www.nevadawomen.org [email protected] Volume 26, Number 1 March 2021 To provide visibility and support for the gathering and dissemination of history about the roles and contributions of all Nevada women. Never Bet Against A Woman By Patti Bernard Bowers Mansion is celebrating its 75th year of becoming one of Washoe County’s most beloved parks in 2021. NWHP will join in the celebration Friday, May 21st at 7 p.m., as a “Programs on the Porch” with our production of a reenactment of the purchase of the Bowers Mansion park site in Washoe Valley. Northern Nevada residents can’t remember a Washoe Valley without a Bowers Mansion lodged in between Carson and Reno. Many of us had our end-of-the-year school swimming picnics there as kids, went to or participated in marriages and engagements there, or just picnicked, hiked and swam there. Yet this park almost slipped from a favorite picnic area to a private venue. We have a group of ladies from the mid-1940s with the forethought to fight to preserve it for Nevada residents forever to thank. And, in their fundraising project the group involved citizens of many other Nevada towns to Bowers Mansion contribute towards this momentous Photo from Washoe County Parks, Bowers Mansion website. achievement. Purchase of Bowers is Sought This was the title of the article that appeared in the Reno Evening Gazette, January 31, 1946. The Reno Women’s Civic Club proposed, and successfully completed, one of the most important civic contributions that Northern Nevada had ever seen. The club bought Bowers Mansion! Who was this group, and how did it come to pull off such a feat? We must go back to September of 1944 when a small group of women, led by a civic activist Harriet ‘Polly’ Gelder, decided to organize a club “to give Reno women an opportunity to become informed on public questions so that they might vote intelligently.” All were involved in other organizations like the 20th Century Club and Reno Professional and Businesswomen Club, and church organizations, but they decided on this type of venue to become better informed voters. All through 1945, the meetings were devoted to just those activities, always accompanied by a luncheon. They heard political candidates and speakers in support of local issues, spoke at other organizations and generally, the club was one of the many socially responsible organizations that were common for a 20th Century woman to belong to, in any Nevada town. Continued on page 2 NWHP News Volume 26 Number 41 March 2021 Page 1 Continued from page 1 www.nevadawomen.org [email protected] Members of the Reno Women’s Civic Club Photo courtesy of the Bowers Mansion Regional Park. How did Bowers Mansion fit into this? For years, Northern Nevada residents had Henry Riter, the owner of Bowers Mansion, watched Bowers Mansion go downhill. Though and his wife were getting up there in age and the Riters had lived there, in later years the wanted to sell the house and accompanying Mansion operations were leased to various acreage. The grounds were open for public individuals to run it as a tourist venue. Among picnics and swimming for a small fee, for some the many who drove past the aging playground/ years the house was rented out as a tourist park, waiting for someone to come in and venue with a small club/bar and rooms in the upgrade the place, were members of the Reno main house. The grounds could be rented for Women’s Civic Club, and specifically Ethel large events, and tourists could pay to tour the Parker and Dorothy Allen. Dorothy heard a house, hike up to the Bowers family gravesites, rumor in January 1946 that Bowers Mansion picnic, and swim. Washoe County residents just was to be sold to outsiders who had outrageous took it for granted that the place would always plans that meant Bowers Mansion would no be there for them. more be a family park. But not Henry. He had owned and loved the Ethel describes an early January meeting, place for years. But now at 82, he was just too when member Dorothy Allen informed the club old to run it properly. He offered Bowers of Henry’s planned sale. The whole group rose Mansion to the State of Nevada and Washoe up in anger and consternation. County for nominal sums. Neither took him up “Ladies, let us buy it!” cried Dorothy, “I have on his offers. No local entity seems to want to a dollar with which to start such a fund for its buy Bowers Mansion, either, and he needed to purchase and I so move that we buy it.” By the sell it. end of the meeting, 45 dollars was raised as the Finally, he entertained an offer from an out- nucleus of a purchase fund and the women of-state party in early January of 1946 to planned their next move. purchase Bowers Mansion and turn it into a Several days later, a date was set to meet casino with small bungalows surrounding the with Henry. Dorothy, Ethel, and a small cadre of swimming pool. That is when “push came to members drove out to Bowers Mansion to talk to shove” and the Reno Women’s Civic Club got him about the sale. Upon entering the Mansion, involved. they saw he was talking with two gentlemen Ethel Parker, the 1946 Civic Club president, who they assumed were there to make an offer wrote a nine-page history of the Civic Club’s to him for the Mansion. involvement in the purchase of Bowers Mansion, Upon seeing the women enter, he excused resulting in the County’s purchase, sometime himself and walked over to the women. He after Bowers was deeded to Washoe County, A informed them that the men had made an offer bit of that history follows. of $100,000 with $25,000 down payment, but that he was sad that he had to sell to them. Page 2 Volume 26, Number 1 March 2021 NWHP News www.nevadawomen.org [email protected] “Ladies,” he said, “I don’t want them to have it. It belongs to Nevada and Nevada children, what kind of an offer can you make me?” The women asked for a minute to confer. They decided that the club could ask for an option of three months to raise the $25,000 down payment and promise to fundraise the balance later. They would fundraise the whole purchase price! As Ethel Parker wrote in her memoir, “Mrs. The White House was lit up in suffrage colors for Allen sauntered back to Mr. Riter and said, Equality Day, August 26, 2020. “Have you an option blank?” He immediately Photo from: Women’s History. National Women’s History produced one and with a dollar in her hand Alliance, 2021. which she handed to Mr. Riter, Mrs. Allen signed the option that gave the Reno Women’s Civic Club the right to buy Bowers Mansion so that First Nevada Woman to everyone might enjoy it in the years to come.” Register to Vote How the ladies raised that $25,000 and how they interested Washoe County into helping By Mona Reno them purchase Bowers Mansion for a park is the Dana Bennett found the following article in fascinating story that we are going to tell in our the Elko Daily Independent of March 25, 1915, Chautauqua presentation. page 2. Dana knew we would love to have this. Toward that end, we are looking for some Thank you for thinking of us! amateur thespians to play the parts of the clubwomen in this Chautauqua presentation. Experience not required; just enthusiasm for what these women did. If you have a desire to help bring history alive, please contact Patti Bernard or Sue Davis for more information at 786-2335 or email NWHP at [email protected]. Bring your picnic dinner and a chair and learn the history of how Bowers Mansion became what was then known as Nevada’s version of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. To make the occasion even more festive, make, find, borrow a 1940-1950s hat and “become” a Reno Women’s Civic Club member for the evening. Where: Bowers Mansion, 4005 Bowers Mansion Road, Mrs. Paul Jones is Mary E. Broth Jones, according to the 1920 U.S. Census for Sparks, New Washoe City, Nev. Washoe, Nevada. She was 43 years old in When: Saturday, May 21st 1920, so she would have been 38 in 1915 when Time: 7 p.m. she registered to vote. Paul and Mary had two Cost: Donations are appreciated daughters: Hester and Iris. They lived at 861 B. St. in Sparks., which is now the corner of Victorian Avenue and Pyramid Way. Mary’s RSVP: Patti Bernard at [email protected], occupation is listed as Railroad Laborer. or Sue at [email protected]. The Joneses lived in Mina, Nev. in 1910. NWHP News Volume 26 Number 41 March 2021 Page 3 www.nevadawomen.org [email protected] Membership and Donations - January - March 2021 Honorary Members: Yvonne Rickman Donations: General Fund Mary Anne Convis Carolyn Sherve Beta Chapter, Alpha Delta Dawn Gibbons Florence Suenaga Kappa - $100 - Speakers Betty Glass Maggie Thomsen donation for a presentation Dema Guinn Patricia Wallace by Patti Bernard to their Cherry Jones Chelsea White group Kathy List Alicia Wright Susan Burkhamer - $70 Sandy Miller Terry Cookro - $100 Kathy Noneman Family of Two - $55 Shirley Hammon - $30 Kathleen Sandoval Catherine Cuccaro & Jeff Gilda Johnstone - $50 Kathy Sisolak Milligan Leontine Bundy Nappe - $100 Holly Van Valkenburgh Barbara & Dave Finley Maggie Thomsen - $10 Linda Wyckoff Karen and Stephen Benna Patricia Wallace - $20 Wendy Ritter and Margaret Elizabeth Rassiga-White & Best Friend Forever: Richardson Warren White - $100 Lynn Bremer James and Betty Hulse Vida Keller Donations: In-Kind Sandy Raffealli Friend - $100 Catherine Cuccaro and Mona Reno Faye Andersen Rebecca Kapuler - $1,000 - Alicia Barber making/selling suffrage Membership: Dr.