Agnes Hart Sever, Oral History
Dublin Core
Title
Agnes Hart Sever, Oral History
Creator
Churchill County Museum Oral History Project
Date
June 24, 1993
Rights
Copyright Churchill County Museum Association
Format
MP3
1/8" polyester audio tape
Language
English
Coverage
Hazen, Nevada
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Analog Audio Cassette Tape
Duration
51:14
Transcription
CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
AGNES HART SEVER
June 24, 1993
This interview was conducted by Marian LaVoy; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norma Morgan; final by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum.
PREFACE
Twinkling blue eyes, beautiful snow—white hair and a wit with which only the Irish are blessed that describes Agnes Hart Sever.
Agnes blithely informed me that she wasn't afraid of anything or anyone and I am inclined to believe the little dynamo as she lives by herself, manages her small store and sells gasoline to the occasional tourist or “local” … she was answering her door in the dead of night to accommodate stranded travelers, until her friends, fearing for her safety, convinced her to stop!
Hazen, Nevada is her home she has lived her life there, met both husbands there and was twice widowed there. She was post mistress from 1934 until 1977 when the postal service closed the office. Her comments to Post Master General James Farley when he was detained in Hazen for a train connection are hilarious; her reminiscences of the long gone "Palace Hotel” raise images of railroad travelers waiting for train connections that will either carry them deeper into the high desert country or to the bright lights of exciting cities.
Agnes cared for her blind father for many years as well as managing her little store and acting as postmistress for the little town. Her stories relating to her father and Mr. Swingle bringing cottonwood saplings from around the new dam at Lahontan to plant at both the Hart and Swingle ranches is fascinating. Her memory is clear as she recalls that an Obie Harrell built the Hart farmhouse as well as houses still standing on Stillwater Avenue in Fallon.
Agnes' lilting voice is mesmerizing as she spins her story of her life in a railroad town—long-past its heyday.
A sign that at one time graced the walls of the Hazen Store sums up the always busy life of the Irish lass, Agnes Hart Sever
“Everything cometh to he who waiteth, so long as he who waiteth worketh like hell while he waiteth!
Interview with Agnes Hart Sever
This is Marian Hennen LaVoy of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Program interviewing Agnes Sever at her home 600 Reno Way Hazen, Nevada, on June 24, 1993.
LAVOY: Good afternoon, Agnes.
SEVER: Good afternoon, yourself.
LAVOY: I'm so happy to be here doing your oral interview.
SEVER: Well, I 'm happy to have you.
LAVOY: Well, thank you. Now, can you tell me what were your parents' names? Your father's name?
SEVER: Michael Hart.
LAVOY: And where was he born?
SEVER: In County Longford, Ireland.
LAVOY: And your mother's name?
SEVER: My mother's maiden name was Katie Malloy.
LAVOY: And where was she born?
SEVER: She was born in the same town.
LAVOY: Well, did they meet in Ireland?
SEVER: They knew each other. When my father was in Scotland for seven or eight years and then he came home to Ireland and then he met my mother again and they got married and come to the United States.
LAVOY: And when they came to the United States, where did they come?
SEVER: They went to Ogden, Utah. My mother had a friend, Mary Ann Heslin, but her maiden name was Mary Ann Cooney, but she married a man by the name of Pete Heslin. He was a railroad man working out of Austin.
LAVOY: Did your father work for the railroad?
SEVER: Yeah, he was the first section foreman in Bango [Nevada] out here.
LAVOY: Well, now, in Ogden, was he working on the railroad?
SEVER: No, they shipped him out to Nevada.
LAVOY: Oh! Then they moved out to Nevada.
SEVER: Out to the place they call Bango. It's called Taylor, then
LAVOY: Now when was this?
SEVER: 1905.
LAVOY: Where were you born?
SEVER: I was born in Fallon.
LAVOY: What date?
SEVER: July 15, 1907.
LAVOY: How did you happen to be born Bango rather than in Fallon?
SEVER: Well, there was no doctors or nothing there. My mother had a friend, Mrs. Sowash, in Fallon. They met. He was working on the canal her husband, Mr. Sowash. They were living in Fallon and they stayed with my folks out at Bango on the railroad. When I was born, Mrs. Sowash took care of me, and she's the one that named me Agnes.
LAVOY: Well, now, what did your father do on the railroad at Bango?
SEVER: He was a section foreman.
LAVOY: I didn' t realize even that a railroad line went out that way.
SEVER: Yeah, it goes clear to Mina. It used to go to Tonopah and Goldfield but it's been discontinued for years, but there's a train goes down to Mina, sometimes once or twice a week.
LAVOY: Do you remember anything at all about Bango?
SEVER: Not a thing. I came to Hazen when I was five years old.
LAVOY: Well, now, your father was working at Bango and your mother living there, they had a home in Bango. Is that correct?
SEVER: Yeah, there is a section house for all the railroad. Now Mori got it.
LAVOY: Who has it?
SEVER: One of the Moris bought it after they done away with it.
LAVOY: Oh I see. Then if you lived out in Bango in a section house there, he probably saw a lot of the people that went and worked at the Dam, did he?
SEVER: Oh, I imagine, yeah. This man, Sowash, was working on the canal up here where they were putting in the Truckee-Carson irrigation canal, the one that goes through and supplies water for Lahontan Dam.
LAVOY: How 1ong was Mr. Sowash there? Do you remember?
SEVER: I don't remember. Just while they were working on -it. Might have been a year, I guess or something. I don't know.
LAVOY: Now, you were five years old when you moved to Hazen. Tell me, where did you live in Hazen?
SEVER: Across the road.
LAVOY: Across what's now the highway?
SEVER: Across this road right here. It's a white house. [575 Reno Highway, Hazen]
LAVOY: Tell me, what did your father do here?
SEVER: Well, he was working part-time for the railroad and then he quit and went farming.
LAVOY: And where was his farm?
SEVER: Right across the road. There's eighty acres there.
LAVOY: Oh, I didn't realize that. And so you grew up on the small ranch there across the road. Tell me something about the house that you lived in as a little girl. Well, I have a picture of it somewhere.
LAVOY: Did you have electricity?
SEVER: No, heck no. We didn't have nothing like that those days.
LAVOY: What did you have?
SEVER: Just coal oil lamps.
LAVOY: Whose job was it to clean those?
SEVER: I guess my mother and father's.
LAVOY: (laughing) Did you have indoor plumbing?
SEVER: Outside toilet, Chic Sales.
LAVOY: (laughing) How large was the house?
SEVER: Oh, when he built it, it had two bedrooms and then he added two more rooms onto it in 1918 during the war. [World War I ]
LAVOY: What kind of crops did he raise?
SEVER: Alfalfa, and he had some wheat, and he milked cows for a living.
LAVOY: Where did he do that?
SEVER: Down at the ranch.
LAVOY: At your ranch?
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: So you sold milk to the dairy?
SEVER: Well, we used to sell it around town, but then they stopped it, you know. There was a law that you couldn't sell raw milk, and then, later on, we shipped it to Oakland [California] to East Bay Creamery. There was one time we took it to Fallon. We used to have a creamery in Fallon. Do you remember ever hearing that?
LAVOY: Yes, I have.
SEVER: Called the Mutual Creamery, across the railroad track. You know where that is?
LAVOY: I have an idea.
SEVER: Somewhere around Kents' in there.
LAVOY: And you sold it there after you no longer had a market
for it in Oakland?
SEVER: Well, we could have sent it to Oakland, but we sold milk around town and then they stopped us. Then we had to separate the milk and get the cream and ship it down in ten-gallon cans. And then they tell me there's what they call the good old days. I can't see nothing good about them.
LAVOY: Cleaning those creamers was a job.
SEVER: Well, it was twenty-one disks to wash every time on the separator.
LAVOY: Oh, I know. Where did you first start school?
SEVER: Right here in Hazen.
LAVOY: Where was the school house?
SEVER: Oh, it was up here on the other side of the railroad tracks about a mile, and then in 1918 they built it over here, put up a new school.
LAVOY: To the west side of town?
SEVER: Yeah, and I was the sixth grade when I went there.
LAVOY: Where had you gone prior to the sixth grade? In the old school?
SEVER: Yeah, then they later let us have that old school and we made a church out of it, a Catholic church, and it was right by the ranch there.
LAVOY Do you remember the names of any of your teachers?
SEVER: Yeah. Grace Inwood and Thelma Bradshaw.
LAVOY: Did you enjoy them as teachers?
SEVER: I guess so.
LAVOY: Now, that was through the fifth grade that you were there.
Up to the sixth grade and then I got over here and then I finished eighth grade over here in this school.
LAVOY: Who were some of your classmates?
SEVER: Nina Jones is gone. She left here when she graduated from the eighth grade and moved to California. Married a Jewish guy by the name of Cates from New York.
LAVOY: And then who were some of your other friends?
SEVER: Hilda Petersen, Caroline Gastsreau. Then there was a Catherine May and there was a family of Mays here and Hannibals. They're the ones that kept the church going, Hannibal s and Mays with my parents, and then there was Katie O'Donnell. She was the postmaster.
LAVOY: Who was the pastor of the church?
: A priest from Sparks [Nevada] used to come down.
LAVOY: Do you remember his name?
SEVER: Father Meahan, and my father, after Mass here, he'd have to take him to Fallon so he could say Mass. You know, I don't remember it but they told me one time they used to have Mass in the railroad house there in Fallon when McNeilys lived there, but the old church is where we were. You know where the old church was in Fallon? [285 South East]
LAVOY: Yes, I do.
SEVER: That's where, we had Mass there.
LAVOY: Now, did you go on to high school?
SEVER: Yeah. I went to Fallon High School.
LAVOY: What do you remember about some of the teachers in high school?
SEVER: George McCracken was the principal.
LAVOY: I 've heard his name many times.
SEVER: Oh, yeah.
LAVOY: He was very strict.
SEVER: Oh ho ho! I’ll say!
LAVOY: Do you have any good stories about his strictness?
SEVER: Just that he wouldn't let us, he was kind of strict about the girls and boys talking in the hallways. He wouldn't allow it. Did you ever hear that about him?
LAVOY: Yes, I have heard that before.
SEVER: I tell you who went to school. Lem Allen. Do you know him?
LAVOY: Yes, 1 do. He was one of your classmates?
SEVER: He was in school when I was there. And Mary Ellen, his wife, Eason, that was her maiden name. She went to school there. And I think Eunice Allen was a teacher there. That's Lem Allen's sister. She taught school there, too. I think I took Spanish from her. It's been so long ago I forgot.
LAVOY: What classes did you like the best?
SEVER: None of them. I liked penmanship and spelling the best.
LãVOY Well, that's great.
SEVER: (1aughing) Yeah.
LAVOY: I notice you have beautiful penmanship. What were some of the things that you did for entertainment as a kid?
SEVER: Well, I never went to anything in the high school. We lived out here too far.
LAVOY: How did you get into school?
SEVER: I stayed one year with a German family in Fallon.
LAVOY: Do you recall their name?
SEVER: Yeah. Barney Thorworth and his wife. They' re related to the Lohses. You know any of the Lohses?
LAVOY: Yes, do. You lived there with them for a year.
SEVER: Yeah. My mother paid my board there, but I didn' t like it in Fallon.
LAVOY: You liked it better in Hazen.
SEVER: I ' d rather be home.
LAVOY: Oh, I can understand that completely. Then, when you didn't live in Fallon with the Thorworths, how did you get back and forth?
SEVER: Well, my brothers were starting to go to high school and we drove in a car, but they never allowed us anything for that. Now, if you have to bring them in from a certain place the school district pays you for gas. They didn't pay us nothing.
LAVOY: What kind of a car did you have to go in?
SEVER: Well, we had an old Hupmobile.1912. I understand that was one of the first ones around here. My father had that.
LAVOY: Did he buy that in Reno?
SEVER: No, he bought it off a rai1road man that was leaving here. He was moving to Washington. I remember my father paid four hundred dol lars for i t, which was a big price those days, for that old Hupmobi1e, and it' s still going I heard. It ' s up around Yerington [Nevada] or somewhere. He sold it to a man for fifty dollars
LAVOY: Oh, my! But, he got a lot of use out of it.
SEVER: Whew. We had to crank it. Nobody ever taught him how to drive. He had to pick it up himself.
LAVOY: That must have been interesting
SEVER: He wasn't that good. My brother, Pat, used to say that Pop' d go down the Maine Street of Fallon and had a cow bell for a horn. (laughing) I don't know whether he did or not. My brother, Pat, had that bar in Virginia City [Nevada], the Brass Rail He tells that story. Whether it ' s true or not I don't think it is.
LAVOY: It probably is
SEVER: He said we had a cow bell for horn.(laughing)
LAVOY: (laughing) Well, tell me something about Hazen as you grew up in Hazen. About how many people 1ived here?
SEVER: Well, they had two teachers at one time.
LAVOY: In the school?
SEVER: Um hum. There was quite a few kids
LAVOY: Do you think there were, maybe, five hundred people?
SEVER: Oh, I don't know it was that many or not. I can't remember. They used to say there was ten thousand, but there was no ten thousand in the state of Nevada in 1907, I don't think. Did we then?
LAVOY: I just don't know. I've only heard that there was a tremendous group because of the dam being built.
SEVER: They had some commissary out there Lahontan Dam. They had groceries and stuff, but I can't remember.
LAVOY: Well, here in Hazen, what stores were there at that point in time?
SEVER: Well, they had two stores. Hazen Trading and then there was a man by the name of O'Donnell had a store. It's still here. That pink building over there. It's sure too bad my brother didn’t leave the name written on it. It was a big name. M. C. O'Donnell written across it. Hay and grain, groceries, and all that, and my brother went and painted it all. He should have left it as an old-time building. Look at what it'd been today. It'd been a museum.
LAVOY: Now, Hazen started as a railroad stop, did it not?
SEVER: I think so, yeah. It was around 1904, I think
LAVOY: I understand that shortly after you had moved here was when Hazen had the famous hanging, i s that correct?
SEVER: Hanging of "Red" Wood. I got the picture of it.
LAVOY: What had he done?
SEVER: He stole something. He was a cattle rustler. My father said he wasn't any worse than the guys that put him there.
LAVOY: Well, that's very true, but that picture, we see it all over the State in the old historical books.
SEVER: Oh, yeah. Well, I gave the picture let them have it, you know, over at Fallon, the museum, I think, has it.
LAVOY: They probably still have it
SEVER: . I think they got another one. I got it back.
LAVOY: Oh, I see. They probably took a copy of it and put it in their computer.
SEVER: You know, you can't get too much from me ‘cause I never paid no attention to a lot of that stuff when I was growing up.
LAVOY: But, still, you remembered hearing your parents talk about it and your father made a comment on it and everything. Now, you mentioned your father, your mother and yourself. Did you have any brothers or sisters?
SEVER: Yes.
LAVOY: Will you give me their names, please?
SEVER: There was ten of us in the family at one time, there's only two and living.
LAVOY: You mean they died as small children?
SEVER: Well, I had a sister drowned at the ranch.
LAVOY: Oh, that's too bad. What was her name?
SEVER: Margaret.
LAVOY: In the irrigation ditch? How old was she?
SEVER: Three years.
LAVOY: That's too bad. And then what other sisters did you have?
SEVER: One called Josephine, and there was two that died when they were babies before I was born, so I can't remember nothing, but they were born in Utah.
LAVOY: Then, did you have a sister named Martha.
SEVER: Yeah, Martha Copenhaver. Married to one of the Copenhavers.
LAVOY: Is she still living?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. She lives in Reno, and her husband is a retired plumber. He was raised in Fallon, and they have one son, and he's a high school teacher in Reno. He's married and his wife is a secretary to the medical doctors up at the University and they have two daughters. One of them going to work with United Parcel.
LAVOY: Oh. Now, how many brothers did you have?
SEVER: Oh, gosh. I had James and John and Patrick.
LAVOY: Did they live in Hazen?
SEVER: Oh, yeah, they grew up here.
LAVOY: And lived here all of their lives?
SEVER: Yeah. Pat went up to Virginia City and worked for a guy and then he finally bought the Brass Rail and had a saloon as he called it.
LAVOY: And he had that for many years.
SEVER: Yeah, until he got killed.
LAVOY: Oh, I didn't realize. How was he killed?
SEVER: A woman ran through a stop sign in Carson City and right into his car and they said if he had had a seat belt he wouldn't have been thrown out of the car.
LAVOY: Oh. So, that's leaves you there's just two of you left.
SEVER: My sister and I. And then I've got several nieces. Then I had brother John. He was a refrigeration man. He worked on refrigeration.
LAVOY: Now, tell me, do you remember your high school graduation ceremony at all?
SEVER: Oh, they had the baccalaureate which they don't have anymore, do they?
LAVOY: They can have it, but I don't think they can have it in the schools because of that Supreme Court law, but perhaps it's been changed. They were talking about changing it.
SEVER: And then graduation exercises.
LAVOY Do you remember the dress you wore?
SEVER: Oh, I don't remember the dress, but I think it was a blue one.
LAVOY: Oh, I bet you were pretty in a blue dress.
SEVER: (laughing) My mother had a heck of a time getting me a dress. I think she had someone to help her make it. I forgot
LAVOY: Were there any dry goods store here?
SEVER: No, there never was. Only a grocery store. And one time there was fourteen bars they said, but I don't remember it.
LAVOY: Fourteen?
SEVER: That's what they said I wasn't sure or not.
LAVOY: My goodness. Now, when you graduated from high school, you came back to Hazen and what did you do?
SEVER: I went to work in the post office. No, I went to work as a waitress in the restaurant.
LAVOY: There was a restaurant here?
SEVER: Yeah, and I worked ten months, and I quit and went to work for the post office.
LAVOY: What was the name of the restaurant? Do you remember?
SEVER: It was in the Palace Hotel.
LAVOY: Now, where was the Palace Hotel?
SEVER: Right up in here.
LAVOY: It's gone now?
SEVER: Oh, a long time ago. They tore it down and wrecked the bricks and everything the way they done it. Then they built this place over here, the antique shop, with the bricks.
LAVOY: Oh! Now, was the Palace Hotel used for the railroad people?
SEVER: It was for anybody. They had twenty-one rooms upstairs they'd rent, you know, a night. At that time, it was a beautiful hotel.
LAVOY: Now, that interests me that there would be twenty-one rooms, and would that be people that would be driving by on the highway or coming in on the train?
SEVER: They came in on the trains. See, there used to be a train go down to Mina. Passenger train every day. Then they had a motor car one time that ran to Fallon. You ever hear about that?
LA VOY Yes, I did, and people would come and stay in the hotel and then get on that motor car and go to Fallon and come back, stay in the hotel?
SEVER: Yeah, the motor car would come out of Sparks.
LAVOY: Oh, I see, and it would stop at Hazen.
SEVER: I rode it when I went to high school. When I had no way to get home, I'd go down the depot on Friday night and climb in that motor car. I never paid my way but they didn't know it.
LAVOY: Well, that' s all right.
SEVER: The agent knew I was getting on there. He told me to get on, and the conductor told me, "Get on there and keep your mouth shut.
LAVOY: Now, who were the agent and conductor?
SEVER: Well, Hannibal was the agent and the conductor was Bob Edwards. Bob Edwards told me, "You get in there and shut up. Don't talk to anybody
LAVOY: And then they brought you home here.
SEVER: Yeah. See they done a favor. They weren't allowed to do it, but see I should have had a ticket, but I didn't have one
LAVOY We11, that's all right if they let you ride.
SEVER: They knew we had no money to buy a ticket. We were hard up on a farm those days. They talk about it being hard up on a farm right now. It's nothing like it was then. I think farmers had a harder time years ago than they have now.
LAVOY: Well, they worked a lot harder, I 'm sure.
SEVER: Sure, from daylight to dusk.
LAVOY: They didn't have the machinery and things that they have now.
SEVER: And then most of them had to milk cows for a living. Do you know many farmers around Fallon?
LAVOY: I know some of the families, yes. I was just wondering, your mentioning that you worked at the hotel as a waitress for ten months, then you went to work at the post office. Approximately where was the post office?
SEVER: In the same building.
LAVOY: Oh! Who was the postmistress or postmaster at the time? [1921 ]
SEVER: Well, Katie Riley was one and then Arthur Pyle.
LAVOY: Tell me, what did you do at the post office?
SEVER: Well, we put out the mail just like they do now. Come in on a passenger train. They'd bring it over. Now the post office boxes are all in the museum.
SEVER: Didn't you ever see them there?
LAVOY: Yes, I have now that I 'm thinking about it. Did they bring the mail to you off the train, or did you have to go over and get it?
SEVER: Oh, sometimes bring it and then sometimes we had to go and get it.
LAVOY: Did they have it in the big leather pouch?
SEVER: Yeah. They liked the old pouch. I guess they still use the same old pouches.
LAVOY: Now, about how much mail did you handle every day?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
LAVOY: A lot of it.
SEVER: Quite a bit, there were quite a few families.
LAVOY: What was the cost of a mailbox at that point in time?
SEVER: Oh, God. Twenty-five cents, I think.
LAVOY: For a month?
SEVER: Um hum.
LAVOY: Goodness gracious how prices have gone up.
SEVER: See, I can't remember. It's been so long ago I forgot about it.
LAVOY: Now, you worked for how long for the post office?
SEVER: Let’s see. Forty-seven years.
LAVOY: My goodness. You became what in the post office?
SEVER: The postmaster
LAVOY: Amd when did you become the postmistress?
SEVER: 1934
LAVOY: Now, you told me about a very famous person coming to see you.
SEVER: Oh, James Farley, Postmaster General
LAVOY: How did he happen to come visit?
SEVER: He got off the train and he was delayed here for fifteen or twenty minutes because they had to take off mail. This building was over here facing the railroad track. He didn't have far to walk.
LAVOY: Well, how did you react when you met him?
SEVER: I didn't know what to say. He said, "I'm James Farley” And I just got to the post office in time. And I said, I've just been appointed postmaster here it. and I hate to tell you, Mr. Farley, I 'm a Republican, and he was a strong Democrat. ( laughing)
LAVOY: Yes, he was appointed by Roosevelt [President Franklin Delano].
SEVER: (laughing)
LAVOY: And what did he say to that?
SEVER: He just laughed.
LAVOY Did he look around the post office or just visit?
SEVER: He just looked at the boxes and laughed at the little boxes. That was a small little post office. I said, "Well, we' re not city people.
LAVOY: What did he say to that?
SEVER: Oh, he just laughed. Said we had to get by the best we [could]. At that time, we had a cancellation deal in the post office. We put down every night the letters that were cancelled, how many stamps on it. That's how we got paid. That's how I got paid 'cause it was a fourth—class office. That didn' t go in the big offices. It was just a fourth-class office.
LAVOY: So, explain to me to how you got paid?
SEVER: I got paid from the amount of stamps I sold that day. I had to keep a record every day and at one time they made a check on the trains and they picked up several postmasters that had been putt in' down much more cancellations, sellin' more stamps than they were. I don't know how they found it out. They came and checked me but they didn't say nothing.
LAVOY: Well, because you were honest and you didn't have any problems at all with it.
SEVER: I think he handed me back sixty cents. That I had sixty cents too much.
LAVOY: Oh, my (laughing) I imagine you've seen a lot of changes with the way the post offices are run. Is there a post office here now?
SEVER: No. See, when I reached seventy years of age they told me it was a law then that we had to retire, and the next year it passed you could work as long as you wanted to.
LAVOY: But, you had already retired.
SEVER: Well, yeah.
LAVOY: Did you close the post office when you retired?
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: And there's no post office in Hazen now.
SEVER: No. They get their mail out of Fernley.
LAVOY: Oh. Does somebody bring it?
SEVER: Rural route.
LAVOY: Oh, rural route. Tell me, working for the post office that many years, did you meet any of the other postmasters or postmistresses in the state of Nevada?
SEVER: Oh, I 'd meet a few once in a while.
LAVOY: It seems to me you went to work -in 1934. Wasn't Mae [Mary] McNamara the first woman postmistress in Elko? Now, you must have been probably the second, were you?
SEVER: When I retired I was at one time the first postmaster in the state.
LAVOY: After she passed away that would have put you as the first one.
SEVER: Seemed like Lem Allen was first postmaster. I can't remember. And then Gene DiGrazia in Val my [Nevada], but he's dead.
LAVOY: That's very interesting. Did you have conventions?
SEVER: Not those times. Oh, if they had a convention I didn't have money to go to it anyway. I went to some of the conventions. Not too many. I had no way of getting there.
LAVOY: Well, in handling the mail it seems to me that you must have known most everybody that was in this whole area.
SEVER: Well, around here, yeah, but I can't remember who they are now.
LAVOY: But there were many people that came in and used that post office. Something I'm curious about. The hotel that you mentioned, the Palace Hotel, was that owned by the Inmans?
SEVER: Inmans had it, yeah.
LAVOY: Later after the initial family.
SEVER: No, I think Inmans, I don't know who started it. Frank Kauffman was postmaster one time, I think. Been so long, and then there was a Fred Abby, and then Inmans had the hotel.
LAVOY: Now, tell me something about them. Was that the Palace Hotel?
SEVER: Yeah, and they were runnin' the hotel and they had the saloon in there. That's what they called them those days. They didn't call them bars. They called them saloons
LAVOY: Was there a large family of Inmans?
SEVER: Well, there was Addie and the old man, Frank. Then they had a son, Allen. He lived in Fallon for years. I'm not so sure. Not long ago he was alive. But I don't know whether he is now. Did you ever know any Inmans?
LAVOY: No, I didn't.
SEVER: Ray Weaver. Do you know Ray Weaver?
LAVOY: I know who he is, who he was.
SEVER: He was assistant postmaster. He was good to help me. He did help me a lot.
LAVOY: What, approximately, were your wages when you started?
SEVER: About a dollar a day.
LAVOY: And then when you finished so many years later?
SEVER: They put it on the other basis then.
LAVOY: Approximately what were your wages then?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
LAVOY: Agnes, you worked for the post office for so very many, many years. Now, were you single all the time you worked for the post office?
SEVER: Oh, no, I was married to a man by the name of Higgins, and he died out on the railroad on the job. He had a heart attack, and they found him dead.
LAVOY: What was his full name?
SEVER: Edward Higgins.
LAVOY: And where did you meet him?
SEVER: I met him here. He was working for the railroad.
LAVOY: And where were you married?
SEVER: In St. Patrick' s Church in Fallon.
LAVOY: And, approximately, when was this?
SEVER: In 1935.
LAVOY: 1935. How many years were you married?
SEVER: Three years to him and he died.
LAVOY: Who found his body?
SEVER: Well one of the men that worked with him found him.
LAVOY: What did he do on the railroad?
SEVER: He was a water service supervisor.
LAVOY: Now, what does that mean?
SEVER: He was taking care of the water department for the railroad. You see, they used to furnish water to all the railroad houses at one time and the depots and everything, round house, and they had to have water service people. That's what they call them. Water service mechanics.
LAVOY: Now, was the water in big tanks by the tracks?
SEVER: Yeah, we had a big water tank here one time. It's in Sparks right now.
LAVOY: And you were married for three years when Mr. Higgins passed away.That was too bad. single? Then, did you remain
SEVER: For five years.
LAVOY: And then who did you marry?
SEVER: Tony Sever.
LAVOY: Now, what's Tony's full name?
SEVER: Antone [Anthonen] Sever.
LAVOY: Where did you meet him?
SEVER: Here in Hazen.
LAVOY: And what was he doing in Hazen?
SEVER: He was an operator at the depot. Telegraph operator.
LAVOY: Telegraph operator? How many years did he work at that?
SEVER: He worked fifty years for the railroad. Then he got sick and they made him retire.
LAVOY: When did he start working for the railroad?
SEVER: Oh, when he was twenty-one years old, out of Ogden [Utah]. I didn’t know him then.
LAVOY: Where did he come from?
SEVER: He was born and raised in Ogden
LAVOY: The name seemed Yugoslavian and I wondered if he was.
SEVER: His Folks came from Yugoslavia and landed in Utah out at Scofield in mining camps. His father as was a miner. Worked in the mines.
LAVOY: Well, where did he learn to become a telegrapher?
SEVER: In Salt Lake. He went to school.
LAVOY: And he was a telegrapher in Ogden?
SEVER: He mostly worked in Nevada.
LAVOY: And then he came to Nevada and was a telegrapher where?
SEVER: All over for one time. He worked twenty-one jobs in one month, he said, during the Depression. He said, “I was just like a hobo.”
LAVOY: (laughing) How long was he here in Hazen?
SEVER: Oh, I don’t know. They abolished the job and then he was over in Fallon as an agent for ten years, and then he retired form Fallon Depot.
LAVOY: Because of ill health?
SEVER: Well, he was sixty-five and they had him retire. Then his health was against him.
LAVOY: Oh, That’s too bad. Then he retired back here to your store.
SEVER: Well, he helped me here in the store, yeah.
LAVOY: Now, Agnes, when did you buy your store?
SEVER: 1934
LAVOY: And from whom did you buy it?
SEVER: From Mr. and Mrs. George Marchment, they moved to Mina and had a store in Mina for a long time and then they sold out and moved to California,
LAVOY: Was the store always in this building?
SEVER: No, it was in the hotel building at one time
LAVOY: And the did you move?
SEVER: Yeah, when they wanted to put in a restaurant where the post office was and that the woman had an idea that a restaurant’d pay her more that I paid for having the post office and the restaurant turned out to be a flop. She couldn’t get nobody to run it.
LAVOY: So then you left the Palace Hotel building.
SEVER: And came over and moved into this building [600 Reno Highway]
LAVOY: About when was that?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. 1935 or something like that.
LAVOY: And you’ve been here ever since.
SEVER: Yeah, they haven’t got rid of me yet.
LAVOY: What were some of the things that you sold here at the store?
SEVER: Same as they got now. Groceries and gas.
LAVOY: With gas stations having changed so very, very much, you have fairly modern pumps here. Did you have those put in?
SEVER: I bought them, yeah.
LAVOY: What kind did you have prior to that?
SEVER: Oh, the ones you could see the gas in them. The old timers.
LAVOY: Now those would be real collector’s items.
SEVER: Yeah, wish I had them.
LAVOY: What happened to them?
SEVER: I let some guy have them.
LAVOY: You, did?
SEVER: S' on a farm. I don't know what he's done with them.
LAVOY: Probably has them attached to his gas tanks at the farm.
SEVER: Yeah, I guess.
LAVOY: When you first went into the grocery business, how has it changed throughout the years?
SEVER: The chain stores has moved us out. There's no business here for a grocery store.
LAVOY: Well, I can understand that. You, basically, have the ranchers.
SEVER: Naw, just tourist trade, mostly. Gas and oil and a little pop. That's all they buy. I don't have much in groceries. I don't buy groceries at all any more. There's no business for it. There's nobody living here in the first place. They all go to Fallon and shop, or Fernley.
LAVOY: Now, you have been here by yourself for how many years?
SEVER: I been here since Tony passed away. Four years in March it was.
LAVOY: That must be very hard for you living by yourself.
SEVER: Yeah, it is. It's not pleasant but I can't do nothing about it. I got no choice.
LAVOY: Something that I was curious about. When did your family sell your ranch?
SEVER: About twenty-two years ago my brother sold it to Miles Christopherson.
LAVOY: Mr. Christopherson has had it that length of time.
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: When did you move off the ranch?
SEVER: When I was twenty-eight years old I moved over here this building [1935].
LAVOY: So you have lived in this building, then, for all those years.
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: Well, that's very interesting. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you. I notice that movies have been made around Hazen. Did you meet any of the actors?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. Clint Eastwood.
LAVOY: They came in and visited with you?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. They were here for a week. Stayed in Fernley or Fallon, I don't know which place they were at.
LAVOY: Have you seen the movie that was made?
SEVER: I saw the Pink Cadillac. Have you?
LAVOY: No, I haven't.
SEVER: And there's another one: Kill Me Again.
LAVOY: And both those were made here in Hazen?
SEVER: Yeah, then they had another one. Oh, they made a commercial, too, but I don't know what it was.
LAVOY: Why do you think they chose Hazen?
SEVER: I don't know. Desert town.
LAVOY: Something that someone mentioned to me the other day was that there was a picture of Hazen that was used as an ad for, I believe it was Pacific Telesis that had the pay phone that' s out here with the moon rising in the distance.
SEVER: I think so. Yeah.
LAVOY: Did they come in and ask your permission to use the phone?
SEVER: Oh, I guess they did. I don't know.
LAVOY: It's interesting that Hazen has appeared in the movies and then, also, in all these magazines.
SEVER: I never seen any of the magazines.
LAVOY: I have not seen it either but someone mentioned to me the other day that it had been in a good number of the magazines advertising Pacific Telesis. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you in closing our interview, you had mentioned that your father lived to be quite elderly.
SEVER: Ninety-four almost
LAVOY: Did he live with you?
SEVER: Yeah. Thirty years he was with me.
LAVOY: Now, he had a wonderful sense of humor as I understand. Did he keep that sense of humor for all those years?
SEVER: Yes he did, un huh.
LAVOY: You told me something about a lady that used to come and visit him and what was it that she called him?
SEVER: I forgot.
LAVOY: The old heathen
SEVER: Oh, yeah. She was an old Irish woman. She was an Irish Protestant and she used to come over and call him the old heathen.
LAVOY: You told me one time she brought some orange flowers over. Repeat that.
SEVER: And put it on his sleeve. He had a shamrock on. She said,”I’m going to fix that ols boy today. I’m going to put this pin on him. An orange pin. [Orangeman’s pin Protestant Irish]
LAVOY: Now he was nearly blind as I understand.
SEVER: He was, yeah.
LAVOY: How did he react when he found our he had an orange…
SEVER: He took it off. He said,” The devil blow her.” (Laughing) That’s what he said. He said that to the priest one time. Father [John] Ryan come in. Father Ryan came from close to the same place in Ireland he did, but they didn’t know each other.
LAVOY: How’d he happen to tell him that.
SEVER: He come in and was teasing my father. Poppa was sick that day. The first time I knew of his ever being sick, but he didn't feel good. He told Father Ryan, "Oh," Father said, "don't worry, Mike. You' re not good enough for God, and the devil don't want you, either.
LAVOY: (laughing) And what did your father say?
SEVER: "The devil take you out of here, too, ' he said.
LAVOY: (laughing) Wonderful Irish sense of humor.
SEVER: And, after he left, Poppa said, Is that man a priest or what? He don't act 1ike one. I said, he must be. He's up on the altar every Sunday. He must be a priest.
LAVOY: (laughing) Well, you probably had a good number of the priests that came through Hazen on their way to Fallon.
SEVER: And my father used to have to take them to town, take them to Fallon. They had to have Mass once a month over there.
LAVOY: What were the names of some of them?
SEVER: Oh, gee. Father Hogan was one of them. I forgot their names, tell you the truth, so long ago I forgot them.
LAVOY: I think you mentioned a McDonald. Was there a Father McDonald?
SEVER: Father [Joseph] Donnellan.
LAVOY: And a Meahan.
SEVER: And Father Meahan. Father Meahan used to come from Sparks and have Mass in Fallon.
LAVOY: And then you mentioned Sears.
SEVER: Yeah, there was a Father Sears, too.
LAVOY: Do you remember anything at all about them?
SEVER: No.
LAVOY: But your father would always take them from Hazen to Fallon. In his Hupmobi1e?
SEVER: Yeah. When Tony worked at the depot there, he used to have to take Father Donnellan, he'd come in on the train and he'd take him over to Fallon. They didn't have Mass every Sunday at one time in Fallon. Guess you heard that, didn't you? They had it in the old building. I think it's an apartment house now.
LAVOY: Yes Who were some of the families that attended church there?
SEVER: Oh, the Hanifans and the McDonalds were all Irish and then John Rebol's mother. You know John Rebol?
LAVOY: Yes
SEVER: His mother was a good church member. His folks were. George John's a good church member, too. Well, he and his wife were both good.
LAVOY: The congregation has grown so very large now that it's, I imagine that for you, you know very few of the people that are there anymore.
SEVER: They' re al l gone. Mrs. Hanifan, you remember her?
LAVOY: No, I just know the daughters-in-law
SEVER: You mean Starlene?
LAVOY: And Georgia.
SEVER: And Georgia, yeah. You know John and Maurice?
LAVOY: Yes, I do.
SEVER: Real good, aren't they? They' re real wonderful people.
LAVOY: Yes, they are. They' re fine people. Well, now, in trying to bring this to a close, you mentioned to me the names of a few of the people that were ranching years ago when your father milked cows.
SEVER: Well, there was people by the name of Antone Petersen and his family. They took up a homestead there.
LAVOY: And then where the Greens live now, who was there?
SEVER: A man by the name of Edwin Heidenreich. German guy. Good farmer.
LAVOY: Who were some of the others that were there?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know. There was a lot of people there when time goes on. A guy by the name of Agee he didn't stay very long. Greens [Alton and Stevie] has been there [100 Mason Road, Hazen] quite a while.
LAVOY: What changes have you seen in the way people ranch?
SEVER: Oh, I don't know. They ranch about the same. Cuttin' hay and all that. Well, they got hay balers and everything now we didn't have those days. They had a mowing machine, then they had a rake, and then they put in those shocks and then they figured in a couple of days it'd be ready to haul to the haystack.
LAVOY: And did the buck rakes take it?
SEVER: We had just a regular rake. We didn't have a buck rake.
LAVOY: How did you get it to where you were going to stack it?
SEVER: Well, it stacked all right and dried. We milked cows for a living so we fed it to the cows. We never sold all the hay because we had to have hay for the cows.
LAVOY: Your hay, of course, wasn't in bales. It was in stacks.
SEVER: Oh, it was stacked up, and they used to have to get the wagon and put it on there and bring it up, put it in the stanchions for them, where they tied the cows in the stanchions to milk them. Oh, gosh.
LAVOY: Lots of work. Well, many, many years have passed that you've lived here in Hazen. I imagine it's been a very interesting life.
SEVER: Oh, it's good and bad, too.
LAVOY: Did you ever travel very much?
SEVER: I've been back in New York City twice, Then in Washington, D.C. twice, once in St. Louis, and I 've been in Ellenville, New York. That's up by the Catskill Mountains.
LAVOY: Were these trips on conventions?
SEVER: No, just only by ourselves.
LAVOY: You and?
SEVER: My husband.
LAVOY: Mr. Sever.
SEVER: Yeah. We were together back East. We were in St. Louis together. I wanted to see St. Louis. The reason I wanted to see it was why people came out from Ireland and landed there and when Tony said he went through the book, Hart, Hart, Hart, Hart, he said, "It'd take you six months to find out if any of them were related to you.” I said, 'They don't know me and I don't know them. Just forget about it.
LAVOY: How long were you gone usually on your trips?
SEVER: Oh, about three or four weeks.
LAVOY: And who took care of the store while you were gone?
SEVER: Oh, a Mrs. Ricard was here and I had different ones.
LAVOY: Were you always glad to come back?
SEVER: Oh, sure. No place like home.
LAVOY: That's very true. Well, Agnes, I certainly want to thank you.
SEVER: Oh, I don't know whether I had much of a life to give you.
LAVOY: I think it's very interesting, and on behalf of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project I want to thank you for giving me the time and I 've enjoyed every bit of it.
SEVER: Well, thank you.
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
AGNES HART SEVER
June 24, 1993
This interview was conducted by Marian LaVoy; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norma Morgan; final by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum.
PREFACE
Twinkling blue eyes, beautiful snow—white hair and a wit with which only the Irish are blessed that describes Agnes Hart Sever.
Agnes blithely informed me that she wasn't afraid of anything or anyone and I am inclined to believe the little dynamo as she lives by herself, manages her small store and sells gasoline to the occasional tourist or “local” … she was answering her door in the dead of night to accommodate stranded travelers, until her friends, fearing for her safety, convinced her to stop!
Hazen, Nevada is her home she has lived her life there, met both husbands there and was twice widowed there. She was post mistress from 1934 until 1977 when the postal service closed the office. Her comments to Post Master General James Farley when he was detained in Hazen for a train connection are hilarious; her reminiscences of the long gone "Palace Hotel” raise images of railroad travelers waiting for train connections that will either carry them deeper into the high desert country or to the bright lights of exciting cities.
Agnes cared for her blind father for many years as well as managing her little store and acting as postmistress for the little town. Her stories relating to her father and Mr. Swingle bringing cottonwood saplings from around the new dam at Lahontan to plant at both the Hart and Swingle ranches is fascinating. Her memory is clear as she recalls that an Obie Harrell built the Hart farmhouse as well as houses still standing on Stillwater Avenue in Fallon.
Agnes' lilting voice is mesmerizing as she spins her story of her life in a railroad town—long-past its heyday.
A sign that at one time graced the walls of the Hazen Store sums up the always busy life of the Irish lass, Agnes Hart Sever
“Everything cometh to he who waiteth, so long as he who waiteth worketh like hell while he waiteth!
Interview with Agnes Hart Sever
This is Marian Hennen LaVoy of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Program interviewing Agnes Sever at her home 600 Reno Way Hazen, Nevada, on June 24, 1993.
LAVOY: Good afternoon, Agnes.
SEVER: Good afternoon, yourself.
LAVOY: I'm so happy to be here doing your oral interview.
SEVER: Well, I 'm happy to have you.
LAVOY: Well, thank you. Now, can you tell me what were your parents' names? Your father's name?
SEVER: Michael Hart.
LAVOY: And where was he born?
SEVER: In County Longford, Ireland.
LAVOY: And your mother's name?
SEVER: My mother's maiden name was Katie Malloy.
LAVOY: And where was she born?
SEVER: She was born in the same town.
LAVOY: Well, did they meet in Ireland?
SEVER: They knew each other. When my father was in Scotland for seven or eight years and then he came home to Ireland and then he met my mother again and they got married and come to the United States.
LAVOY: And when they came to the United States, where did they come?
SEVER: They went to Ogden, Utah. My mother had a friend, Mary Ann Heslin, but her maiden name was Mary Ann Cooney, but she married a man by the name of Pete Heslin. He was a railroad man working out of Austin.
LAVOY: Did your father work for the railroad?
SEVER: Yeah, he was the first section foreman in Bango [Nevada] out here.
LAVOY: Well, now, in Ogden, was he working on the railroad?
SEVER: No, they shipped him out to Nevada.
LAVOY: Oh! Then they moved out to Nevada.
SEVER: Out to the place they call Bango. It's called Taylor, then
LAVOY: Now when was this?
SEVER: 1905.
LAVOY: Where were you born?
SEVER: I was born in Fallon.
LAVOY: What date?
SEVER: July 15, 1907.
LAVOY: How did you happen to be born Bango rather than in Fallon?
SEVER: Well, there was no doctors or nothing there. My mother had a friend, Mrs. Sowash, in Fallon. They met. He was working on the canal her husband, Mr. Sowash. They were living in Fallon and they stayed with my folks out at Bango on the railroad. When I was born, Mrs. Sowash took care of me, and she's the one that named me Agnes.
LAVOY: Well, now, what did your father do on the railroad at Bango?
SEVER: He was a section foreman.
LAVOY: I didn' t realize even that a railroad line went out that way.
SEVER: Yeah, it goes clear to Mina. It used to go to Tonopah and Goldfield but it's been discontinued for years, but there's a train goes down to Mina, sometimes once or twice a week.
LAVOY: Do you remember anything at all about Bango?
SEVER: Not a thing. I came to Hazen when I was five years old.
LAVOY: Well, now, your father was working at Bango and your mother living there, they had a home in Bango. Is that correct?
SEVER: Yeah, there is a section house for all the railroad. Now Mori got it.
LAVOY: Who has it?
SEVER: One of the Moris bought it after they done away with it.
LAVOY: Oh I see. Then if you lived out in Bango in a section house there, he probably saw a lot of the people that went and worked at the Dam, did he?
SEVER: Oh, I imagine, yeah. This man, Sowash, was working on the canal up here where they were putting in the Truckee-Carson irrigation canal, the one that goes through and supplies water for Lahontan Dam.
LAVOY: How 1ong was Mr. Sowash there? Do you remember?
SEVER: I don't remember. Just while they were working on -it. Might have been a year, I guess or something. I don't know.
LAVOY: Now, you were five years old when you moved to Hazen. Tell me, where did you live in Hazen?
SEVER: Across the road.
LAVOY: Across what's now the highway?
SEVER: Across this road right here. It's a white house. [575 Reno Highway, Hazen]
LAVOY: Tell me, what did your father do here?
SEVER: Well, he was working part-time for the railroad and then he quit and went farming.
LAVOY: And where was his farm?
SEVER: Right across the road. There's eighty acres there.
LAVOY: Oh, I didn't realize that. And so you grew up on the small ranch there across the road. Tell me something about the house that you lived in as a little girl. Well, I have a picture of it somewhere.
LAVOY: Did you have electricity?
SEVER: No, heck no. We didn't have nothing like that those days.
LAVOY: What did you have?
SEVER: Just coal oil lamps.
LAVOY: Whose job was it to clean those?
SEVER: I guess my mother and father's.
LAVOY: (laughing) Did you have indoor plumbing?
SEVER: Outside toilet, Chic Sales.
LAVOY: (laughing) How large was the house?
SEVER: Oh, when he built it, it had two bedrooms and then he added two more rooms onto it in 1918 during the war. [World War I ]
LAVOY: What kind of crops did he raise?
SEVER: Alfalfa, and he had some wheat, and he milked cows for a living.
LAVOY: Where did he do that?
SEVER: Down at the ranch.
LAVOY: At your ranch?
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: So you sold milk to the dairy?
SEVER: Well, we used to sell it around town, but then they stopped it, you know. There was a law that you couldn't sell raw milk, and then, later on, we shipped it to Oakland [California] to East Bay Creamery. There was one time we took it to Fallon. We used to have a creamery in Fallon. Do you remember ever hearing that?
LAVOY: Yes, I have.
SEVER: Called the Mutual Creamery, across the railroad track. You know where that is?
LAVOY: I have an idea.
SEVER: Somewhere around Kents' in there.
LAVOY: And you sold it there after you no longer had a market
for it in Oakland?
SEVER: Well, we could have sent it to Oakland, but we sold milk around town and then they stopped us. Then we had to separate the milk and get the cream and ship it down in ten-gallon cans. And then they tell me there's what they call the good old days. I can't see nothing good about them.
LAVOY: Cleaning those creamers was a job.
SEVER: Well, it was twenty-one disks to wash every time on the separator.
LAVOY: Oh, I know. Where did you first start school?
SEVER: Right here in Hazen.
LAVOY: Where was the school house?
SEVER: Oh, it was up here on the other side of the railroad tracks about a mile, and then in 1918 they built it over here, put up a new school.
LAVOY: To the west side of town?
SEVER: Yeah, and I was the sixth grade when I went there.
LAVOY: Where had you gone prior to the sixth grade? In the old school?
SEVER: Yeah, then they later let us have that old school and we made a church out of it, a Catholic church, and it was right by the ranch there.
LAVOY Do you remember the names of any of your teachers?
SEVER: Yeah. Grace Inwood and Thelma Bradshaw.
LAVOY: Did you enjoy them as teachers?
SEVER: I guess so.
LAVOY: Now, that was through the fifth grade that you were there.
Up to the sixth grade and then I got over here and then I finished eighth grade over here in this school.
LAVOY: Who were some of your classmates?
SEVER: Nina Jones is gone. She left here when she graduated from the eighth grade and moved to California. Married a Jewish guy by the name of Cates from New York.
LAVOY: And then who were some of your other friends?
SEVER: Hilda Petersen, Caroline Gastsreau. Then there was a Catherine May and there was a family of Mays here and Hannibals. They're the ones that kept the church going, Hannibal s and Mays with my parents, and then there was Katie O'Donnell. She was the postmaster.
LAVOY: Who was the pastor of the church?
: A priest from Sparks [Nevada] used to come down.
LAVOY: Do you remember his name?
SEVER: Father Meahan, and my father, after Mass here, he'd have to take him to Fallon so he could say Mass. You know, I don't remember it but they told me one time they used to have Mass in the railroad house there in Fallon when McNeilys lived there, but the old church is where we were. You know where the old church was in Fallon? [285 South East]
LAVOY: Yes, I do.
SEVER: That's where, we had Mass there.
LAVOY: Now, did you go on to high school?
SEVER: Yeah. I went to Fallon High School.
LAVOY: What do you remember about some of the teachers in high school?
SEVER: George McCracken was the principal.
LAVOY: I 've heard his name many times.
SEVER: Oh, yeah.
LAVOY: He was very strict.
SEVER: Oh ho ho! I’ll say!
LAVOY: Do you have any good stories about his strictness?
SEVER: Just that he wouldn't let us, he was kind of strict about the girls and boys talking in the hallways. He wouldn't allow it. Did you ever hear that about him?
LAVOY: Yes, I have heard that before.
SEVER: I tell you who went to school. Lem Allen. Do you know him?
LAVOY: Yes, 1 do. He was one of your classmates?
SEVER: He was in school when I was there. And Mary Ellen, his wife, Eason, that was her maiden name. She went to school there. And I think Eunice Allen was a teacher there. That's Lem Allen's sister. She taught school there, too. I think I took Spanish from her. It's been so long ago I forgot.
LAVOY: What classes did you like the best?
SEVER: None of them. I liked penmanship and spelling the best.
LãVOY Well, that's great.
SEVER: (1aughing) Yeah.
LAVOY: I notice you have beautiful penmanship. What were some of the things that you did for entertainment as a kid?
SEVER: Well, I never went to anything in the high school. We lived out here too far.
LAVOY: How did you get into school?
SEVER: I stayed one year with a German family in Fallon.
LAVOY: Do you recall their name?
SEVER: Yeah. Barney Thorworth and his wife. They' re related to the Lohses. You know any of the Lohses?
LAVOY: Yes, do. You lived there with them for a year.
SEVER: Yeah. My mother paid my board there, but I didn' t like it in Fallon.
LAVOY: You liked it better in Hazen.
SEVER: I ' d rather be home.
LAVOY: Oh, I can understand that completely. Then, when you didn't live in Fallon with the Thorworths, how did you get back and forth?
SEVER: Well, my brothers were starting to go to high school and we drove in a car, but they never allowed us anything for that. Now, if you have to bring them in from a certain place the school district pays you for gas. They didn't pay us nothing.
LAVOY: What kind of a car did you have to go in?
SEVER: Well, we had an old Hupmobile.1912. I understand that was one of the first ones around here. My father had that.
LAVOY: Did he buy that in Reno?
SEVER: No, he bought it off a rai1road man that was leaving here. He was moving to Washington. I remember my father paid four hundred dol lars for i t, which was a big price those days, for that old Hupmobi1e, and it' s still going I heard. It ' s up around Yerington [Nevada] or somewhere. He sold it to a man for fifty dollars
LAVOY: Oh, my! But, he got a lot of use out of it.
SEVER: Whew. We had to crank it. Nobody ever taught him how to drive. He had to pick it up himself.
LAVOY: That must have been interesting
SEVER: He wasn't that good. My brother, Pat, used to say that Pop' d go down the Maine Street of Fallon and had a cow bell for a horn. (laughing) I don't know whether he did or not. My brother, Pat, had that bar in Virginia City [Nevada], the Brass Rail He tells that story. Whether it ' s true or not I don't think it is.
LAVOY: It probably is
SEVER: He said we had a cow bell for horn.(laughing)
LAVOY: (laughing) Well, tell me something about Hazen as you grew up in Hazen. About how many people 1ived here?
SEVER: Well, they had two teachers at one time.
LAVOY: In the school?
SEVER: Um hum. There was quite a few kids
LAVOY: Do you think there were, maybe, five hundred people?
SEVER: Oh, I don't know it was that many or not. I can't remember. They used to say there was ten thousand, but there was no ten thousand in the state of Nevada in 1907, I don't think. Did we then?
LAVOY: I just don't know. I've only heard that there was a tremendous group because of the dam being built.
SEVER: They had some commissary out there Lahontan Dam. They had groceries and stuff, but I can't remember.
LAVOY: Well, here in Hazen, what stores were there at that point in time?
SEVER: Well, they had two stores. Hazen Trading and then there was a man by the name of O'Donnell had a store. It's still here. That pink building over there. It's sure too bad my brother didn’t leave the name written on it. It was a big name. M. C. O'Donnell written across it. Hay and grain, groceries, and all that, and my brother went and painted it all. He should have left it as an old-time building. Look at what it'd been today. It'd been a museum.
LAVOY: Now, Hazen started as a railroad stop, did it not?
SEVER: I think so, yeah. It was around 1904, I think
LAVOY: I understand that shortly after you had moved here was when Hazen had the famous hanging, i s that correct?
SEVER: Hanging of "Red" Wood. I got the picture of it.
LAVOY: What had he done?
SEVER: He stole something. He was a cattle rustler. My father said he wasn't any worse than the guys that put him there.
LAVOY: Well, that's very true, but that picture, we see it all over the State in the old historical books.
SEVER: Oh, yeah. Well, I gave the picture let them have it, you know, over at Fallon, the museum, I think, has it.
LAVOY: They probably still have it
SEVER: . I think they got another one. I got it back.
LAVOY: Oh, I see. They probably took a copy of it and put it in their computer.
SEVER: You know, you can't get too much from me ‘cause I never paid no attention to a lot of that stuff when I was growing up.
LAVOY: But, still, you remembered hearing your parents talk about it and your father made a comment on it and everything. Now, you mentioned your father, your mother and yourself. Did you have any brothers or sisters?
SEVER: Yes.
LAVOY: Will you give me their names, please?
SEVER: There was ten of us in the family at one time, there's only two and living.
LAVOY: You mean they died as small children?
SEVER: Well, I had a sister drowned at the ranch.
LAVOY: Oh, that's too bad. What was her name?
SEVER: Margaret.
LAVOY: In the irrigation ditch? How old was she?
SEVER: Three years.
LAVOY: That's too bad. And then what other sisters did you have?
SEVER: One called Josephine, and there was two that died when they were babies before I was born, so I can't remember nothing, but they were born in Utah.
LAVOY: Then, did you have a sister named Martha.
SEVER: Yeah, Martha Copenhaver. Married to one of the Copenhavers.
LAVOY: Is she still living?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. She lives in Reno, and her husband is a retired plumber. He was raised in Fallon, and they have one son, and he's a high school teacher in Reno. He's married and his wife is a secretary to the medical doctors up at the University and they have two daughters. One of them going to work with United Parcel.
LAVOY: Oh. Now, how many brothers did you have?
SEVER: Oh, gosh. I had James and John and Patrick.
LAVOY: Did they live in Hazen?
SEVER: Oh, yeah, they grew up here.
LAVOY: And lived here all of their lives?
SEVER: Yeah. Pat went up to Virginia City and worked for a guy and then he finally bought the Brass Rail and had a saloon as he called it.
LAVOY: And he had that for many years.
SEVER: Yeah, until he got killed.
LAVOY: Oh, I didn't realize. How was he killed?
SEVER: A woman ran through a stop sign in Carson City and right into his car and they said if he had had a seat belt he wouldn't have been thrown out of the car.
LAVOY: Oh. So, that's leaves you there's just two of you left.
SEVER: My sister and I. And then I've got several nieces. Then I had brother John. He was a refrigeration man. He worked on refrigeration.
LAVOY: Now, tell me, do you remember your high school graduation ceremony at all?
SEVER: Oh, they had the baccalaureate which they don't have anymore, do they?
LAVOY: They can have it, but I don't think they can have it in the schools because of that Supreme Court law, but perhaps it's been changed. They were talking about changing it.
SEVER: And then graduation exercises.
LAVOY Do you remember the dress you wore?
SEVER: Oh, I don't remember the dress, but I think it was a blue one.
LAVOY: Oh, I bet you were pretty in a blue dress.
SEVER: (laughing) My mother had a heck of a time getting me a dress. I think she had someone to help her make it. I forgot
LAVOY: Were there any dry goods store here?
SEVER: No, there never was. Only a grocery store. And one time there was fourteen bars they said, but I don't remember it.
LAVOY: Fourteen?
SEVER: That's what they said I wasn't sure or not.
LAVOY: My goodness. Now, when you graduated from high school, you came back to Hazen and what did you do?
SEVER: I went to work in the post office. No, I went to work as a waitress in the restaurant.
LAVOY: There was a restaurant here?
SEVER: Yeah, and I worked ten months, and I quit and went to work for the post office.
LAVOY: What was the name of the restaurant? Do you remember?
SEVER: It was in the Palace Hotel.
LAVOY: Now, where was the Palace Hotel?
SEVER: Right up in here.
LAVOY: It's gone now?
SEVER: Oh, a long time ago. They tore it down and wrecked the bricks and everything the way they done it. Then they built this place over here, the antique shop, with the bricks.
LAVOY: Oh! Now, was the Palace Hotel used for the railroad people?
SEVER: It was for anybody. They had twenty-one rooms upstairs they'd rent, you know, a night. At that time, it was a beautiful hotel.
LAVOY: Now, that interests me that there would be twenty-one rooms, and would that be people that would be driving by on the highway or coming in on the train?
SEVER: They came in on the trains. See, there used to be a train go down to Mina. Passenger train every day. Then they had a motor car one time that ran to Fallon. You ever hear about that?
LA VOY Yes, I did, and people would come and stay in the hotel and then get on that motor car and go to Fallon and come back, stay in the hotel?
SEVER: Yeah, the motor car would come out of Sparks.
LAVOY: Oh, I see, and it would stop at Hazen.
SEVER: I rode it when I went to high school. When I had no way to get home, I'd go down the depot on Friday night and climb in that motor car. I never paid my way but they didn't know it.
LAVOY: Well, that' s all right.
SEVER: The agent knew I was getting on there. He told me to get on, and the conductor told me, "Get on there and keep your mouth shut.
LAVOY: Now, who were the agent and conductor?
SEVER: Well, Hannibal was the agent and the conductor was Bob Edwards. Bob Edwards told me, "You get in there and shut up. Don't talk to anybody
LAVOY: And then they brought you home here.
SEVER: Yeah. See they done a favor. They weren't allowed to do it, but see I should have had a ticket, but I didn't have one
LAVOY We11, that's all right if they let you ride.
SEVER: They knew we had no money to buy a ticket. We were hard up on a farm those days. They talk about it being hard up on a farm right now. It's nothing like it was then. I think farmers had a harder time years ago than they have now.
LAVOY: Well, they worked a lot harder, I 'm sure.
SEVER: Sure, from daylight to dusk.
LAVOY: They didn't have the machinery and things that they have now.
SEVER: And then most of them had to milk cows for a living. Do you know many farmers around Fallon?
LAVOY: I know some of the families, yes. I was just wondering, your mentioning that you worked at the hotel as a waitress for ten months, then you went to work at the post office. Approximately where was the post office?
SEVER: In the same building.
LAVOY: Oh! Who was the postmistress or postmaster at the time? [1921 ]
SEVER: Well, Katie Riley was one and then Arthur Pyle.
LAVOY: Tell me, what did you do at the post office?
SEVER: Well, we put out the mail just like they do now. Come in on a passenger train. They'd bring it over. Now the post office boxes are all in the museum.
SEVER: Didn't you ever see them there?
LAVOY: Yes, I have now that I 'm thinking about it. Did they bring the mail to you off the train, or did you have to go over and get it?
SEVER: Oh, sometimes bring it and then sometimes we had to go and get it.
LAVOY: Did they have it in the big leather pouch?
SEVER: Yeah. They liked the old pouch. I guess they still use the same old pouches.
LAVOY: Now, about how much mail did you handle every day?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
LAVOY: A lot of it.
SEVER: Quite a bit, there were quite a few families.
LAVOY: What was the cost of a mailbox at that point in time?
SEVER: Oh, God. Twenty-five cents, I think.
LAVOY: For a month?
SEVER: Um hum.
LAVOY: Goodness gracious how prices have gone up.
SEVER: See, I can't remember. It's been so long ago I forgot about it.
LAVOY: Now, you worked for how long for the post office?
SEVER: Let’s see. Forty-seven years.
LAVOY: My goodness. You became what in the post office?
SEVER: The postmaster
LAVOY: Amd when did you become the postmistress?
SEVER: 1934
LAVOY: Now, you told me about a very famous person coming to see you.
SEVER: Oh, James Farley, Postmaster General
LAVOY: How did he happen to come visit?
SEVER: He got off the train and he was delayed here for fifteen or twenty minutes because they had to take off mail. This building was over here facing the railroad track. He didn't have far to walk.
LAVOY: Well, how did you react when you met him?
SEVER: I didn't know what to say. He said, "I'm James Farley” And I just got to the post office in time. And I said, I've just been appointed postmaster here it. and I hate to tell you, Mr. Farley, I 'm a Republican, and he was a strong Democrat. ( laughing)
LAVOY: Yes, he was appointed by Roosevelt [President Franklin Delano].
SEVER: (laughing)
LAVOY: And what did he say to that?
SEVER: He just laughed.
LAVOY Did he look around the post office or just visit?
SEVER: He just looked at the boxes and laughed at the little boxes. That was a small little post office. I said, "Well, we' re not city people.
LAVOY: What did he say to that?
SEVER: Oh, he just laughed. Said we had to get by the best we [could]. At that time, we had a cancellation deal in the post office. We put down every night the letters that were cancelled, how many stamps on it. That's how we got paid. That's how I got paid 'cause it was a fourth—class office. That didn' t go in the big offices. It was just a fourth-class office.
LAVOY: So, explain to me to how you got paid?
SEVER: I got paid from the amount of stamps I sold that day. I had to keep a record every day and at one time they made a check on the trains and they picked up several postmasters that had been putt in' down much more cancellations, sellin' more stamps than they were. I don't know how they found it out. They came and checked me but they didn't say nothing.
LAVOY: Well, because you were honest and you didn't have any problems at all with it.
SEVER: I think he handed me back sixty cents. That I had sixty cents too much.
LAVOY: Oh, my (laughing) I imagine you've seen a lot of changes with the way the post offices are run. Is there a post office here now?
SEVER: No. See, when I reached seventy years of age they told me it was a law then that we had to retire, and the next year it passed you could work as long as you wanted to.
LAVOY: But, you had already retired.
SEVER: Well, yeah.
LAVOY: Did you close the post office when you retired?
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: And there's no post office in Hazen now.
SEVER: No. They get their mail out of Fernley.
LAVOY: Oh. Does somebody bring it?
SEVER: Rural route.
LAVOY: Oh, rural route. Tell me, working for the post office that many years, did you meet any of the other postmasters or postmistresses in the state of Nevada?
SEVER: Oh, I 'd meet a few once in a while.
LAVOY: It seems to me you went to work -in 1934. Wasn't Mae [Mary] McNamara the first woman postmistress in Elko? Now, you must have been probably the second, were you?
SEVER: When I retired I was at one time the first postmaster in the state.
LAVOY: After she passed away that would have put you as the first one.
SEVER: Seemed like Lem Allen was first postmaster. I can't remember. And then Gene DiGrazia in Val my [Nevada], but he's dead.
LAVOY: That's very interesting. Did you have conventions?
SEVER: Not those times. Oh, if they had a convention I didn't have money to go to it anyway. I went to some of the conventions. Not too many. I had no way of getting there.
LAVOY: Well, in handling the mail it seems to me that you must have known most everybody that was in this whole area.
SEVER: Well, around here, yeah, but I can't remember who they are now.
LAVOY: But there were many people that came in and used that post office. Something I'm curious about. The hotel that you mentioned, the Palace Hotel, was that owned by the Inmans?
SEVER: Inmans had it, yeah.
LAVOY: Later after the initial family.
SEVER: No, I think Inmans, I don't know who started it. Frank Kauffman was postmaster one time, I think. Been so long, and then there was a Fred Abby, and then Inmans had the hotel.
LAVOY: Now, tell me something about them. Was that the Palace Hotel?
SEVER: Yeah, and they were runnin' the hotel and they had the saloon in there. That's what they called them those days. They didn't call them bars. They called them saloons
LAVOY: Was there a large family of Inmans?
SEVER: Well, there was Addie and the old man, Frank. Then they had a son, Allen. He lived in Fallon for years. I'm not so sure. Not long ago he was alive. But I don't know whether he is now. Did you ever know any Inmans?
LAVOY: No, I didn't.
SEVER: Ray Weaver. Do you know Ray Weaver?
LAVOY: I know who he is, who he was.
SEVER: He was assistant postmaster. He was good to help me. He did help me a lot.
LAVOY: What, approximately, were your wages when you started?
SEVER: About a dollar a day.
LAVOY: And then when you finished so many years later?
SEVER: They put it on the other basis then.
LAVOY: Approximately what were your wages then?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
LAVOY: Agnes, you worked for the post office for so very many, many years. Now, were you single all the time you worked for the post office?
SEVER: Oh, no, I was married to a man by the name of Higgins, and he died out on the railroad on the job. He had a heart attack, and they found him dead.
LAVOY: What was his full name?
SEVER: Edward Higgins.
LAVOY: And where did you meet him?
SEVER: I met him here. He was working for the railroad.
LAVOY: And where were you married?
SEVER: In St. Patrick' s Church in Fallon.
LAVOY: And, approximately, when was this?
SEVER: In 1935.
LAVOY: 1935. How many years were you married?
SEVER: Three years to him and he died.
LAVOY: Who found his body?
SEVER: Well one of the men that worked with him found him.
LAVOY: What did he do on the railroad?
SEVER: He was a water service supervisor.
LAVOY: Now, what does that mean?
SEVER: He was taking care of the water department for the railroad. You see, they used to furnish water to all the railroad houses at one time and the depots and everything, round house, and they had to have water service people. That's what they call them. Water service mechanics.
LAVOY: Now, was the water in big tanks by the tracks?
SEVER: Yeah, we had a big water tank here one time. It's in Sparks right now.
LAVOY: And you were married for three years when Mr. Higgins passed away.That was too bad. single? Then, did you remain
SEVER: For five years.
LAVOY: And then who did you marry?
SEVER: Tony Sever.
LAVOY: Now, what's Tony's full name?
SEVER: Antone [Anthonen] Sever.
LAVOY: Where did you meet him?
SEVER: Here in Hazen.
LAVOY: And what was he doing in Hazen?
SEVER: He was an operator at the depot. Telegraph operator.
LAVOY: Telegraph operator? How many years did he work at that?
SEVER: He worked fifty years for the railroad. Then he got sick and they made him retire.
LAVOY: When did he start working for the railroad?
SEVER: Oh, when he was twenty-one years old, out of Ogden [Utah]. I didn’t know him then.
LAVOY: Where did he come from?
SEVER: He was born and raised in Ogden
LAVOY: The name seemed Yugoslavian and I wondered if he was.
SEVER: His Folks came from Yugoslavia and landed in Utah out at Scofield in mining camps. His father as was a miner. Worked in the mines.
LAVOY: Well, where did he learn to become a telegrapher?
SEVER: In Salt Lake. He went to school.
LAVOY: And he was a telegrapher in Ogden?
SEVER: He mostly worked in Nevada.
LAVOY: And then he came to Nevada and was a telegrapher where?
SEVER: All over for one time. He worked twenty-one jobs in one month, he said, during the Depression. He said, “I was just like a hobo.”
LAVOY: (laughing) How long was he here in Hazen?
SEVER: Oh, I don’t know. They abolished the job and then he was over in Fallon as an agent for ten years, and then he retired form Fallon Depot.
LAVOY: Because of ill health?
SEVER: Well, he was sixty-five and they had him retire. Then his health was against him.
LAVOY: Oh, That’s too bad. Then he retired back here to your store.
SEVER: Well, he helped me here in the store, yeah.
LAVOY: Now, Agnes, when did you buy your store?
SEVER: 1934
LAVOY: And from whom did you buy it?
SEVER: From Mr. and Mrs. George Marchment, they moved to Mina and had a store in Mina for a long time and then they sold out and moved to California,
LAVOY: Was the store always in this building?
SEVER: No, it was in the hotel building at one time
LAVOY: And the did you move?
SEVER: Yeah, when they wanted to put in a restaurant where the post office was and that the woman had an idea that a restaurant’d pay her more that I paid for having the post office and the restaurant turned out to be a flop. She couldn’t get nobody to run it.
LAVOY: So then you left the Palace Hotel building.
SEVER: And came over and moved into this building [600 Reno Highway]
LAVOY: About when was that?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don’t know. 1935 or something like that.
LAVOY: And you’ve been here ever since.
SEVER: Yeah, they haven’t got rid of me yet.
LAVOY: What were some of the things that you sold here at the store?
SEVER: Same as they got now. Groceries and gas.
LAVOY: With gas stations having changed so very, very much, you have fairly modern pumps here. Did you have those put in?
SEVER: I bought them, yeah.
LAVOY: What kind did you have prior to that?
SEVER: Oh, the ones you could see the gas in them. The old timers.
LAVOY: Now those would be real collector’s items.
SEVER: Yeah, wish I had them.
LAVOY: What happened to them?
SEVER: I let some guy have them.
LAVOY: You, did?
SEVER: S' on a farm. I don't know what he's done with them.
LAVOY: Probably has them attached to his gas tanks at the farm.
SEVER: Yeah, I guess.
LAVOY: When you first went into the grocery business, how has it changed throughout the years?
SEVER: The chain stores has moved us out. There's no business here for a grocery store.
LAVOY: Well, I can understand that. You, basically, have the ranchers.
SEVER: Naw, just tourist trade, mostly. Gas and oil and a little pop. That's all they buy. I don't have much in groceries. I don't buy groceries at all any more. There's no business for it. There's nobody living here in the first place. They all go to Fallon and shop, or Fernley.
LAVOY: Now, you have been here by yourself for how many years?
SEVER: I been here since Tony passed away. Four years in March it was.
LAVOY: That must be very hard for you living by yourself.
SEVER: Yeah, it is. It's not pleasant but I can't do nothing about it. I got no choice.
LAVOY: Something that I was curious about. When did your family sell your ranch?
SEVER: About twenty-two years ago my brother sold it to Miles Christopherson.
LAVOY: Mr. Christopherson has had it that length of time.
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: When did you move off the ranch?
SEVER: When I was twenty-eight years old I moved over here this building [1935].
LAVOY: So you have lived in this building, then, for all those years.
SEVER: Yeah.
LAVOY: Well, that's very interesting. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you. I notice that movies have been made around Hazen. Did you meet any of the actors?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. Clint Eastwood.
LAVOY: They came in and visited with you?
SEVER: Oh, yeah. They were here for a week. Stayed in Fernley or Fallon, I don't know which place they were at.
LAVOY: Have you seen the movie that was made?
SEVER: I saw the Pink Cadillac. Have you?
LAVOY: No, I haven't.
SEVER: And there's another one: Kill Me Again.
LAVOY: And both those were made here in Hazen?
SEVER: Yeah, then they had another one. Oh, they made a commercial, too, but I don't know what it was.
LAVOY: Why do you think they chose Hazen?
SEVER: I don't know. Desert town.
LAVOY: Something that someone mentioned to me the other day was that there was a picture of Hazen that was used as an ad for, I believe it was Pacific Telesis that had the pay phone that' s out here with the moon rising in the distance.
SEVER: I think so. Yeah.
LAVOY: Did they come in and ask your permission to use the phone?
SEVER: Oh, I guess they did. I don't know.
LAVOY: It's interesting that Hazen has appeared in the movies and then, also, in all these magazines.
SEVER: I never seen any of the magazines.
LAVOY: I have not seen it either but someone mentioned to me the other day that it had been in a good number of the magazines advertising Pacific Telesis. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you in closing our interview, you had mentioned that your father lived to be quite elderly.
SEVER: Ninety-four almost
LAVOY: Did he live with you?
SEVER: Yeah. Thirty years he was with me.
LAVOY: Now, he had a wonderful sense of humor as I understand. Did he keep that sense of humor for all those years?
SEVER: Yes he did, un huh.
LAVOY: You told me something about a lady that used to come and visit him and what was it that she called him?
SEVER: I forgot.
LAVOY: The old heathen
SEVER: Oh, yeah. She was an old Irish woman. She was an Irish Protestant and she used to come over and call him the old heathen.
LAVOY: You told me one time she brought some orange flowers over. Repeat that.
SEVER: And put it on his sleeve. He had a shamrock on. She said,”I’m going to fix that ols boy today. I’m going to put this pin on him. An orange pin. [Orangeman’s pin Protestant Irish]
LAVOY: Now he was nearly blind as I understand.
SEVER: He was, yeah.
LAVOY: How did he react when he found our he had an orange…
SEVER: He took it off. He said,” The devil blow her.” (Laughing) That’s what he said. He said that to the priest one time. Father [John] Ryan come in. Father Ryan came from close to the same place in Ireland he did, but they didn’t know each other.
LAVOY: How’d he happen to tell him that.
SEVER: He come in and was teasing my father. Poppa was sick that day. The first time I knew of his ever being sick, but he didn't feel good. He told Father Ryan, "Oh," Father said, "don't worry, Mike. You' re not good enough for God, and the devil don't want you, either.
LAVOY: (laughing) And what did your father say?
SEVER: "The devil take you out of here, too, ' he said.
LAVOY: (laughing) Wonderful Irish sense of humor.
SEVER: And, after he left, Poppa said, Is that man a priest or what? He don't act 1ike one. I said, he must be. He's up on the altar every Sunday. He must be a priest.
LAVOY: (laughing) Well, you probably had a good number of the priests that came through Hazen on their way to Fallon.
SEVER: And my father used to have to take them to town, take them to Fallon. They had to have Mass once a month over there.
LAVOY: What were the names of some of them?
SEVER: Oh, gee. Father Hogan was one of them. I forgot their names, tell you the truth, so long ago I forgot them.
LAVOY: I think you mentioned a McDonald. Was there a Father McDonald?
SEVER: Father [Joseph] Donnellan.
LAVOY: And a Meahan.
SEVER: And Father Meahan. Father Meahan used to come from Sparks and have Mass in Fallon.
LAVOY: And then you mentioned Sears.
SEVER: Yeah, there was a Father Sears, too.
LAVOY: Do you remember anything at all about them?
SEVER: No.
LAVOY: But your father would always take them from Hazen to Fallon. In his Hupmobi1e?
SEVER: Yeah. When Tony worked at the depot there, he used to have to take Father Donnellan, he'd come in on the train and he'd take him over to Fallon. They didn't have Mass every Sunday at one time in Fallon. Guess you heard that, didn't you? They had it in the old building. I think it's an apartment house now.
LAVOY: Yes Who were some of the families that attended church there?
SEVER: Oh, the Hanifans and the McDonalds were all Irish and then John Rebol's mother. You know John Rebol?
LAVOY: Yes
SEVER: His mother was a good church member. His folks were. George John's a good church member, too. Well, he and his wife were both good.
LAVOY: The congregation has grown so very large now that it's, I imagine that for you, you know very few of the people that are there anymore.
SEVER: They' re al l gone. Mrs. Hanifan, you remember her?
LAVOY: No, I just know the daughters-in-law
SEVER: You mean Starlene?
LAVOY: And Georgia.
SEVER: And Georgia, yeah. You know John and Maurice?
LAVOY: Yes, I do.
SEVER: Real good, aren't they? They' re real wonderful people.
LAVOY: Yes, they are. They' re fine people. Well, now, in trying to bring this to a close, you mentioned to me the names of a few of the people that were ranching years ago when your father milked cows.
SEVER: Well, there was people by the name of Antone Petersen and his family. They took up a homestead there.
LAVOY: And then where the Greens live now, who was there?
SEVER: A man by the name of Edwin Heidenreich. German guy. Good farmer.
LAVOY: Who were some of the others that were there?
SEVER: Oh, gosh, I don't know. There was a lot of people there when time goes on. A guy by the name of Agee he didn't stay very long. Greens [Alton and Stevie] has been there [100 Mason Road, Hazen] quite a while.
LAVOY: What changes have you seen in the way people ranch?
SEVER: Oh, I don't know. They ranch about the same. Cuttin' hay and all that. Well, they got hay balers and everything now we didn't have those days. They had a mowing machine, then they had a rake, and then they put in those shocks and then they figured in a couple of days it'd be ready to haul to the haystack.
LAVOY: And did the buck rakes take it?
SEVER: We had just a regular rake. We didn't have a buck rake.
LAVOY: How did you get it to where you were going to stack it?
SEVER: Well, it stacked all right and dried. We milked cows for a living so we fed it to the cows. We never sold all the hay because we had to have hay for the cows.
LAVOY: Your hay, of course, wasn't in bales. It was in stacks.
SEVER: Oh, it was stacked up, and they used to have to get the wagon and put it on there and bring it up, put it in the stanchions for them, where they tied the cows in the stanchions to milk them. Oh, gosh.
LAVOY: Lots of work. Well, many, many years have passed that you've lived here in Hazen. I imagine it's been a very interesting life.
SEVER: Oh, it's good and bad, too.
LAVOY: Did you ever travel very much?
SEVER: I've been back in New York City twice, Then in Washington, D.C. twice, once in St. Louis, and I 've been in Ellenville, New York. That's up by the Catskill Mountains.
LAVOY: Were these trips on conventions?
SEVER: No, just only by ourselves.
LAVOY: You and?
SEVER: My husband.
LAVOY: Mr. Sever.
SEVER: Yeah. We were together back East. We were in St. Louis together. I wanted to see St. Louis. The reason I wanted to see it was why people came out from Ireland and landed there and when Tony said he went through the book, Hart, Hart, Hart, Hart, he said, "It'd take you six months to find out if any of them were related to you.” I said, 'They don't know me and I don't know them. Just forget about it.
LAVOY: How long were you gone usually on your trips?
SEVER: Oh, about three or four weeks.
LAVOY: And who took care of the store while you were gone?
SEVER: Oh, a Mrs. Ricard was here and I had different ones.
LAVOY: Were you always glad to come back?
SEVER: Oh, sure. No place like home.
LAVOY: That's very true. Well, Agnes, I certainly want to thank you.
SEVER: Oh, I don't know whether I had much of a life to give you.
LAVOY: I think it's very interesting, and on behalf of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project I want to thank you for giving me the time and I 've enjoyed every bit of it.
SEVER: Well, thank you.
Interviewer
Marian Hennen LaVoy
Interviewee
Agnes Hart Sever
Location
Hazen, Nevada
Geolocation
Files
Collection
Citation
Churchill County Museum Oral History Project, “Agnes Hart Sever, Oral History,” Churchill County Museum Digital Archive: Fallon, Nevada, accessed April 19, 2024, https://ccmuseum.omeka.net/items/show/1.
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