the grocery store. The place we were was about three blocks from the Rhine. Gee, Karen and I had a gorgeous time. That was the summer that we stayed nine weeks. We saw a lot of the British Isles. I didn't see Ireland. I'm sorry. Now it's too late. I'm not up to extensive traveling.

LD: You don't feel like you can travel now?

MG: I don't trust my health. I don't want to go over there and keel over. But we saw a lot. We saw a lot because he knew where to go and what to do and got a car and did all that. It was just wonderful. And oh, Kelly was with us. She was 15. Their daughter. She is darling, I just love her. But I didn't have any girls and gee, did I learn. She was my room-mate and that's where I learned the facts of life, (laughter) We've had a lot of laughs over that. She is just darling you know. She's got red hair and every place we went she had a boy. Lyle was worried about that.

LD: Well, you send a 15 year old girl, what do you expect? (laughter)

MG: She was in high school and then she went to college and learned languages. She speaks Spanish, French and a little bit of Russian. She's gone over there alone. She has friends over there.

LD: So getting back - you and Carl married and you had the four kids.

MG: We had the four kids, of course Larry was only there a year because he page 55 was going to college. Lyle was there a couple of years and then he went to college. Then we just had the two younger ones, and Carl Jr. went to college. And then we got stuck with Deanie! (laughter) He was so cute and he was the youngest one and we hadn't been around a little tiny kid. He's always been very interesting. He gets everything he wants. He should be the worst spoiled person in the United States, and he's a lovely man. A good father.

LD: We said what happened to Larry and Lyle with their occupations, but how about the two Grauvogel boys?

MG: Carl Jr. went to college in Reno and he became a wildlife biologist and he got a scholorship to Alaska. He had a year there and he got drafted. He got to go to Vietnam, isn't that nice? When he came back they couldn't persue his project because they had to take it to another guy. He did go to Alaska and said he wanted to work up there. They put him on the payroll as completing the project but they said he'd have to go out to Little Diamede. It's between Russia and Alaska.

When he went into the service he went into Oakland and met a lot of people. He met Laura and they started dating. We met her and we were just so delighted and they did plan to get married after he went to Vietnam. We were just so very happy. He had the nicest disposition in the world. Very intelligent. He came back from that, not injured or hurt or anything like that, but so bitter! Not like him at all. He'd fight with his dad and I'd go down to my mothers and cry all the time. She said, "Look, every war is like this. It's not just him. You'll find out what it does." So he got fed up with us. He and I never had any troubles. I felt bad about it. So he just packed up his stuff and went back to Alaska.

On his way he had called Laura and told her the wedding was off. Then he got to carousing around and being a smart-ass - and he never was before! Well, all the families had that. And he left. We didn't hear a thing from him. We couldn't get in touch with him. His dad just nearly went crazy. Then he called us one day and I was so shocked to even hear him. I was afraid he'd gotten in trouble or something. He said, "How would you like to go to a wedding in June?" I thought, "Oh my God, he's going to marry an Eskimo." (laughter) I said, "Oh yeh, who are you going to marry?" He said, "Laura." We were so happy we were just dancing around here. We called her folks and they called us. He's so lucky to have her.

So he went to work for the State of Alaska and a couple of years ago he retired. He's in real estate. They lived in Nome for 15 years. It was hard work and he had to fly a plane to get anyplace. We went up there all the time. They moved to Anchorage and then they moved out to Palmer. They page 56 have three kids in school. Dean is a geologist. He worked here in the summer and learned a lot of that and then he went to work in Wyoming.

LD: Had he gone to school at the University of Nevada?

MG: Oh yes. When Skook went into the service and was organizing these transportation deals, men that would be suitable to go out and rescue. He was kind of bossy. He was telling these guys how you should do and what you should do in Vietnam. Skook said, 'They were glad when I left." Then Dean took the whole thing too and he was going to be a transportation officer and he registered someplace. They saw this Grauvogel and this guy said, "Hey, there's another one." (laughter)

LD: So then where is Dean now?

MG: He's on the top. Gosh, he gets away with things. He's so charming. He went through school here and said he wasn't going to college. His dad made him go. He came home every six weeks and said he was quitting. All of a sudden he didn't come home every week. He met a girl. That does it everytime. So he started going with Jan and they got married. His first work was in Casper, Wyoming and then he got a very good job in Tonopah. Jan cried and said she wasn't going to go and we went all through that. So they moved there. They built their dream house in Tonopah. Then they found out how much it cost to heat it. He was transferred from Tonopah back to Gillette, Wyoming. Every time he gets a job he goes right to the top.

LD: Do you know what company he is with?

MG: Arco now. He was with Anaconda for a long time. Then they went to Alaska.

LD: What nationality is Grauvogel?

MG: German. The Grau is "grey" and Vogel is "bird". Carls' ancestors, when they migrated to the United States, some of them took the Grau. When I was in Europe I went into there with such prejudice I'm ashamed of myself. I came out with great respect of them.

LD: Carl worked for the railroad all his life?

MG: Yes. He went to a college down in Southern California for a while, but he didn't like it and his mother was working for the railroad and he dropped out of school and he saw these people making all that money so he went home to mama and worked for the railroad. He had to work up. page 57

Finally he was made agent here for a long time.

LD: How long have you lived in this house?

MG: 23 years. We had that place on the river. Kids loved it. We always had a lot of kids around there. Some times I was just so mad and petrified of what they were doing. Going out on rafts on that Humboldt River. Larry and Lyle too. They did all that.

LD: You used to walk a lot? Do you still walk?

MG: Yes I do miss it. I had been very active for so many years. I do find plenty to do around here though.

end of third interview page 58

June 27, 1995 at Marian Grauvogel's home

LD: I was wondering who your mentor was, or did you have one?

MG: Isabel McAllister. She was the music teacher in high school, and then she taught kindergarten. She was just a wonderful person. We were close friends right to the minute she died almost.

Early, Mrs. Oastler was an inspiration but it was her kind of music that you'll never see again. She had two rolls on that organ and she'd watch those picture shows, they were silent pictures, and she would change those rolls right where it should be and I just got fascinated by it. I was pretty young.

LD: Did she actually play an instrument?

MG: No. She never played an instrument in her life. She could dance and was a dancing teacher.

LD: Did she teach you how to dance?

MG: Yes, quite a bit. Isabel did too. I started in Reno at four years old.

LD: Jeanne Duarte told me about a barnstorming pilot that came around and took them for a ride down across from the cemetary. Do you remember the first airplane you saw?

MG: I didn't get to go on that. I was still too young. Later when some of the younger guys and people I knew in high school were getting airplanes, Fred Waltz asked me if I wanted to have a ride in the airplane. I was working in the Eagle Drug and I said, "Yes, I do." And he said, "Well, you'd better tell your parents. I can't do this all on my own." So when I went home at lunch I told them I had a chance to ride in an airplane - open top, you know. My grandparents and my dad said, "Absolutely not. They are barnstorming and just taking chances." I said, "O.K.". So Fred came down a little later when I went back to the Eagle Drug and he said, "When are we going on our airplane ride?" I said, "I want to go. They said I can't, but I want to go." (laughter) We were young! He said, "I know Stew, and he'll be mad." I said, "He won't know anything about it. I'll just tell him I was working." So I did. But the dumb thing I did was to tell my brother that I was going to go and he held that over me for years. I think he finally told grandpa.

LD: So you finally did go? page 5.

LD: Do you know where they lived?

MG: Yes. There's a garage there now. On Winnemucca Boulevard on the corner. When Harry, my uncle, left here he sold that property and then he moved to Utah.

LD: Did your grandparents Erskine have children?

MG: They had my dad, Stewart. That's all. Mimi didn't want to be called grandmother or anything. She wanted to be called Mimi. Marianna. So they bought a house on Fourth Street and it's Century 21 now. I sold that about six or eight years ago. Oh, long before that. My grandfather was so industrial he just did wonders. Well when they bought that property from me Terry Miller told me, "You know, the craftmanship and the way that was built is amazing." They used to build houses that stayed forever. He said, "We're going to do a lot of doing over." And I said, "Good." They did a good job.

LD: So Alice (Wagner) was your mother. Did they all go to school here?

MG: Yes, what schooling they had. Harry didn't finish high school. He en­ listed in World War I, and his history is very interesting, too. Harry Wagner. He died a few years ago. He was 87. He went to World War I and he lied about his age. He lied to his mother that he was going to go. After he was in the Navy for some time he was in action and his boat sank. It was torpedoed by the Germans. They did fish some of those sailors out. Only he had a head injury, like forgetting. They took them by boat and train and put them in a hospital in California in Palo Alto, and he was there for 12 years. Harry told me "You know we were the guinea pigs." They were studying all those things about your anatomy. But they got him out of there. Then he came back to Winnemucca and he worked at the habadashery for a long time here. Sam Holman's Store.

My grandmother Wagner died much later. Annetta. Her family were French people.

My mother finished school here and things were pretty tough. My grand­ father Wagner also drank, and so that's where some of the money went. But my mother was very talented and very well liked. So Judge Ducker and his wife had three or four kids and they needed somebody to help Mrs. Ducker, so they took my mother in and they put her through high school.

LD: How about your mother's sister? page 59

MG: Sure I did. We flew around and looped the loop. The airport was north of town for quite a little while. And Pans' (Pansalee Case Larson) uncle was a flyer and he used to take kids out there. That was Ralph Case. See she comes from pioneer stock.

LD: Did Fred Waltz charge money for the ride?

MG; No. He just wanted me to kiss him goodbye, (laughter) See I had a little crush on him.

LD: How about telephone service when you were a child?

MG: Well some people had them and some people didn't. When I went to live with my grandparents (Erskines) I was going to be nine, and they had a telephone. The other parents didn't. A lot of people didn't in the 1920s. Some people didn't even have electricity in the house.

LD: And then it was quite a while before television came in.

MG: Oh yes, kid. For us, 1950s. I remember that. Black and white and full of snow, and we sat and had a good time. Ate popcorn and ruined the furniture, (laughter) The kids didn't want to go to bed, they didn't want to come and eat. Just glued to the TV.

LD: How about the radar base, it would have been around the same time, did it affect you?

MG: I got acquainted with some of the fellows and some of them were interested in the arts. My brother was very occupied with them because he was just out of the Navy. They did a lot of good things and I think people co-operated pretty well here. They would join the arts, and plays.

LD: Did the community have plays?

MG: We had a splendid community organization. It was grass-root talent but we had for years and years very good plays and concerts. Of course we had a stage.

LD: Was it called anything special?

MG: I can't remember now. It was very well attended. We had the community concert and the local stuff.

LD: At the Nixon? page 60

MG: Well sure, where else would you go!

LD: I remember with Lyman Bruce and always having big productions at the Nixon, but not plays, mostly concerts.

MG: We had community theater here until the time they closed the top floor of the Nixon. And the fellow that was directing it was teaching here at Sonoma Heights, and he was just great. Some of them were just exceptional. Now the reason we started the groups was it was just right after the war and there wasn't much going on, but people were interested in it. The high school PTA was very, very active and they hadn't had many concerts and plays for a few years so they organized us. I've got some of those programs. Mrs. Frank Rueckl was a director and my brother directed a lot of plays.

They were going to put on a play and they had the stage all set and we were looking forward to that. Pan and I always nursed that piano. We were afraid something was going to happen to it. The Nixon piano. We worked long and hard. All these dance receipts went into that. Those little kids felt like they were doing something. They'd ask me when I'd have a dancing class up there, "Did we get some money for the piano?" I said, "We sure did." They just closed the stage and everybody walked off and we never went back. They didn't consult us. Nobody told us that we needed a fellow that should study that. It was never condemned as far as we knew! The play director and his wife left. There were people here that were still active in it and wanted to go and find another place, but there is none. We don't have a decent stage. After the Nixon was closed we had no stage. If it wasn't for the high schools we wouldn't have anything.

LD: Mentioning Al Lowry, he was amazing in the many jobs he had. What all did he do that you can remember?

MG: Everything. He took his major in agriculture because he was really a cowboy at heart. Then he graduated from the University of Nevada just before the depression, and he couldn't get a.job in agriculture, but they needed teachers so he took that department in the high school. He was a splendid teacher. He was an unusual man. I was reading one of his letters last night he wrote me after he moved away. He had a way with people. He would take care of how people felt, kids and all. And he had a way with discipline, because he was so good to them, but he was strict at the same time. His family and my family were very good friends from way back.

I was afraid he wouldn't like being a superintendent. He'd been the coach for years and years and he had trips to Chicago with those kids. He was just one of those people. Now, my Lyle was no angel. I knew he was bright page 61 and I knew he was an imp at times. He got in the the sixth grade and he decided to quit school, (laughter) He was mad at the teacher. I was raising cain with him and I would say, "You absolutely cannot do this." And he said, "Yes I can. I know a lot of people that are going to do that and I'm going to get a job and get rich." So I told Al, "I'm just having a heck of a time with this kid, he isn't doing the right thing." Al says, "I can fix that." I said, "How can you?" He said, "I'm going to start a basketball team." And he taught those young kids. There were no more questions. Well, what can you do? I just kept telling him, "You've got to go to school. It's against the law if you don't go to school and we'll all go to jail." (laughter) But he said, "I've got to buy a certain kind of shoes because we're going to have a basketball team." They had to use that gorgeous floor. You couldn't walk on that unless you had slippers or something. At the grammar school. He didn't say much to me and they started playing basketball and Lyle had met what he wanted! He didn't know at sixth grade. There was never another peep about dropping out of school. So I thank Al for that. Al was wonderful. I told him what a great influence he was and he said, "You know those kids are good kids. It was a wonderful class. Johnny Madriaga and people like that. Did you ever hear him sing? Kids like that that all turned out well and you wouldn't believe it at the time. Ted Moore and Lyle are still good friends.

And that gets you back to the radar base. When the boys were in high school was about the time the base started out here, all these pretty little girls were just taken with those uniforms and all the high school boys were mad at the radar kids. One time Lyle and his guys went whooping it up downtown at night and they drove to the sentry up there at the radar base. The fellow that was running it came right out and started taking their names and addresses and parent's names and took them to court. Now that was smart too. He didn't give them any b.s. So Lyle told me, "I've got to go to court and I didn't do anything." I said, 'You went across the safety line." He said, "Well, you have to go to courthouse with me." I said, "I'm not going." He said, "You have to." I said, "Alright, you go tell your father. He's the mayor of Winnemucca." Gee, the fur flew. He never wanted to do anything like that again. But when they got into the court and it was some nice fellow and he turned it over to the colonel, which was sensible because he knew how to handle it. He'd been doing it for years and years. He really put them on his side about our military and our country and all that. Kids will listen.

LD: Getting back to Al. He became a principal?

MG: They gave him a degree in education in a summer session. They took the credits and somehow fixed them so that he could be teaching too. Then when he got into the school business he loved it so much that he just kept page 62 getting better and better. He was principal in the grammar school quite a while. That was heaven.

LD: He was good to work for?

MG: Oh! So good that the kids loved him. He knew how to be a disiplan- arian. One time one of the boys was giving this teacher a bad time so she took him by the hand and said, "I'm going to take you to the principal and you're going to get in trouble." And all the way down the hall he was saying, "Help, Mr. Lowry, help." (laughter) That's the way he was.

LD: Then he moved up into superintendent, and he took care of this whole county by himself.

MG: Yes. He knew everybody in the county by then. He was just splendid and he accomplished a lot.

LD: At that time then did they have individual school boards?

MG: By the time he was superintendent it was one.

LD: Did his wife Lona ever teach?

MG: No. She worked in the telephone company. When she started having a family, they had these two children, she stayed home. She was hilarously funny. We had more fun!

LD: Changing the subject Marian, do you remember anything about the polio epidemic?

MG: Oh yes. We were all vaccinated. I can remember when I was quite young people having polio. Some died and some didn't. Ruth Damon was a very young kid about four, she got it. We had a chiropractor here and so Mr. Damon said, "I'd rather she went to the chiropractor and see what he can do." Her legs were turning. She took treatment from him and every­ body thought he was crazy, but she made it. She went to school. She had a slight limp, not much. She danced. She took athletics and everything. Ruth was Ernie's youngest sister.

LD: What were Ernie's families names?

MG: Mr. Damon was Ernest, naturally, and Mrs. Damon was Consuela Valentine and then a great big long name. She always hated her name. She was glad she married somebody with a short name. She grew up in Idaho on a ranch. She could do anything. I just marvel at those people. page 63

LD: Was she Basque?

MG: No, they were not Basque. Mr. Damon was English. Never had an education. Left home when he was young and went to Alaska and got a job. You know people were resourceful. Mrs. Damon was Scandinavian. They were splendid people. He met Mrs. Damon in Elko.

LD: He came here and worked on the railroad then?

MG: Yes. They lived here in Winnemucca the rest of their lives. They had Ernie and Doris. Doris Spitzer. Mr. Spitzer worked in the mines. He was a geologist when he got out of college and Doris married him and they moved to Reno. They had their first child here. Ernie & Ruth died later in Reno.

LD: I wanted to ask you about teacher's unions. What did you think of them?

MG: We were getting along just fine when Lyman (Bruce) was the super­ intendent and we had good rapport. Of course he and I always had a good feeling. However, some of the teachers got onto the idea that we should have a separate organization and the superintendent shouldn't attend the meetings. I didn't like it right then because I'd been to a conference in Salt Lake City where they were having that same problem. Well, the biggest problem in Utah was that the women weren't paid the same as the men. Anyway, we were doing swell and so it had to be after I left the grammar school. That would be 1950. The whole idea started in federal. They had a lot of push and they still do, but I don't like some of their attitudes. I went through all those meetings of the union and I read up on all that and we got it here in this community - that was the year I was president of the teacher's union here - and there was politics saying that we must hang together, we must vote for this person, and I made the crack that, "I'm not going to do it. I know this one and I know what they've done and I don't approve of it." Oh boy! Even Olive Braswell was mad at me. Then they started fighting with the admininstration. And Nora Roberts who had been teaching for years at the grammar school, that's why she retired. She said she couldn't put up with that.

LD: Do you feel that they helped you as far as wages?

MG: Some, yes. That was the driving thing at first, and then it got into politics and everything else. The trouble with schools in a way is that in administration some of them have never been in the classroom. They were good organizers and possibly very knowledgable, but when we started going along with what the federal people said there were changes. I just got hell. page 64

LD: You always belonged to the union? Did you have the option not to?

MG: Oh yes, but it was a little embarrassing and you are working everyday with some of your very best friends and very capable people and you don't like to jeopradize that.

LD: Can you remember who some of the organizers were of the local union?

MG: All I know is that Lyman was still here. Oh they made it tough for him. It was disgraceful.

LD: I know that! Yes, it was disgraceful.

MG: I didn't want to bring it into school. I got really upset about the way we were not getting along. I told my mother, "I don't think I can keep it up. I think I'll have to quit." She said, "You fool. Do you know what kind of a pension you are going to get. Doesn't that mean something?" I said, 'Yes, but I'm awfully upset." She said, "You'd better watch it. Hang in." So I did.

LD: And people like you can make a difference. As I remember it seemed to me that Sonoma Heights had the most militant teachers.

MG: It was. They had some very good teachers, and also people that had completely new ideas in a way. Sonoma Heights was brand new when all of this started. We'd been treated pretty well. I thought it was a good arrangement the ways things were going. I mean I had a big music room and that was nice and some very capable people.

LD: You were under Larry Oxborrow as principal?

MG: Yes. Olive Braswell and I were very close friends. We went to the same church, went to the same lodge, went to the Orient, we did a whole bunch of stuff together, but boy when it came to politics in the school, that's another thing. That's what politics does to you.

LD: Were there many men teachers when you started teaching?

MG: No. One or two.

LD: I wanted to ask you more about Miss Shoecraft.

MG: Miss Shoecraft's brother was principal of the high school, and she wanted to come out here. She stayed quite a while. She was music teacher in the grammar school. She had had opera training. She was a page 65 large woman. Beautiful voice, but she was so well-educated. She was from New York. She could modulate so well that a child could stay with her you know because they hear things a little different than other people do. She was an inspiring person.

LD: Did you get involved in the feminist movement?

MG: I don't believe in it. See what's happened too. The mommies don't have any interest, or can't afford to stay home. I'm a lot older than those people that are going through those changes. That makes a difference.

LD: You never felt that since you were a woman you weren't getting treated equal?

MG: Never. I was so grateful for everything. It was a wonderful life! It was 34 years of almost pure bliss. Kids are kids and you've got to tell them once in a while, "Don't do that." But you know we turned out all right because they are still very friendly to me. I was in a school where they gave me every chance to be a good teacher. And when I think of some of the things that I did I think that was just too much. I taught fifth grade one year and that was the hardest thing I ever did because I'm no good in math and you have to teach fractions. Nora Roberts was the fifth grade teacher when I went to school. She was just a wonderful teacher, and I drove her crazy. When it came time for Al to want me to teach fifth grade he said, "As soon as we can do it and get another teacher then we'll have a music department and you can have that." So I taught fifth grade and I said, "I don't do it well." And he said, "Well Nora Roberts is right across from you, you go over and talk to her and she'll give you all the infor­ mation you have to know." So I went over there and she and I were going through these damn fractions and she said, "How did you get out of fifth grade?" I said, "Well, you were the teacher. I don't know." (laughter) But I learned more from teaching the fractions than I ever did from learning.

LD: I imagine you felt strong about voting?

MG: Oh, I was a devoted Republican for years and years. I still lean that way quite a bit, but the way things are going now I'm not certain. Where can you stand? There's no direction.

LD: You lived down by the river for a long time.

MG: 19 years.

LD: Was that a problem with bugs? page 66

MG: No. For mosquitoes the city used to put some kind of a spray that kills mosquitoes. It wasn't a big problem to me. The kids now, they thought living on the river was wonderful. You swim all summer when you have boats and you skate all winter when you have ice. They loved it, but it was a treacherous river, and that's what bothered me. And Carl too be­ cause we did know of children drowning over a period of time in the past.

LD: How about fish? Do you remember what people caught?

MG: Oh, they had bass.

LD: Did they have trout?

MG: Not really good trout. When you get up higher in the river then they had some bass.

LD: Did you eat fish from the river?

MG: No. They went fishing a lot, but they went way out in the country. The streams were so much cleaner, and no bugs. The river was very interest­ ing in a lot of ways. We were talking about moving for a long, long time and when they said the freeway is going to go in right through your house, I said, "That's it. I'm moving to higher ground." But the kids, especially Dean the youngest one, actually did move up here and he was very, very hurt. He said, "I had a good time there." I said, "Well, I don't care, I want to be on high ground."

LD: Did you experience floods?

MG: Two. One was right when I started living over there, then it went for about ten years and there was another one. That was 1984 and we moved everything out of the house and went up and lived with my mother for a month because we didn't know. They didn't have all these reservoirs then, and they are not working Rye Patch right either. We never did have too much trouble, but one of the troubles there is the seepage. Several of those places have to be pumped out.

LD: Would your house flood?

MG: No. Our house was on a little knoll. We moved all that stuff and then nothing happened. But the seepage was there and we couldn't get back in there for awhile. Then Carl put in a dyke and it was quite successful for awhile until the neighbors refused to co-operate. Then there was high water, just like it is about now so that if you'd see that house now you'd see that there was no water coming over it, but there was a little house page 67 next door has this deep cellar and they keep a pump in there. It's changed a lot. Look, I lived there 19 years, and I've lived here 23 years. I will say for kids it's a real big deal. Drive you crazy! They had rafts, they had canoes, (laughter)

LD: What year were you and Carl married?

MG: I think it was 1951.

LD: And when did you build this house?

MG: We moved in here, well I've been here 23 years. I don't know much about real estate, but every real estate deal I've made has made money. Course we put a lot into this. We got it for $18,000. Carl put on another room and got somebody to make the fireplace and he did all the plumbing over. He knew how to do those things, and every one of my kids do too. All four of them.

LD: So Carl retired for quite a while then.

MG: He retired four years before I did. Four years before xll and he wasn't behaving himself. The thing was we were in pretty good health then and so he had a few trips without me because I was going to finish it out, and then it was hard to give up the job. It meant so much to me. It covered everything. You can't be around little kids without being happy and I still remember so much of it. I wanted when I got married to have a whole bunch of kids, then my husband left and I got two boys and I said, "That's all! I'm not having any more." (Laughter)

I wanted a place because I love a garden. Now I can't do anything. He didn't like the house for awhile. I had inherited some money, like twenty thousand dollars, so I was shopping around. One of my very best friends that was like a brother to me was Leiand Pearce and he was musical. My grandparents were friends with his grandparents and my mother was very close to Pearcie's mother. He married a lady that had a lot of real estate in Los Angeles when it started and then she came here and lived with her sister. They were the last ones left in the family. Nobody ever said much about money, but it turned out that Pearcie's wife had a lot of money and my mother and I got his estate because we were such close friends all our lives.

He always wanted to marry me, but it was like he was my brother and I tried to tell him that and he said, "Well, it isn't that way with me." So he gave twenty thousand to me and twenty thousand to my mother. page 68

LD: So you looked around for a house?

MG: Yes. And my mother and I shared that. It took California so long to settle that estate that we lost quite a bit in the market and when we saw that I made up my mind that I was going to use that money and see that my mother had security. Carl didn't think it was right. Dean was hurt because we'd moved out of his ancestral home, (laughter) This was at the begin­ ning of the gold rush and things like that, and so I sold the house on 4th Street where my mother had lived for 12 years. She died, but she must have lived in that house for 6 or 7 years, at least. She was a practical nurse and would go out to the people, Homemakers.

LD: I was thinking she was in the telephone office.

MG: She was, but she left here for a long time and lived in California and Utah. Then when she moved back here they wanted her to work in the hospital. She wasn't an RN. So she rented a little place and we had a good time. And then we got rich, (laughter)

I told Pearcie, "Look, you're related to everyone in Humboldt County, what about that?" And he said, "Well, that's 65 people and nobody would get any money." I said, "O.K., I'll tell you this. You go ahead and do what you want with your money, because it's yours but don't do anything with that music because that goes to me too." And he said, "Yes, it goes to you. That's fine, you'll take care of it."

LD: And you have it?

MG: Oh yes. He was like my brother. He said, "You and Alice are my family."

LD: What would you and Carl do for recreation? Would you go out and have a nice supper or go dancing?

MG: Once in awhile. But he was not social, and I was still in church and lodge and school, and all of that. He didn't care to mix with people too much at all. But he and his mother were buddies. I told him sometime when we were still in the river, "You know you've got to get more friends and get some more activity because she isn't going to be here forever." And he said, "Oh I'll be fine." But he never got over it. He grieved about it all that time. So I went anyway, (laughter) But one thing he did - I told him I had my eye on this house and if I could make a deal with that guy I was going to buy it. I came out real good. You know the Lord took care of me because I don't know anything about that stuff. page 6

MG: She married very young and they lived out at the National Mine and they divorced and she moved to California. She was a waitress in San Francisco. Then she would come home on the train and visit with her parents and me. Paul Ortel took the kids away.

There is only 21 months between Bud (Donald) and me. They tried to tell me that he was my little brother, and I said "Buddy" and so that is what the family called him. Then when he got in school his name was Don or Donald, and then people started putting him in the place of Stew.

LD: Did your grandfather Wagner stay a barber long?

MG: He did for some time, but most of his time he spent up on that mountain (Winnemucca Mountain) losing money, (laughter)

LD: Did he ever have a mine?

MG: Right at the time of World War II he and Harry were working up there and they had long before that filed some claims and then when the war came along this kind of mining was passe*. They had different kinds of minerals and metals that they needed. But he said to his last breath, "There's gold up there." I've heard that so many time.

LD: I do hear that from some of the best geologists though.

MG: Harry Wagner all of his life wanted to come back here and go pros­ pecting. He couldn't make a living on it.

LD: Are the people at Wagner Warehouse related?

MG: No. There's no connection. Their name in Dutch I found out what it means, in English it was Mr. All Bags. They used to tease mom about being Alice All Bags, (laughter) The great-grandfather went to a lawyer and he had their names changed to Waggoner. My great-grandfather. Then when some of his people moved west they automatically changed it to Wagner. I think it was Harry when he enlisted wrote 'Wagner'.' And there is a million

K Wagners you know. In the Dutch language anybody that hauled things was a ^ wagoner!'

LD: Did your grandmother Wagner outlive your grandfather?

MG: No. She died long before he did. She had kind of a tough life. She had a sense of humor that was so wild, it was just like Mrs. Kibbee. They were really quite poor, but she never complained. My mother was that way too. page 69

LD: So he went along with you and moved.

MG: I said, "I'm going to move up there." And he said, "Well you can go but I'm not going to." And I said, "Well I'm going to live up there, I'm not going through another flood. And besides I can afford it now, and I'm going." So when it got to a showdown he kind of relented.

LD: So you wouldn't go out dancing?

MG: We did for awhile. He liked to dance and he liked nice dinners and we would go to movies. He went to all the concerts we put on. He was not a drinker.

LD: When you and Ernie were married, would you go out dancing?

MG: Yeh, we were young.

LD: Where would you go?

MG: The Nixon. That was a good floor. We went out to the Kozan every chance we got. Leiand Pearce had a good dance band. He was a good musician. Then they started getting people from Reno, but he was always in it. He had an interesting life. His mother married Fred Pearce and they needed a guardian for the Nixon and they put a little apartment downstairs so Fred could live in that building, and they had a place for his mother and Leiand, so he was practically born in that building. He knew every inch of it.

LD: Did anyone else ever have that arrangement?

MG: No, because Fred and Ruth were divorced and then she went to work in the telephone company and lived with her parents for awhile until she got a place. So Leiand grew up more or less like that. Then they put the City Clerk's office down there where the art gallery was.

LD: Did you and Carl travel?

MG: Yes. He would go to Hawaii and he would fly that way, but he didn't want to fly to Europe, and I did, so I went. He'd go and stay with the kids or do something else that he wanted to do. I had worked all of my life to go around the world (and I missed South America and Ireland, and I'm sorry about Ireland).

LD: When did Carl die? page 70

MG: Six years ago. He was almost 80. It was just before his 80th birthday.

LD: And you retired and never thought about going back into teaching?

MG: Well I couldn't after I took the pension. Then when Carl died I got a pension from the railroad.

LD: Do you take advantage of the Senior Citizens?

MG: Not too much. I like the people, I've know them all my life and it's very important to me but I got mixed up in too many things as soon as I retired and I didn't really have all the pep I should have. That's what happens to you. I've had to stay for a long time on a very special diet because of this heart condition, but Carl he'd go where he wanted to go, or I'd go with him and we'd have lunch there. Oh, I played piano there for awhile. It got to be that we were just going all the time. His idea of travelling was to go and visit with the kids. Well I've seen them, (laughter) But oh when Alicia was born that did it because she was such a doll. She's 15 now. That's Dean daughter. It started out that Carl liked to go to Lake Tahoe and the kids would come here. When it came to going to the Orient he said, "Absolutely not." He wouldn't have anything to do with that and I said, "Well Olive wants to go." And he said, "Good." (laughter)

LD: Did you use the library a lot?

MG: Yes. I did more then than I do now because I got trapped in, I guess I would say, with this writing class.

LD: Did you start out with the library when it was in the court house?

MG: Yes, I can remember when I was in the third grade the teacher told us about the library. She told us how to get a card. We always had good music and good books in the house and I loved it. Then I got this library card and my mother read everything. I wanted her to go with me to the library in this big courthouse, beautiful place that I'd never been in. I was a little scared. She said, "You've got the card, now you have to do it." When I got there the lady was all prepared for the third graders, and it was a whole new world. I think it was Pearl Lewis. She was there for years. The schools always supplied good libraries and right through high school you always had something good to read.

LD: Do you remember when they started the nuclear testing?

MG: We thought it was going to be wonderful. Information that they page 71 passed around in the schools and to anybody else that wanted to hear it. We thought it was a miracle. There were some people and movement in the big city wondering about it going to be another war, but then they came and told us what it could do. They had fellows working and came to the schools and told us what was happening. It sounded great, but when it turned out to be a weapon it was scary.

Larry, when he was going to graduate from the University of Nevada he took another course. Electrical engineering was his major, but this man came from Norway and he said they wanted to promote inspiration and knowledge among engineers who were worth their money. So he selected nine men out of that graduating class, and Larry was one of them so he stayed another year. Then he had all kinds of offers for jobs. This man came back for the wedding and I asked him, "Now what qualified Larry to get that thing because he wasn't a straight A student?" He said, "No, that isn't what you look for. In this business you look for people that can go out and solve problems. He's one of those people." And I thought he sure was. He always took everything all apart. One day we were living next to Damons and Larry was about six. We didn't have much money but he went on and on about wanting roller skates. We got him the roller skates and I fooled around with him and showed him how not to fall and just monkeyed around and I thought he'd practice. I went in the house and started dinner and it got awful darn quiet. I thought, "Something's wrong." (laughter) So I went out and he had taken the skates apart. All his life he takes things apart and then he puts them together. So I started just having a fit and his grandfather Damon came along. He was one of the wisest persons I've ever met and he was not educated. He came over and I was giving Larry one-two you know, and he said, "Now wait a minute. He's doing something that a sixth grader can possibly work out as a challenge. I said, "Well, we'll never get him another pair of skates and everything you get him he takes apart." He said, "You know the trouble with you?" I said, "No." He said, "You've got a kid that's smarter than you are." (laughter) I said, "Well I can't watch too much of this. I spend all my money and that kid takes it apart." So he sat down and watched Larry and he didn't interfere. But Larry couldn't figure that turn on those little clamps on the roller skates. He was getting the nuts and bolts in the same place. It took a long time, and so his grandfather showed him.

LD: Would you ride on the train a lot?

MG: Oh yeh, that was fun. You know I had the best time on the railroad. For one thing that's the only thing you had because you didn't have a car, and so it was thrilling to ride on the train. My dad worked on it. This was a rail­ road town. Very much. And they were wonderful families. Kids were good, they had good homes. page 72

LD: Do you remember any important people coming by on the railroad?

MG: One of the Presidents stopped and made a speech. See Carl was on the railroad 37 years and my dad was on the railroad for a while in Reno. When we were young and didn't have connections with the railroad we would go to Los Angeles and see my grandmother's people and different things like that, or we'd get on the train and go to Reno. This was a big deal.

LD: Yes, you know if the gold mining wasn't as big as it is this city would really feel the loss of that railroad I think.

MG: Then I married Carl and had a pass on the Western Pacific, and boy did I use it. We all did. Kids and all. I loved it. It went on for a long, long time until they went into Amtrack. When I was teaching I went to the New York World's Fair and the MENC. When Carl took a month off I made a list of all the things I was going to see in the east. You'd have to stay there a year. But we saw most of the things I wanted to see. I'm so glad that we had that trip because we finally got to see most of the United States.

LD: I am fascinated with this yearbook your graduating class put together. Who was Gus Echeverria?

MG: He was from Paradise Valley. Here's another thing about those country schools. When they changed all the school arrangements here in Humboldt County and brought these kids in here I was astonished at how well prepared they were. They were bright students, they were good in athletics, they were interested in music. I still consider them some of my best friends. When they first started I thought they would be slower, but boy was I wrong! I was looking at this reunion that's coming up. Do you know most of my class is gone? I thought, my gosh!

LD: I was going to ask you about awards. Some of them are Teacher of the Year 1972; the Humboldt Heritage, City of Winnemucca 1969. The Nevada State Education Distinguished Service 1977. Senior of the Year, Humboldt County 1987 and Order of Eastern Star Organist Emeritus 1995.

MG: I have belonged to the Eastern Star for 52 years, and most of those years I have been the organist, but I can't do it anymore. See, my hands are crazy. Finally a lady moved here, her name is Ann Gooding, she is associated with the mines and she is a most talented person. I'm very fond of her and very grateful. She took over. I'll play in church, but only because I have to. We tried acappella and it never worked.

LD: Your health is up and down? page 73

MG: Yes. I go to a cardiologist every two months and to Dr. Ceznik if I'm really in trouble. He's very considerate.

LD: You were never in politics?

MG: No. In the first place I got involved in too many things. I'm interested in it, yeh. I read all that, but it isn't my thing.

LD: Now in your retirement years are you still involved with music, like the chorus?

MG: I'm not in the chorus anymore. I was with them for 15 years.

end of fourth interview page 74

July 25, 1995

LD: I wanted to go back and ask about the Eagle Drug Store. Who did you work for?

MG: His name was Joe Wilson. There weren't very many jobs, but there were some things for people that just wanted temporary jobs. In that whole big store they had the soda fountain and the pharmacy and every­ thing. I worked for 21 cents an hour, and I thought I was rich.

LD: I'm glad you brought that up. I was going to ask what your wages were. Did Gastanagas own the drug store at that point?

MG: They bought it from Joe Wilson. Joe was a pharmacist.

LD: So did you make sodas?

MG: Yeh, we did everything. It was a really wonderful education, and for people in high school it was really important, because we didn't know what was going to happen when we got out of school.

LD: Was the other drug store called Stephenson's Drug Store at that point?

MG: Yes. It wasn't as big a place. Both drug stores had pharmacy service.

LD: I'd also like to talk more about the Nixon Opera House. Did you know how that beautiful back drop came to be?

MG: No. It was there since I can remember. The one about the mountain?

LD: Yes.

MG: As a kid I didn't pay too much attention. They used another backdrop. I remember seeing it when we'd go to concerts and plays.

LD: It was beautiful.

MG: It was worked with ropes.

LD: Where were you when the Nixon burned?

MG: I wasn't here. I had been in Reno and I took a friend home that lived on this side of the tracks so we came in the upper way and didn't go through town. As soon as I got in the door the phone was ringing. It was Larry. page 75

He had of coursed teased me terribly about the Nixon. He said, "Look mama, you're getting crazy over this." I said, "I know." He said, "I don't want to hear that word anymore, and that includes Richard Nixon! I don't want to hear the word ever again as long as I live. It's ruining your life." And I said, "Yes." Later I went and had counselling in Reno.

LD: Really. Because of the Nixon?

MG: Yes. Well, I danced there when I was six years old and later I put on lots of dance recitals and plays. We had a lot of plays. There was a very strong feeling for it. Well we took it for granted. Peggy Mowry and I used to take turns checking on that piano. The place had care. She was an excellant musician. She can play solos and folk music. The way she can play improvisation in jazz is a great art.

LD: It must have been hard with you - I know it was with me. I got in lots of battles with people about the Nixon, and I wasn't even living here - so I bet you were constantly in turmoil with people that said they should tear it down because it was an eyesore.

MG: It really made it kind of difficult. We knew something was going to happen because the city appointed an ad hoc committee about what should be done. The ballot asking people what they thought about saving the Nixon passed two-to-one. But we could name twenty people who said in public that, "The Nixon has got to go." At the same time we were making all this money to have it remodelled. It was on the National Register. We were just taking it for granted that we would get it done. The State was with us and a lot of donations.

LD: So Larry is the one that told you it had burned?

MG: So Larry, he's a kidder you know. He never lets up. He said, "Mama, are you alright?" I said, "Sure I'm alright. What's the matter? I'm kind of tired of driving and I'm going to lay down awhile." He said, "Have you been downtown?" And I said, "No. Why?" And he said, "They burned down the Nixon." And I said, "Oh sure they did Larry. I was out of town a couple of days and they burned it down, didn't they?" He said, "Exactly what you said." That's what happened. He said, "Go downtown and look." I said, "I will not!" I had a terrible time. I couldn't sleep. I didn't want to eat. There wasn't anything you could do. But the shock of it! Finally after time went by I had to have counselling with one of the Senior Center people in Reno. And it caused a rift in this community that has not been mended one bit. People that were good friends for years and years, don't speak. It's very odd what happened. There's never been a report from the State Fire Marshall and we've gone to meetings and meetings. Eventually the county page 76 will have a theater.

Strange things happened. Pan and I used to go in there once in a while to see how the piano was. You know they saved the big piano? Guess how much it cost to get that refinished? It was $9000. The insurance covered that.

LD: Did you play that grand piano?

MG: I had that old Schultz when I was teaching. When Lyman Bruce came here and he said that all of the people coming through here and performing at the Nixon would have to have a decent piano we decided to buy one. He arranged it. Then Lyman moved . We hadn't paid off the piano. It was supposed to belong to the city. We owed $1500, which doesn't sound like much now, and Lyman got a deal on that. Mr. Dick Morrall paid for it and gave it to the city.

LD: It was a grand piano?

MG: Yes. From Germany. I finally had a chance at playing the piano.

LD: Do you belong to the museum?

MG: Yes. We never had a museum until Pan Larson and some of her friends got on it and saw some of these things that were really heritage and just going to waste. The city had the property and they moved the old Episcopal Church up there. That was 70 years old then and they did some upgrading on that. That's all they had up there for quite a long time.

LD: You know our oldest son got married in the museum. She's Episcopalian and they didn't have a church here and so we asked the museum if they would let us do that. It was beautiful.

MG: I didn't know that. It's a really good thing to do.

LD: It's a good way to make some money for the museum.

MG: Well they've got all they can handle. They need a lot of help.

LD: Another person that taught piano was Mrs. Larson. Did you play with her?

MG: No, but she was an excellant musician. I admired her so much. I con­ sulted with her a few times about different things. She was always so page 77 very gracious. When we'd have a dance recital she was right there telling us how great it was. She was a grand lady

The Nixon has a most interesting history if you could just get it all together. That's where my parents and grandparents went to the show all those years. Some of the people here who said we had to get rid of that said, "It's too old and out of style."

LD: Now in your retirement what do you plan?

MG: Well, I'm kind of out of circulation because of my health. I have to be a little careful. I miss travelling. Oh, I'm glad I did it. I like the house and I like the garden and I like the people here. My kids say, "You ought to live closer to us." And I say, "I'm not going."

LD: Do you still drive?

MG: I drive around Winnemucca or on short trips. I don't go on the highway because it isn't like it used to be. If you had any problems people used to stop, but they don't now. And you wouldn't want them to because some of them are crazy.

LD: Does it bother you that Winnemucca is growing so fast?

MG: Now people have asked me that and it doesn't really bother me be­ cause we've gotten so many benefits from it. There are things that are a little difficult that I don't think are well-planned. But it's still home to me.

LD: And Lyle is getting back in coaching?

MG: Yes. In Carson City and he will only coach for 3 years. He took a buy-out from San Francisco State after he coached there 20 years. He's also a licensed contractor in Reno. He's built four houses. The developers are so deep in that area. They are way ahead of us. They saw this coming and they bought the land. I don't worry about this growth as much as I do about Reno. That's really a change.

LD: Every place is. Do you have any favorite type music or songs that you really like?

MG: I like it all. I don't like some of the modern music that I can't hear any melody.

LD: Rap? page 78

MG: I love rap dancing. I think that's a great skill and the music is good, but I hate the lyrics. My gosh when I found out what they were saying! The classics are first with me, and opera. But not all opera. The ones that I've seen are very inspiring. I love folk dances and that's what I taught most of the time. If the kids were studying about someplace we'd go and learn a little dance of the country.

LD: Any favorite song?

MG: My favorite song is one from an opera and it's in french. It's from an opera and it's not shown very often. "The Pearlfishers". It's just beautiful. I had a little french and I tried to learn it. All you hear is Spanish here. I love "The Blue Danube Waltz."

LD: I want to ask you if we can have your permission to use your oral history in the Humboldt County Library Oral History Program.

MG: Yes. And for anything that comes up you just give me a call and I'll try to find it.

LD: Thank you.

end of oral history page 7 LD: Did your mother and father go to school the whole time they knew each other?

MG: Yes. That's where they met, in that other school that they took down, (by the Winnemucca Grammar School). They were the first graduating class from that building, 1916. That's how long that building was there.

LD: They were married, and then what did your father do?

MG: He had a good time, (laughter) He worked for the railroad. Southern Pacific and so we were born here. Then he transferred to Reno, and so this family of four lived in Reno for about four years.

LD: You were the first born. When is your birthday?

MG: November 4, 1916.

LD: And then you had more brothers?

MG: No. Just Donald (Bud).

LD: And what is your full name?

MG: Marian Stewart Erskine. They wanted a boy. My grandmother Mimi wanted to name a boy after this doctor. Stewart March. So I got named Marian Stewart. We've got a lot of Stewarts in our family and they are all spelled different. The Scotch spelling is Stewart. The English spelling is Stuart.

LD: And then when Stew came?

MG: He was named Donald Havelock.

LD: Oh, so he never was named Stewart at all?

MG: No. (laughter)

LD: Both you and Donald were born at home?

MG: Yes.

LD: So then your mother and father moved to Reno. What happened after that?

MG: Well he was working for the railroad and a position came up at the First National Bank here, and my grandfather thought that would be a good MARIAN ERSKINE GRAUVOGEL INDEX

"A Chinaman's Best Dream" - 15 Adair Jack - 8 airplanes - 58-59 airport - 59 American Theater - 13-15 Arbonies Willy - 10 arthritis - 46-47

Backus Levi - 12 Pauline (O'Carroll) - 9, 12, 14 Rhoda - 12 bands Bruce Hubbard's - 17, 19 City - 17-18 Bankey Vilma - 14 banks First National - 7-8 general - 12-13 basketball - 61 Bell May - 14-15, 19 Berlin, Irving - 41 Bernstein, Leonard - 49 "Blue Danube Waltz" - II, 78 Booster Club - 38 Bullis Vera - 10 Verna - 10 Butts Margaret - 14 Braswell, Olive - 63-64 Bridge Street - 3 Brown C. B. (Charlie) - 3-4, 9 Bruce June - 42 Lyman - 42, 60, 63-64, 76 CCC - 34-35 Callahan Jim - 10 Case, Ralph - 59 Catholic Church - 33, 46 cattle - 25 cemetaries Chinese - 34 Ceznik, Dr. - 73 Chinatown - 29 Chinese - 29-31, 34 Christian Science Church - 31, 33 churches Catholic - 33, 46 Christian Scientist - 31 Episcopal - 18, 31, 33, 35, 37, 76 Methodist - 33 Civics Club - 38 Coleman Ronald - 14 communism - 30 community theater - 59-60 cooking - 28 Cooper Gary - 14 Corbett Roger - 12, 36, 38, 45 Costa Paul - 43

Damon Consuela Valentine - 38, 62-63 Doris - 22, 35, 63 Emmy - II Ernest - 34-36, 62-63, 69 Karen - 51, 54 Kelly - 54 Larry - I, 9, II, 36, 51, 53-54, 71, 74-75 Lyle - I, 9, 26-27, 36, 42, 49, 51, 54-55, 60-61, 77 Ruth - 62-63 dances Kozan - 69 Nixon Opera House - I6-I7, 69 dancing - I5-I7, 19, 36-37, 69 depression - I5-I6 Dillon Emilie - 10 diseases arthritis - 46-47 polio - 62 divorce - 36-37 doctors Ceznik - 73 Giroux - 4 Pope - 4 driving, learning - 25-26 drug stores Eagle Drug - 74 Stephenson Drug - 74 Ducker, Judge - 5, 28 Dutch - 2, 6

Eagle Drug Store - 18, 74 Eastern Star Organization - 33, 72 Edmonds James - 17 Egoscue Harold - 10 electricity - 29 Ellifritz Mona (Erskine) - 9 Episcopal Church - 18, 31, 33, 35, 37, 76 Erskine Alice (Wagner) - 2, 5, 8, II, 51, 68 Donald Havelock (Bud) - 6-8, 29-30, 59 Havelock - 2 Lucille - 8-9 Marianna , Mackenzie (Mimi) - 3-5, 7, 10-11, 35, 38 Mona (Ellifritz) - 9 Stewart - 2, 5, 8-9, I8-I9, 24, 27, 31-33, 35, 38

feminist movement - 65 First National Bank - 7-8 flu - 28 Frensdorff, Father Wes - 33

gardening - 28 Garteiz, Tina - 33 Girl Scouts - I Giroux, Dr. - 4 Golconda, Nevada - 12 Gooding, Alice - 72 Grauvogel Alicia - 70 Carl - 26, 45, 53-54, 56-57, 66-70, 72 Carl Jr. - 53, 55 Dean - 53, 55-56, 68, 70 Jan - 56 Laura - 55 Olive - 26, 53 Marian (Erskine) - See Oral History

Haviland's Garage - 25 Heward, Helen - I, 22 hobos - 34 holidays Christmas - 29 Thanksgiving - 29 Holman Sam - 5, 23 Store - 5, 23 "Home Means Nevada" - 40 home remedies diaper rash - 28 earaches - 28 Hubbard Bruce - 17, 19 Hudson, Mrs. - 13, 16 Humboldt County Library - 70 Museum - 76 Humboldt River - 57, 66-67

Indians school - 10 Iroz, John - 46

Japanese - 30-31 jazz - II Jones, Bill - 35 Joss House - 29 Kibbee, Elsie - 20 Kibbee, Ethel - 6, 11-12, 17, 20-21, 43 Ku Klux Klan - 33

Larson Mrs. - 76-77 Pansalee (Case) - 59, 76 Lau Ellen - 46-47, 50 Leach, Mrs. - II Lewis, Pearl - 70 "Little Old New York" - II Lowry Al - 30, 41-44, 60-62 Lona - 62

MacCallister, Isabelle (Loring) - 13, 15, 17, 19, 42, 58 Madriaga, Johnny - 61 March Stewart - 2, 7 Martin Hotel - 25 Masonic Order (Masons) - 9, 32-33, 36 MENC (Music Educator's National Conference) - 50, 72 Mexicans - 31 Miller Terry - 5 Mims Grandma - 10 mining - 2, 6, 12, 25 Moore, Ted - 61 Morall Dick - 18, 76 mosquitos - 66 mountains Winnemucca - 2, 6, 33 Mowry, Peggy - 75 musical instruments guitar - 39 xylophone - 39

National Mine - 25 National Register - 75 Nixon Opera House - 13, 15, I7-I9, 24, 50, 59-60, 69, 74-75, 77 nuclear testing - 70-71 Oastler Harry - 13-14 Mrs. - 13-15, 58 O'Carroll Pauline (Backus) - 9, 12, 14, 25, 31 opera - 50-51 orffs - 47-50 "Orff - Kodaly" - 48 Ortel Paul - 6 Oxborrow, Larry - 64

Palmer Method - 17 Pearce Fred - 69 Leiand - 10, 17, 50-51, 67-69 Ruth - 69 "The Pearlfishers" - 78 pensions - 21 Peraldo, Marge - 22 piano music - 14, 17, 19 Pike Vivian - 10 Pioneer Theater (Reno) - 51 Piper's Opera House (Virginia City) - 15 plays - 59 polio - 62 Pope, Dr. - 4 Prida Gil - 10 prizefights - 24 prohibition - 27 prostitution - 34 radar base - 59, 61 Raffetto, Bertha - 40 railroads - 26, 57, 71-72 Southern Pacific - 7 Western Pacific - 26, 72 Railroad Street - 2, 4 Rainbow Organization - I Red Cross - 24 Reinhart's Dam - 18, 24, 33 Mose - 9 Reinhart's (continued) Store - 9, 17-18 Roberts, Nora - 20, 43-44, 52, 63, 65 Robinson Adelle - 10, 17 family - 10, 17 Rueckl, Mrs. Frank - 60

Sanders Bessie - 10 San Francisco State - 42 schools Grass Valley - 47 Indian - 10 Sonoma Heights - I, 44, 64 University of Nevada, Reno - I, 20-21, 71 Winnemucca Grammar - I, 7, 10, 38-39, 44-45, 62 school superintendents Bruce, Lyman - 63-64 Lowry, Al - 62 schoolteachers Ewing, Mr. - 39 Gillman, Mrs. - 38 Grauvogel, Marian - See Oral History Heward, Helen - I, 22 Hudson, Mrs. - 13, 15 Kibbee, Ethel - II-I2, 17 Leach, Mrs. - II Lowry, Al - 60 MacCallister (Loring), Isabelle - 13, 58 Peraldo, Marge - 22 Pike, Vivian - 10 Roberts, Nora - 65 Sanders, Bessie - 10 Shoecraft, Mrs. - 39, 64-65 Smith, Jenny - 10 Vine, Stanley - II-I2 Vine, Wendell - 12 Watts, Mrs. - 10 Scotish - 3 Senior Citizens Center - 70 sheep - 25 Shoecraft, Miss - 64-65 Smith Jenny - 10 Souza, John Phillip - 20 Spitzer, Doris Damon - 63 Stephenson Drug Store - 74 Suzuki system - 48 swimming - 18 teacher's union - 63-64 telephones - 59 television - 59

Vetter, Joyce - 40, 46 Victory Highway - 25 Vine Stanley - 11-12 Wendell - 12 wages - 21, 74 Wagner Alice (Erskine) - 2, 5, 8, II, 51 Annetta - 5, 31 Florence - 2 Harry - 2, 5-6, 22-23 Waltz, Fred - 58-59 wars Vietnam - 55-56 World War II - I, 26, 31, 41 Water Canyon - 25 Watts, Mrs. - 10 Wilson, Joe - 74 Winnemucca City Clerk - 69 Winnemucca Mountain - 2, 6, 33 "Winning of Barbara Worth" - 14 Wooster, Mr. - 12-13, 19

Zilkie, Frances - 33 page 8 opportunity for my dad because he was interested in bookkeeping. He talked my dad into leaving the railroad and taking this job at the First National Bank. So we moved back here. By that time I was in first grade. We lived in that place right across from the library. The house that is right directly across on the corner.

LD: Did your mother work?

MG: She worked for the telephone company when we came back. She worked quite a long time here.

LD: Was it always near the Martin Hotel?

MG: Yes. That's where she worked.

LD: Did he stay with the bank quite awhile?

MG: No. He got fired because he embezzled some money.

LD: Did he and your mom stay together?

MG: No. She had already gone. She married a man that was running Safeway and she left. Jack Adair. He worked for Safeway and he convinced her that she could leave and then come back and get Bud and me. In the meantime my grandfather Erskine got the best lawyer he could find and he insisted that my dad have custody and they would take care of us.

LD: So that's who raised you basically?

MG: Yes. When she left with Jack she took me and left Bud and that was a very hard thing. Bud and I were very close. We fought like kids do. My grandfather Erskine was so good to people and he knew that if there was a rift between our mother and us that there would be some real bad trouble so he insisted that if my mother came here to visit we could go stay with her and any time if somebody wanted to take us down to Berkely that was alright with him. My grandmother didn't like it. Oh my two grandmothers never spoke again. I didn't realize how much my grandfather did until I was older. You know we were just blessed, that's all. My brother and I to have those grandparents. Bud said, "I was more dependant on Grandpa Erskine than anyone else." Course Stew came and lived with us before he married Lucille, but he was my grandmother's pet and he had a good time.

LD: Did the Erskine grandparents live a long time?

MG: Yes, fairly.