Mary Getto Carter Oral History

Mary Getto Carter Oral History

Oral history of Mary Getto Carter

Churchill County Museum Asociation

July 25,1996

Copyright Churchill County Museum Association

Analog cassette tape, txt file, MP3 audio file

English

Analog Cassette Tape Recording

Churchill County Oral History Project
an interview with
MARY GETTO CARTER
Fallon, Nevada
conducted by
Anita Erquiaga
June 25, 1996
This interview was transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norma Morgan; final by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myr! Nygren, Director of Oral History Project, Churchill County Museum.
Preface
This interview took place on July 25, 1996, at Mary and Don Carter's lovely home on West Center Street. The living room is done mostly in light colors and seemed very cool and comfortable that hot day. Her yard must be the coolest place in Fallon because of all the trees and beautiful lawn.
Mary is very articulate and spoke freely about her years of growing up as the daughter of Italian immigrants. She laughed a lot when telling her stories, and I felt that she must have had a happy life in her home.
Her daughter, Diedre, gave birth to a daughter the week after I was there, and that makes four grandchildren for the Carters.
Mary seems to be a very active person and one gets the feeling that she must be up early and busy all day long. She seems to have gleaned a lot of knowledge about people, places, and life in general during twenty years as a military wife.
It was a real pleasure to interview Mary.
Interview with Mary Getto Carter
This is Anita Erquiaga of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Program. Today is July 25, 1996, and I am interviewing Mary Getto Carter. The interview is taking place at her home at 190 West Center Street in Fallon, Nevada.
ERQUIAGA: Well, first of all I want to thank you for taking the time to do this interview, and let's start out by having you tell me your full name, your date of birth, and your place of birth.
CARTER: Well, I go by Mary Getto Carter.
ERQUIAGA: No middle name?
CARTER: I had amiddle name. I dropped it when I put in the Getto. :It was Carolina.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, I see, but you legally dropped it. And your date of birth?
CARTER: March 24, 1930.
ERQUIAGA: And your place of birth.
CARTER: Born in Fallon in my mother's bedroom.
ERQUIAGA: You were born at home. Did you have a doctor present?
CARTER: Um-hum.
ERQUIAGA: Midwife?
CARTER: Doctor, and, oh, gosh, I know who it was, but I can't . . I could go out and get my birth certificate and
tell you. I know where it is, but right now I can't think of that doctor's name.
ERQUIAGA: Maybe it'll come to you.
CARTER: No, I'd have to go look at the birth certificate.
EROUIAGA: And so you were born in your mother's home, and that is out along the Carson River?
CARTER: Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: On the Lovelock Highway now?
CARTER: Right after you pass the bridge on the right. ERQUIAGA: And you've lived there all your life then?
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CARTER: Here in Fallon?
ERQUIAGA: No. On that place.
CARTER: Yes, until I went away to college in 1948. I never
moved.
ERQUIAGA: Now you've found out the name of your doctor. Will you tell me that?
CARTER: His name was J.J. Myers.
ERQUIAGA: Dr. Myers, okay. When did your father first come to this country?
CARTER: Well, I'm sure he came in 1907.
ERQUIAGA: From?
CARTER: Italy. A town called Ivrea, Italy. Northern Italy.
ERQUIAGA: And how old was he when he came here?
CARTER: I say thirty-six.
ERQUIAGA: Was he married at that time?
CARTER: No, he wasn't married. He came with his brother, John Getto.
ERQUIAGA: Oh. Did he come straight to Fallon, or did they go someplace else first?
CARTER: They went to Reno first. My father worked at the State Mental Institution, and he worked for the dairy for six months and lived with some people called Ferrari. They
still have a place in Reno. I think it's on Mill Street, and after that he went to work in a mine close
to Tonopah called the Mary Mine. It was a gold mine. He and Uncle John both went out there, but my father didn't work in the mine. He worked as a cook's helper. He didn't want to go under the ground anymore.
ERQUIAGA: What kind of work had he done in Italy?
CARTER: When he came to America, he didn't really come from Italy. They had been working all over Europe. They were very poor. Uncle John and my dad worked around, and he had worked in London, England. He'd worked as a cook's helper mostly dish washing. Said he dug trenches. I don't know whether they were canals or whether they were putting in pipes in France. But the
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work that he really talked about was working coal mines in Switzerland, and that's why he never ever wanted to go down under the ground anymore. He also worked in Spain for a while, but I don't know where or what he was doing. They decided that the opportunity was in this country. They had friends, Ferraris, and people that had written back were from the same town, and so they came. They landed in New York, and I guess they came out on the railroad.
ERQUIAGA: When did he come to Fallon?
CARTER: Somewhere between 1910 and 1911. He and a man by the name of Jim Bangarell who was the cook at the Mary Mine, and he was an Italian-Swiss. They opened up what he called a bar-lunch counter where the old Sagebrush used to be. Don't ask me which one of those bars along Maine Street it would have been. (laughing) John Getto . . . and do you remember Ed Frazzini?
ERQUIAGA: Yes.
CARTER: Ed Frazzini was also out at Mary Mine. They are the ones that went and bought the little farm. It was all along the south side of the [Carson] river and they
didn't get along too well. (laughing) Ed Frazzini was
not too much into farming. He was into second-hand stores. He would have a weekend kind of a second-hand store tent type thing out at Tonopah when they got off of the mining. Then he kind of continued that when he got here to Fallon, and Uncle John and Ed got into it. Ed wasn't spending enough time on the farm, and so he said, "Well, I'll move my second-hand store out here on the corner of the ranch," and Uncle John didn't want anything to do with it. My dad had this lunch counter and bar going here in town. Then Jim Bangarell decided that he wanted to go back to Leadville, Colorado, where he was from 'cause he'd left a family there, and he hadn't seen them for about five years. So they sold out. I don't know who they sold to, but anyway Dad went into partnership with Uncle John, and Frazzini came into town and started his furniture store.
ERQUIAGA: Well, your dad had a variety of occupations. Had he
done any farming before he started out here?
CARTER: Well, they had farmland in Italy, but not big amounts. I got the impression with that every generation of people that were born, they kept cutting his land up. The boys would get it, and it was just getting to the point, I don't think they had enough land to successfully sustain themselves. They still have that
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piece of land there.
ERQUIAGA: In Italy?
CARTER: I've been back, yes. Also I got the impression that my grandfather was a cattle buyer. He traveled a lot and probably bought for somebody bigger. I'm trying to remember how much land they have over there. There's one--he would be a nephew to my dad that's still alive,
Domenico. He's a little older than I am. He's still there, and he's got the land. It was left to him through his mother and.father. There was one sister that remained in Italy. All the other Gettos came to the United States. They sent for their baby brother who was my Uncle Joe, much later. I think he got here just before World War I. He was just a young boy
'cause he was about sixteen, and he was in the military in World War I on our side. He had a little farm after the War. When he grew up he married a local lady. She was a Freeman, and they had a child. The farm that Marian and Mario Recanzone own now up there on the river belonged to Uncle Joe.
ERQUIAGA: I see.
CARTER: But he was not cut out to be a farmer. He just didn't
like it. I don't know who he sold it to, but there's got to be interim people between Uncle Joe and the Recanzones. He went to Sparks and ended up working on the railroad, Spent his entire working career with the railroad. So we have one first cousin up in Reno, George Getto, who was the head of the department of school buses for years and years. Transportation for the Washoe County School District, but he's retired now.
ERQUIAGA: Well, once your father started farming here he didn't leave. He didn't go back to Italy to live?
CARTER: No. Went back for visits but never to live. He was very proud to be an American.
ERQUIAGA: How about your mother? When did she come to this country?
CARTER: I think it was 1923.
ERQUIAGA: And how did she happen to come?
CARTER: Oh, there's quite a story here.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, really?
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
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Do you really want to hear it? It's a long story.
If you want to tell it. It's up to you.
She came because, number one, her mother had died. Her mother was bedridden for like thirteen years. She had heart trouble and they said she was just bedridden, and my mother took care of her. My mother slept with her. My mother took care of her. When she died, my mother was in bed with her one evening. Naturally she was very loyal to her mother. Her father, all this time his wife was bedridden, a girlfriend, and six months after her mother died he married the girlfriend and brought her into the house. That's pretty verboten in the old country. For number one you wear black arm ribbons:and so forth at least for a year. You have handkerchiefs that are trimmed in black. I have many of them around here that you carry in your lapel. Everything that symbolized you were mourning a death, and it's just traditional that for one year you go through this mourning process, and six months later this guy brings his woman into the house, and she just couldn't tolerate that. She just couldn't stand it. She was very, I think, more hateful towards this woman than she really was her father. But she really resented the fact., so she wanted to leave. She was what in Italy they call a defective. She was a defective. She had no hope of anyone ever marrying her. She had had rheumatic heart fever when she was a child, and she had an entirely deformed shoulder, and everybody in the little village knew it. She was a very pretty lady, and you didn't really notice that she had a deformed shoulder, but it was shrunken and it was small. Do you remember John Mason?
ERQUIAGA: Um-hum.
CARTER: He had the same thing, and he had a shoulder that was
all deformed. Well, Mom was like that. So, anyway,
she had a sister who had already immigrated to America and lived in Clinton, Indiana. She was married to a guy by the name of Pete Franchetto. Mom decided that she wanted to immigrate, so she wrote to the sister and asked if they would loan her money because she wanted to leave. They loaned her five hundred dollars which was a tremendous amount of money in those days.
ERQUIAGA: Right.
CARTER: She made application to immigrate to the United States,
and she was way back in line. There was a man that let it be known in the community that he would sell his
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place in line for a certain amount of money, and she--I changed the story a little--but that is when she writes to this relative and they send her the money, and she was able to buy his place in line, and she got out of Italy pretty fast. I don't know how much it cost, because it didn't cost five hundred dollars, I guarantee it, to come steerage which she did. So she immigrated to Clinton, Indiana. Her game plan was that she would learn the language so that she could at least get along in this country. She heard there were a lot of factories in New York and that she would try to go back to New York and get a job so she could pay the Franchettos back.
But in the meantime she had written--I have to digress here--when my mother was about fourteen years old, my father returned to Italy for a visit, and it was just like hail to the conquering heroes, they were so glad. Here came one John Getto and Andrew and they were supposedly a success in America, and they had a big party for them. All the friends and relatives. Evidently the two families were friends, and they had this big party, and they were kind of trying to marry my dad off to one of her cousins. They were trying to get these two people together. Mom said that she was at this party, but she was in the kitchen cooking, and he came back into the kitchen for a glass of water. He never was much of a drinker. You know, Italians are known for drinking a lot of wine, but he never was much of a drinker, so, anyway, they get to talking, and she said to him, "Oh, you're going back to America," and he said, "Yes." She says, "You know I have a sister, my sister, Theresa, in Clinton, and if I brought a letter would you take it to her? Stop on your way through, 'cause you're way over in Nevada, and visit with them
and see how they're doing? Write me a letter and tell
me how you found them." Well he told her that he'd be very glad to do that, so she had his address through this process. Evidently she must have written to him here and there through the years. So when she immigrates, she wrote to him and told him that she was now in Clinton, Indiana, and, lo and behold, he wrote back, 'cause he was a bachelor. He was thirty-six years old, somewhere in there. Did I say he came over here when he was thirty-six? I'm wrong. He was thirty-six years old when he proposed to my mother.
ERQUIAGA: I see.
CARTER: Uncle John's already married. He already had children. So, anyway, he wrote and proposed to her.
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She said that she had a hard time trying to make up her mind because she knew she had to pay back these relatives, and so she said she decided to flip a nickel, and then if it came up heads she was going to come to Nevada and marry Andrew, and if it came up tails she was going to go back to New York and get a job. Well, needless to say, it came up heads, and so she wrote and accepted his proposal. He sent her the money, and she got on a train and they met in Sparks, Nevada.
ERQUIAGA: And how old was she at this time?
CARTER: If he was thirty-six, she would have been twenty-five. She was eleven years younger. They were married in February, and they were married by a justice of the peace because they were later re-married in our little Catholic church down here, and I think it was--I'm trying to remember--I think it was Father Mikula. Virgil and I stood up for them.
ERQUIAGA: Oh. Well, I didn't get the names of either of your parents.
CARTER: Mom was Caterina Desolina Longo. That was her maiden name, and my father was just Andrew or Andrea Getto. He didn't have a middle name.
ERQUIAGA: Didn't have a middle name.
CARTER: No, but she always went by Desolina.
ERQUIAGA: After they were married, they came to
CARTER: He already had the farm.
ERQUIAGA: They came to the farm.
CARTER: And they lived---I'm really telling secrets here. (laughing) They lived with Uncle John and Aunt Carolina, and you put two women together (laughing) in one house, and one's very domineering and the other
one's very stubborn, and it didn't fly. In about six, seven months they decided to split the farm, and my dad took the north side. Then they borrowed I believe it's five thousand dollars from the Mussis and built the little house on the other side of the river where I was born
ERQUIAGA: The house is still there?
CARTER: Oh, yes.
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ERQUIAGA: Been added on to?
CARTER: Oh, yes, been added on to. Yeah, and they split the ranch. And because my uncle John--God, I wish that Elena would have done one of these because she's got a wonderful memory, but my uncle John had been very, very badly injured. In fact there was a time there that they even sent him all the way to San Francisco, and they didn't know whether he was going to live or not or whether he was going to be capable of farming. So when he comes back, Dad took the bigger part of the ranch
but the less developed. It wasn't leveled and all that
because they didn't know how much Uncle John could farm. He did recover from those injuries. So that's why our place on the north side was bigger, but it wasn't all in cultivation at that time. A lot of it was just desert land.
ERQUIAGA: And you were the second child in the family?
CARTER: Um-hum.
ERQUIAGA: And where did you go to school?
CARTER: I did all my schooling right here in Fallon. I started
school in that--what would it be on?
ERQUIAGA: Where the Cottage Schools are?
CARTER: Yes. On Stillwater [Avenue]. Remember the big, tall-used to be, I understand, the high school at one time. That's where I went to school.
ERQUIAGA: You didn't go to school out in Old River?
CARTER: No.
ERQUIAGA: You didn't go to the country schools.
CARTER: Don and I were just talking today. When did they quit having school at Old River? I don't know.
ERQUIAGA: I don't know either.
CARTER: I don't know anybody that went to school in Old River.
ERQUIAGA: None of my family did and we lived out there when the others were going to school, so I don't know when it changed.
CARTER: I don't either.
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ERQUIAGA: So you rode the bus into town?
CARTER: Oh, yes.
ERQUIAGA: Did you ever drive the school bus?
CARTER: No. My brother did.
ERQUIAGA: Did he? Were you a conductor or anything else?
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER: No.
You just rode it, huh?
Just rode the bus. Damn cold things. I remember we used to have . . . remember they'd have a monitor? Is that what they called it?
ERQUIAGA: Or conductor?
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
I think they called it a monitor, and this lady was so nice. She was a Wade, and she used to bring a blanket to kind of cover us up because it was so cold. They
didn't have heaters like they have now. (laughing)
Oh, it was so cold. I remember when it was really cold, cold, she would bring a blanket to cover our legs. Real nice lady.
How did your parents feel about going to school? Did they stress good grades?
Oh, God, yes. Oh, yes. That was a real privilege.
They both had quit school after third grade to go to work. That was mandatory--third-grade education.
I see.
Oh, yes. You didn't ever come home and tell (laughing) my parents that the teachers reprimanded you because you'd get it again. Oh-h, boy! (laughing) That was one thing, that we were brought up to really respect anybody in any kind of position. You know, police officers and judges, lawyers and doctors and school teachers. Hey! They were the word. You better believe it.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: You and I were talking about your teachers before we started the tape. Would you like to tell me about them again? The ones that particularly made an impression on you?
CARTER: I told you about Louvena Chapman who I knew as Miss
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McLean. She was my second grade school teacher. She was a very sweet loving teacher. I remember her, but I don't remember anything specifically in class.
The person (laughing) that I really remember--a small world--(laughing) is a lady by the name of Mrs. Stark who flunked me (laughing) and made me go back and repeat 1A again. Remember we used to have the A and the B system? I had to go back and do 1A again 'cause I didn't understand arithmetic at all, and (laughing) I used to sit there and look at Ernie Moiola's
paper (laughing) trying to figure out what the answers were, and, boy, she flunked me bigger than life. My mother was just mortified. I remember that she went across the river to Mrs. Mackedon--would be Leonard Mackedon's mother--and asked Mrs.Mackedon to write a letter to Mrs. Stark that maybe she would reconsider and leave me in my original class, and Mrs. Stark says,
"No way. This child's going back." And why I said a small world (laughing) is that Mrs. Stark is my present sister-in-law's grandmother. (laughing) I said, "Oh,
great!" 'cause I didn't have very fond memories of Mrs. Stark, but you know in the long run . . .
ERQUIAGA: That would be Norma.
CARTER: No, not Norma.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, not Norma?
CARTER: Oh, no. Norma is Pat's mother. This would be Pat's
father's mother. [Mrs. Lillie Stark]
ERQUIAGA: Oh, I see. Farther back.
CARTER: Yes, and, anyway, it was the best thing she ever did because I did learn my arithmetic. I did go from the concrete to the abstract and finally mastered the subject of arithmetic. I was not too happy, and it went with me all through my elementary school years to be put back because all of my little classmates made fun of me for the whole damn time.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, really?
CARTER: Oh, yeah.
ERQUIAGA: And did that put you graduating at midterm?
CARTER: No, because when I got to high school I did it in three and a half years and graduated with all those kids that called me a dummy through all those years, (laughing)
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and secondly, I was in the top ten of the class. (laughing)
ERQUIAGA: You had the last word after all.
CARTER: Well, I don't know, but it really was something. I think that's probably why I beat up little (laughing) Billy Howell who called me all these derogatory names. I wasn't going to take that. He didn't call me those
names after that though. (laughing) Even if he was in
a wheelchair, he had it coming. (laughing)
ERQUIAGA: Did your father ever work off of the farm any place to supplement the income?
CARTER: No. Never. We all worked hard on the farm. Everybody
but me (laughing) Virgil keeps telling me I got away with murder. I was supposed to go out and do all those things.
ERQUIAGA: You didn't ...
CARTER: I milked cows, I fed cows. My favorite job (laughing) that I really hated was to clean the chicken house every Saturday. Oh, I just hated it, and when I cleaned the chicken house she'd give me a quarter. (laughing) But, oh, I hated that job.
ERQUIAGA: Did you get an allowance ever?
CARTER: No. I got twenty-five cents for cleaning the chicken house.
ERQUIAGA: That was your wages for cleaning the chicken house.
CARTER: And then--I don't know why they did it--only when they were haying, my dad gave me five dollars for milking the cows through that haytime, but not in between. When they were haying, I had to milk cows.
ERQUIAGA: Did you have to do it by yourself during haying time?
CARTER: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
ERQUIAGA: So, it was a little more work, maybe.
CARTER: But they said I didn't do a good job. I dried the cows
up. (laughing) I don't know. And then they used to have me hoeing corn and potatoes and all that stuff, and it was along the--you know where our farm is. It's along the river, so if I could get off balance with my mother, if she'd be up at the top of the row and I was
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ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
at the bottom, (laughing) I'd go in the river and play until she got down there, got me back out.
She noticed your absence.
Oh, yes. (laughing) And then in the summertime I had to take the cows to pasture. That was another thing. I'd take the cows to pasture, and you know where the road turns to Lovelock and starts curving and separates and goes to Old River [Road), well, our pasture was right there in that corner. Virgil still owns that piece of property, but soon as I got the cows put away if I didn't have to go to 4-H club or something I'd just keep going, and I'd go down and visit with all the friends. The Zauggs lived down there and Mrs. Pirtle. Oh, I loved her dearly, and Mrs. Fox. Do you remember Kenneth' Fox?
Yes.
The Fox family. They lived down there. Mrs. Fox gave me my very first books. My parents never bought books, but she gave me all these leftover books from Kenny and the daughter, Enid. Children's books.
Oh, that was nice.
I remember one. Toby and the Goblins. (laughing) I don't know why that one stuck. And she also gave me the first Greek fable books that I ever had.
Did you walk down there, or how did you get there?
Oh, for a long time I had to walk, and they got me a
little horse. Like a mustang. I wouldn't come home until about noon. My mother was not too happy about that, but . . . (laughing) Well, I guess there's hope
for kids that don't mind. (laughing) Oh, heck. I
raised rabbits. I had those responsibilities, and I always had to feed the damn chickens and close the chicken house at night, and I'd forget, and my mother made me go out. Oh, afraid of the dark! You can't
imagine! I would go across that yard so fast, close that gate, run back in the house. Oh, God, I used to be afraid of the dark. I'm not anymore.
Was your mother afraid of the dark? Is that how you got to be?
No, it was just my responsibility. I was supposed to feed the chickens and close the gate 'cause they'd leave it open during the day, and the chickens were
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
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ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
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CARTER:
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just kind of all over. They'd all go to roost, and I'd forget.
What kind of a garden did your mother raise? Everything?
Yes, she had a very comprehensive garden. Peas, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, banana squash. You know, I don't remember zucchinis, but I sure remember the banana squash. We probably had zucchinis, too.
Cabbage and carrots. She had a little kind of an earth
. . . it wasn't a cellar. It was just a big hole in the ground that she dug after everything had quit. She put the carrots and the turnips and cabbage in the hole, then she had like a canvas and then a lot of the dirt over the top of it and then this flap and there'd be stuff in there for the whole winter.
I see.
Also, being frugal Italians, my parents made their own wine and salami and ham and head cheese. All those good things.
Did your mother make all those things, or did your dad help with that?
Oh, when they did salami that was a big project, and then usually a friend, a neighbor'd come over. Some Italian neighbor.
I was going to ask you what kind of meat did you eat. Did you butcher hogs?
We had pigs. We had chickens, rabbits. I raised
rabbits. I used to sell my rabbits to I.H. Kent's used to kill them myself and clean them. Ugh It was kind of hard to do because they were my pets. I'm
trying to remember if we ate beef. We must have. We
ate a lot of pigs.
And how did you preserve?
Well, the pig meat, they made salami and they made ham and bacon, and then we rendered the fat and Mom made our shortening, lard. Oh, yeah, we didn't go down and buy Crisco.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: They slaughtered their own animals themselves?
CARTER: Yep.
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ERQUIAGA: They were very self-sufficient as far as the food went.
CARTER: Sure.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: And you say you didn't have a cellar?
Oh, we had a cellar. We raised lots of potatoes, and I'm telling you one of my vivid memories is helping my dad sort potatoes and sack potatoes and we sold them for a dollar a hundred pounds. Every time I pay forty-five cents for a pound of potatoes (laughing) I think of those sacks of potatoes a dollar a hundred, and we sold tomatoes. We also had a real big orchard and put up all kinds of fruit and stuff. Especially peaches. My mother canned so damn many peaches.
ERQUIAGA: Did you help with the canning?
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
I was more of a tomboy. I was more interested in being
outside. I don't really remember helping can, and I don't remember cooking, and I don't remember working in my mother's garden. That was her stuff. She had a
beautiful garden. She'd plant flowers all in between her vegetables. She had a good time with her vegetable garden.
Did she have a reason for planting the -Flowers?
I think she just loved flowers.
Just liked them?
Yes, she kind of had a little artistic bent. With a little bit of training she could have . . .
Did you have electricity in your home?
Yep. Always remember electricity.
How about plumbing?
Um-hum.
You had a bathroom when you were very young?
Always had the bathroom. We also had an outhouse out behind one of the bunkhouses because we used to have all these hired hands in the summertime.
ERQUIAGA: Did you have a telephone?
CARTER: Yep. Always remember the telephone. Yee-ee-ow. What
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: 15
was ours, three longs and a short or three shorts and a long? I can't remember.
How about a refrigerator?
Yes. I think that at the very, very beginning we had an icebox. I remember an icebox.
ERQUIAGA: How about a car?
CARTER: Yep. Always had a car. There's pictures when I was a little bitty kid which would 1930, I can remember this picture they're and I'm stark naked and my mother's right this nice car. Yes. My dad used to like around from have been holding me up in front of Pontiacs.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: I see. :'I wonder what he paid for them at that time.
Well, I remember that just before the War in 1939 my dad got one of the last cars that came in. It was a
royal blue Pontiac. It was so pretty. He'd ordered a
standard and it came in deluxe and that meant that it had a heater and a radio, and that Mr. Stewart--I think it was Stewart--the man that was a stepfather to Jimmy Allison had the Pontiac dealership, and he gave it to my dad for nine hundred dollars because he did not order the deluxe. Then after the War we bought another Pontiac, and it was seventeen hundred. Right after, one of the first cars that came out. That's what they did between ...
ERQUIAGA: Quite a difference.
CARTER: Yup. It was white.
ERQUIAGA: When did you learn to drive, or how did you learn to drive?
CARTER:
I learned to drive on a tractor.
Oh. So it was easy to drive a car after that. How about your mother? Did she drive?
Yes. My mother learned how to drive. Of all the Italian women that lived in this community, she was the only one that drove. She used to drive around and
visit them all. In fact she was a (laughing) holy terror on wheels when she became very old. Before she died she developed a cataract so she didn't see real well. She was so afraid that they were going to take her driver's license away from her, and I happened to
be here. I think it came due again about 1970. It was
CARTER: ERQUIAGA:
16
either 1970 or 1969 I came back to visit them. We were
in the military. I married Don Carter and he was in the military. Anyway she went down and took her driver's test and she passed. But there was also a policeman here in town who kind of went along and explained to them that she really needed her car, and
they gave her a limited driver's license. I don't know
if they do that anymore. She could only go a fifteen-mile radius of Fallon, Nevada, and she came out of there, and she was absolutely so excited. She said, "They gave me a four-year license. I'm so glad, and I'll never have to take that test again because I'm not going to live that long." She was right. She didn't
live that long. She lived another three years. Boy, she really needed her license, but I've had so many people tell me if they'd see her coming down the road (laughing) on Lovelock Highway, boy, they'd clear out of the way (laughing) because they said she could be
all over the road. I guess it's true, too. Oh, I had
more people say, "Boy! your mother was just terrible in that car." She never had a wreck. She never hit anybody. My, times have changed. They wouldn't do it now.
ERQUIAGA: No.
CARTER: No. That was funny.
ERQUIAGA: Did you celebrate holidays in any special way? Christmas or anything? Did you have a Christmas tree?
CARTER: Mom and Dad had a little teeny Christmas tree that was
about that big, and you folded it away. (laughing) Oh, it was the scruffiest looking little thing. (laughing) Put it in a box. She had the original box. Put it away and then get it out for Christmas. We always had a nice Christmas Eve celebration at Uncle John's, and they always had a beautiful Christmas tree. I think Elena was pretty responsible for that. She was quite a bit older than me. See, I'm sixty-five and she's eighty-one, and she used to put up a really pretty tree, and we'd go over there and they always had eggnog. They made homemade eggnog with brandy in it.
ERQUIAGA: Did your mother make any special Italian dish?
CARTER: Yes. She always had raviolis for Christmas and New Year's. She make a huge batch of raviolis and make it stretch for two holidays and we always had turkey. Naturally with the church Christmas, maybe it was Christmas Eve, you know, midnight Mass, and they used
to really have midnight Mass. I mean, midnight.
17
ERQUIAGA: It was at midnight.
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER: Yes. Yes, it was at the church.
Did your family go to church on Sundays?
No. My mother made sure that we all went to catechism and received all our sacraments and urged us to go to church but they never went. My father was not a church goer at all. My mother was very, very religious and prayed constantly. I'd look around and I'd see her. She'd be praying, but she never felt comfortable in the American churches. Probably because she, I don't know, she just never felt comfortable in the American churches, but she sure made sure we went.
ERQUIAGA: How did you entertain yourself? What did you do for
entertainment? Did you ever go to the movies?
CARTER: Oh, I got to go about once a month.
ERQUIAGA: Did your parents ever do anything like that?
CARTER: No, they never went to a movie. I don't remember them ever going to the movie. We weren't all hooked up on all this entertainment like America is now. My parents never took a vacation. The one thing that they did that I think was really nice and it's a custom gone by the wayside, Sunday truly was a day of rest, and Sundays they always went visiting. Somebody either visited us or we visited them, and we had a circle of friends. There was the Lacas and the Mussis. Mary Mussi was my godmother, and there were two Mussi families. There were the Peraldos that were very good friends. Peraldos are from Biella. Biella is very close to Ivrea. I couldn't tell you. Maybe five or
ten miles in Italy. I've been to Biella. My mother was good friends with the Macaris and the Moris. There were a lot of Italians.
ERQUIAGA: All the Italian families.
CARTER: Oh, yes. Soares. They were Portugese, but we were very good friends of the Soares family.
ERQUIAGA: Did they have any relatives here besides the John Gettos?
CARTER: Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary. Mary and Mike Bria lived in Fallon until just before World War II, Uncle Mike was not cut out to be a farmer either.
18
ERQUIAGA: Were they related to your father?
CARTER: Mary Bria was my dad's sister. She was a Getto. They sold out and moved to Sparks, and he went to work at Herlong, I believe, and they sold their little farm out there. They had a farm on the Reno Highway. Virgil knows where it is. I think it's where Fagundeses have their dairy. I get all confused about where everything was. Oh, there was the Piazzas. That was another Italian family. They lived up somewhere along Rice Road. I drive along there now and try to figure out
where that was, and I can't. I can't picture . . . I remember the house was up on a sand hill. I mean it's changed so much. But they all did a lot of visiting.
ERQUIAGA: Did you dance when they'd get together?
CARTER: Nope. They mostly sat and talked and ate and drank a little wine. Sometimes they'd sing. My mother had a pretty nice voice. We used to go to the Christmas parties they'd have at the Old River School. Santy Clause'd come with the big bag, and I would be so excited. Mostly it was oranges and nuts.
ERQUIAGA: Did your folks go over there, too?
CARTER: Oh, yeah. My mother belonged to those little friendship clubs. There used to be some kind of a
friendship club. I don't know. Do they still have them?
ERQUIAGA: I think they've gone by the wayside, but they used to have the homemakers' club.
CARTER: Yeah, the homemakers' club. My mother belonged. There's all kinds of little dish towels around here that they used to embroidery and then give them to a secret pal and all that. She did participate in that way, but trips, no. When they took a trip, they took a trip. They went clear back to Italy in 1950, but I didn't because I was in school.
ERQUIAGA: Did they say what it was like? Had things changed over there?
CARTER: I don't know. I don't remember them really making many remarks about change. I know that after World War II my mother sent packages, a lot of packages to Italy, and she'd send coffee which she wasn't supposed to do, but she did it. She sent coffee and sugar and clothes to them. A lot of clothes. Yeah, 'cause I think things were pretty rough after the War.
ERQUIAGA: How about toys? Did you have dolls?
19
CARTER:
Not many. It took me two years of writing Santa Claus to get a dydee doll. (laughing) You remember those little rubber dolls? They came with a little bottle and they wet their diapers and all they came with was a diaper wrapped around her. It took me two years to write Santa Claus, and I finally got a dydee doll. (laughing) No, didn't get too many toys. But I would get something. I remember the doll and I remember once--I really wanted a little violin, and I got this little tin violin. It came from either Sears, Roebuck or Monkey Wards [Montgomery Wards Company]. One of the two. And I left it out in the cow corral and the damn cow stepped right in the middle of it and just squashed
it all to hell. (laughing) Oh, I was really upset. I
remember that well. I took care of my stuff from then on.
We didn't have anything so we made creative things. My big thing in the summertime is we had a--I can't remember who the girl was but I always had some friend, and we had these tree houses. Climb up in the old cottonwood trees, and we'd build desks up there, and we had telephones (laughing) and we had these pretend offices. Oh, we played along the river a lot.
Did you swim?
Yeah, swam in the river and canals. I finally learned how to swim. I used to walk to go to the swimming
pool. I didn't have a bicycle. Virgil had a bicycle, but I never had one.
Oh, you didn't have a bicycle.
I finally got a bicycle. It was a castoff. Gosh, I don't know how old I would have been. Fourteen, fifteen, thirteen, somewhere in there, and it was an
old castoff. I think it was Virgil's. I don't know.
It didn't have fenders. I'd have been in style now, but it didn't have fenders or anything. It didn't run right, and I took the whole back gearshift apart and everything and cleaned it all up and put it back together and rode that thing everywhere. I had put it all in backwards, so, the wheel didn't turn on the axle. The whole axle turned (laughing), and finally one day the axle just wore off and broke. Can you imagine how hard that was? I mean, I was turning the whole axle.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: You were working hard.
20
CARTER: Oh, (laughing) I worked hard because I put it together
wrong.
ERQUIAGA: It would have been easier to walk.
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
And it was a boy's bike, but I usually walked. I walked in to go to swimming lessons. IF I wanted to come to town, I walked. So, anyway, I bought my own first real very own bike in 1970 when I came back here. When my husband went to Vietnam I went out to the base, and they had a real nice--I think it was a Huffy, and I bought it. That was my very first my bike because I've always liked bicycles. As you know I still bicycle like mad.
What kind of groups did you belong to when you were growing up? Were you a Girl Scout or 4-H?
I belonged to Girl Scouts for a short time, but I was mostly 4-H. In fact I just wanted to be in 4-H so bad, and you had to be ten, and I tried to get into a club at nine. The first club that I belonged to was all the way across town. Do you remember Theo Sherman? She was a third-grade teacher. She was my first 4-H leader, and she lived south of town here, I think, about three miles on the Schurz Highway, and I had a
bicycle. This God awful bicycle, and I bicycled all
the way over there for my first 4-H club. Then they told me to organize my own in Old River and find a
leader, and I did. Do you remember . . . a big gray
house that's on the corner between Old River [Road] and Lovelock [Highway]?
ERQUIAGA: Schmalings?
CARTER: Mrs. Schmaling was our first leader. Mae Schmaling's mother, and then I stayed in 4-H until I went to college. I won a trip to National 4-H Congress in 1947 in clothing achievement. And I did a lot. I was very active in 4-H.
ERQUIAGA: Were you a leader at any time?
CARTER: If I was a leader before I went to college, I can't remember. It's possible that I could have been, but I definitely became one when I came back here in 1970. One of my kids drug me into it. I think it was Andrea or DeeDee, and they were both in 4-H. All three of my kids were in 4-H. No, it was DeeDee.
ERQUIAGA: Well, when Mrs. Schmaling was the leader of this group, that was all children from Old River? All girls?
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
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Um-hum. Pretty much.
And what was it, a sewing club?
Um-hum. I'm trying to remember 'cause I was in a garden club for a while, and Mrs. Schmaling, and as I said Mrs. Sherman, and Lena Berry. Do you remember her? Lena Hauke?
Yes. She was the Extension Agent [United States Cooperative Extension Service].
Right, but she was very involved in some of these clubs. I remember that she was the one that really taught me how to sew and to strive for absolute perfection. She made me tear (laughing) things apart. I had a little towel--I just threw that little towel away that I made. Very first project. We had to hem it, and then I embroidered a little pattern on it. My mother drew it out for me. Mother used to draw her own patterns out and embroider them.
Oh, nice.
We were too frugal to go buy a print. (laughing)
Well, if you learned to do that, I guess she didn't need to.
Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: And so that's how you developed your interest and your talent for sewing.
CARTER: Yes, which I don't do anymore.
ERQUIAGA: Don't you? You did for many years, didn't you?
CARTER: Oh, yes, I even sewed for people professionally. I earned all my spending money in college by sewing. Remember the Wolves Frolics?
ERQUIAGA: Yes.
CARTER: I used to make costumes for those things. Oh! And I'd get a lot of sewing. I even did bridesmaids' dresses,
coats, suits. I did it all.
ERQUIAGA: Did you sew men's clothing?
CARTER: No. Just men's shirts. I made a lot of men's shirts.
22
ERQUIAGA: Did your mother sew?
CARTER: Yes, my mother sewed. My mother knit and crocheted and sewed. That to her was a real luxury, and she used to work outside a lot. She was not a homebody, either, and I'm not a homebody. I like to be outside. After we had lunch we always took an hour off, and I had to
sit there. (laughing) I would embroidery, and she
would either crochet or knit. She did beautiful work. That was her luxury. She said that in Italy, she used to have to literally steal time to do that kind of work. You should have seen the trunkful of stuff that she was able to sew for her dowry. Gorgeous.
Gorgeous. I have some of it. I want to show you these pillowcases.
ERQUIAGA: You learned to embroider from your mother.
CARTER: Yes, and I learned to knit. I didn't get the hang of crochet, though. I never crocheted, but I have a daughter--it's kind of come back. My daughter, Andrea, the oldest girl loves handwork. Just like my mother liked it. She is into all this cross stitch, and she does the most beautiful cross stitch work. I have some around the house here. Any time she's got a minute she picks up her cross stitching, and, oh, some of the beautiful work she's done. She also crochets. She did a lot of what do you call those throws?
ERQUIAGA: Afghans?
CARTER: Afghans. Oh, goodness, yes. (laughing) I have so
many around I don't even like them anymore. So someone picked up the talent, and Dee Dee still sews. Our third daughter, Kendra, sews, but she's like Mom. Just go buy our clothes. (laughing) It's quicker and faster.
ERQUIAGA: After a while these young women get so busy that they .
CARTER: I know it. You don't have the time.
ERQUIAGA: Did your parents read English?
CARTER: Yes. My dad taught himself how to read and write in English, and he had a--it was enormous--he had a dictionary that was different. It was a book that was that thick, and on one side of the page it was in Italian and on the other side of the page it was in English. There was everything in that book that you can imagine from love letters to letters of condolence
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
23
to business, and there were all kinds of sentences. It was a fabulous, fabulous book. There's parts of it somewhere, but I don't know where they are.
Did he bring that from Italy?
I don't know where he got it. He must have brought it from Italy, and he taught himself to read and write with that and my mother also. They didn't write much,
let me tell you. It'd be very simple and probably copied out of the book if they really had a long letter, but for people that had a third-grade education I thought they did remarkably well. Of course, my mother had a fantastic mind. I think she had one of those photographic minds when it came to numbers. She could do math in her head faster than anybody on an adding machine. Gee, she could do it fast.
Well, your mother was considered a business woman, wasn't she?
Yes, but she had just a third-grade .
But she owned rentals in town, didn't she?
Yeah, Mom and Dad owned them together. She ran them.
And she kept track of all of her business.
Oh, yes, she was good. She really was a business woman that's why she, as I told you she never was a housekeeper. She was not a good cook. She was not a real good cook, let me tell you, but my aunt Mary and my aunt Carolina and my aunt Angelina and all those people they were cooks. Especially Aunt Mary. Mary Getto Bria. Oh, she made good food. Aunt Carolina made good food, too. With Mom that was just one of those necessary evils. We had to do it, you know.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: Did you have a job in town while you were going to high school or anything?
CARTER: She wouldn't let me.
ERQUIAGA: I see.
CARTER: I wanted to.
ERQUIAGA: Did you have any idea of what you wanted to do after you got out of school?
CARTER: Yeah, I was going to go to college.
ERQUIAGA: And you did, right?
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CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
And I did. Much against their wishes.
Oh, really?
They didn't think girls should go.
Did they help you pay your way?
Oh, they paid. Oh, yeah. Didn't cost much to go in those days. My first year of college in 1948-49 cost my parents nine hundred dollars, and I earned my spending money. You know I told you I sewed, and that was books, room and board, everything. Nine hundred dollars. That's how cheap it was.
ERQUIAGA: And how and when did you meet your husband?
CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
I met my husband my first year at the
University of Nevada. He was there, too. He's from
Elko.
And what is his full name?
Donald Leslie Carter.
And he was from Elko you said?
Yes, born and raised in Elko, Nevada. His parents were also born in that area, too. And I guess their parents came in the 1880s.
ERQUIAGA: Where did they come from?
CARTER:
Oh, that's a good question. On his mother's side his grandmother was from Ireland. They were Ireland Riordans. And his father's side, they think that-they're doing some genealogy study, my husband's brother's children--from Missouri after the Civil War.
When did you get married?
I was married June 3, 1953, in a small town in New York state called Cornwall on the Hudson. It was above the United States Military Academy. My husband had just graduated from West Point.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: You said you met him your first year of college. He started out at the University of Nevada, and then he went into the military?
25
CARTER: Yes, he received an appointment to West Point. In 1949 he entered West Point.
EROUIAGA: Did you have any trouble making up your mind that you were willing to be a military wife?
CARTER: No. It sounded exciting to me. (laughing)
ERQUIAGA: Sounded exciting. Well, that's good.
CARTER: Right. After I graduated from UNR [University of Nevada] I had several offers of teaching in Nevada, but I was very fortunate to get a position teaching school in New York state in a very small community called Maybrook of New York which happened to be about fifteen miles from West Point, and that was pretty neat. I didn't have any idea what I was going into when I went east. I had no concept of what it was like to live in the east. Here we have these wide-open spaces, and I never realized how everything was so packed in till I got there. I had applied for jobs. I looked at the maps (laughing) and I applied for jobs in the original thirteen colonies, and I had offers from New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and, oh, just all around. I'm looking at the map, and saying, "Oh, I can get to West Point from there." But you just don't have the open roads that we have in Nevada. I could never have done it. I was just so lucky to get this particular position. It was the only opening in home economics in that entire school district, and it happened to be fifteen miles from West Point, so I got it.
ERQUIAGA: And did you teach there for a while?
CARTER: One year. And the lady, the superintendent of schools of Orange County, knew that I would only be there one year, and I think the only reason I got the position is her nephew was John Nave who was one of my husband's classmates. It was John who told Don about this Amy Bull Crist who was the superintendent of schools, and he wrote to her. She wrote back to him, and told him,
"Well, tell her to apply. I happen to have one opening
in this little town." And I got the job sight unseen with a telephone interview. I really was lucky.
Doctor McKee hired me. I never met him. He was moving on to another school. (laughing) He hired me and ran. Sounded like a real nice man.
ERQUIAGA: Do you think your growing up on a farm in a small town helped you to make your way in this military life? Moving and living in different places.
26
CARTER: No, not particularly, but I don't think it hindered it. ERQUIAGA: How long was your husband in the military?
CARTER: Twenty years.
ERQUIAGA: Where did you live during that time?
CARTER: Not as many places as I would have liked to have lived. ERQUIAGA: Oh, really.
CARTER: No. We didn't move that much unfortunately. We started out at Marana Air Base which was out of Tucson, Arizona, and from Tucson, Arizona, we went to Houston, Texas, and then from Houston, Texas, we went to Bryan, Texas, which is Texas A&M [University]. My husband got sent back to school to Texas A&M to become a weatherman, and then from Texas A&M we were stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah out of Ogden between Ogden and Salt Lake. Then from there we did one small short temporary duty assignment, and I went with him, to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, then back to Hill Air Force Base, and from there Don went to Japan, so I joined him in Japan. We were there four years. From there we went to Sacramento, California, McClelland Air Force Base. There was a weather wing there, and from there we went to Great Falls, Montana. Oh, in between we had a short tour, another temporary duty assignment at Lompoc, California. That was Vandenburg Air Base and then to Great Falls, Montana, and from Great Falls, Montana, my husband went to Viet Nam, and that's when I came back here. In 1970, I returned here, and he did his year in Viet Nam, and then he was assigned to March Air Force Base, but with temporary duties right back over to the Far East. First he was in Thailand and then I think Okinawa, and he would go over and then come back and go over, so we never moved. I spent three years here in town. The kids and I were here three years without him. And then he put in his papers in Okinawa in 1973, and we've lived in Fallon ever since.
ERQUIAGA: He didn't choose to go back to Elko when he retired.
CARTER: There was nothing left in Elko. His parents had moved to Reno sometime in the 1950s, so there really wasn't anything left there. I ended up here because, well, my husband was in Viet Nam, and I was here. My parents died. Both of them, and I happened to be the executor, administrator, or whatever, and I got one solved, set up on the estate, and the other one died. They died
27
nine months apart.
ERQUIAGA: That was after you had moved back to Fallon?
CARTER: Yes. My dad died in 1971, and my mother died in 1972. The kids just loved it here, and it was home to them. I said to my husband, "Well, we've been left a little bit of business." It was time to retire, and we didn't know where we were going. Well, we would have probably gone to--we don't where we would have gone. Maybe North Dakota or South Dakota. I don't know.
ERQUIAGA: But, it just happened that you stayed here.
CARTER: It was just time to get out, and it was a good thing he did because in 1974 his parents died, so we were able to spend a little bit of time with them and the grandchildren got to know their grandparents. Got to be around them a lot more,
ERQUIAGA: Do your children have any memories of what it was like to live in Japan?
CARTER: I don't know. Andrea never talks much about it.
DeeDee was born there, and she left when she was about three and a half.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, they were quite young.
CARTER: Andrea was just starting school. I'm trying to
remember. Did she do kindergarten over there? I think so.
ERQUIAGA: When you moved back to Fallon, what kind of changes had taken place since you had lived here before?
CARTER: Well, the town had grown quite a bit.
ERQUIAGA: Do you think it's grown more in the time since then?
CARTER: Oh, oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. This place has really changed.
ERQUIAGA: Are some of the changes good, or all of the changes good?
CARTER: No, I don't think all of the changes are good, but I don't blame the changes just on growth. I just blame the changes on the moral decay of the country, period. All over.
ERQUIAGA: But you must see some positive changes.
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA:
CARTER:
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Well, I think there's more opportunity now. Not much.
How about for the younger people?
For the younger people? I think that's what happening to our . . . don't get me going on agriculture and the
water situation, I think it's disgusting. I think our
government has totally reneged on us and making up their own damn laws to suit themselves. I think it's terrible. So, no, I don't see much positive side about that. Yes, we have more amenities. I don't know if the schools are any better, but we have bigger, better schools and nicer homes.
The one thing--I'll put a plug in for the military. I think themilitary's done wonders for this community if nothing else to bring in diverse cultures and diverse education and people who have been around a little bit and see how things can be done a different way. I think they've brought a lot of benefits with their expertise and their knowledge. I think it's wonderful. That, I think, has been a great improvement to the community. Contrary to what a lot of people, some of the old timers feel about the military, really, they're quite educated people, and, basically, they're a real asset to any community. I always enjoyed all the different communities I lived in. Not all of them, but a lot of them. I got involved out of the base, and I think this is great. I always felt welcome, whether it was at the church or working with youth groups or whatever. Art. I kind of followed the arts so I used to get involved with some of the arts groups and so forth. Arts council especially in Great Falls,
Montana. It's a learning process. The whole thing is
a learning process.
Are you involved with the arts council here in Fallon? Just as a member. You know, support their endeavors.
Tell me about your family. How many children you have and their names.
We have three girls. Andrea Carey. She lives in Fallon. She has three children, so we have three grandchildren. She's presently working at the
hospital. Then there's Deidre. Deidre lives in Reno,
and she completed her education at the University of Nevada. She is a--I don't remember her degree from the College of Business, but she's a programmer. She's a senior assistant analyst at Eldorado [Hotel]. She's married. Last year she married a local boy. She met
29
him up there. Are you in any way related to the Achurras?
ERQUIAGA: No.
CARTER: Well, she met him through her girlfriend who was an Achurra. His name is Jim Pace. His father used to be one of PH, Pace and Homer, that owns P&H Auto Parts [159 East Center], but she never knew him here in
Fallon. I think that's hysterical. She says she kind
of recognized him a year before. Her husband is a lawyer up in Reno, and they're expecting a baby anytime!
Then we have Kendra. Kendra always identified with California. She was born at Mather Air Force Base when we lived in Sacramento, and she went to California schools. See, I'm wearing a tee shirt. She went to USC [University of Southern California], and she works in San Francisco. She just changed jobs. She works in the real estate business and has to do with managing
huge buildings, leasing. They lease the buildings and
manage them, and she's their researcher. She does their researcher presentations for these brokers. She just loves her new job. Her office is in Oakland, but she lives in San Francisco, the very top of Russian Hill and loves it.
ERQUIAGA: And loves it?
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
So that's my kids.
Well, very nice. Do you have any hobbies?
Well, I don't know. (laughing) Doing yards. I read.
I love to cook. I don't know if it's a hobby or what,
but I love to bicycle. Do a lot of bicycling. My husband and I both bicycle a lot. It's our athletic endeavor, and then in the winter times we ski, and the two complement each other because you got to have strong legs to ski.
How did you get started with the skiing?
I learned to ski when I went up to UNR. My husband kind of taught me. I never took a lesson. He took me out to ski.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA: So that's your family hobby.
CARTER: Right. We like to ski, and the kids all ski, and we'd
like the grandchildren to ski. It's getting more
30
expensive and more expensive. It's a good sport. I like to garden, but I'm not a good gardener, but I love to dig in the dirt. That's my pastime.
ERQUIAGA: CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
ERQUIAGA:
CARTER: ERQUIAGA: CARTER:
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CARTER:
Do you still raise vegetables?
I never raised vegetables.
You never did?
No. I shouldn't say that. I've got six tomato plants back here and six pepper plants. The ground here is not conducive to gardening. Not good. Too many elm trees. Roots everywhere. These old elm trees have been here forever. Even though I put a lot of fertilizers on, ah, I might get a tomato before it
freezes. (laughing) Big vines, though.
I was reading in some of the papers that they have there in the museum that in 1984 you were chosen as the AAUW [American Association of University Women] woman of the year.
Oh, well, I don't belong to AAUW anymore.
You don't belong?
No, we got into the controversy about pro-life. I hated to leave them. They are a very fine
organization, but I felt like an absolute hypocrite being active in an organization that sanctions abortions.
When you won this award, what particular things did you do to win that?
I just think that we had an outstanding organization at that time, and I don't know if you remember, but AAUW way back then was really the organization that spearheaded our community college. There were seven of us. We called ourselves the Magnificent Seven that got together and formed a committee and got this thing going. Got people interested. We did a survey. Just did all kinds of work, and then Margaret Perazzo went forward and did a lot of politicking for us, gave presentations before the Legislature. I think Mary Stolpa was involved in this also. We hired her to--we didn't pay her, she just did it--to do all kinds of surveys. She was real great at doing surveys. That kind of all happened while I was president, and I think that's . . . I wouldn't even know if it happened exactly when I was president, but I think that had a
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lot to do with it. We had a real active organization. We opened forums for politicians. We did forums on
women's issues. This all happened when I was
president. I was president for two years, and I had a marvelous vice-president. Do you know who Clara Jean Olson is?
ERQUIAGA: Yes.
CARTER: She's the one that should have been the woman of the year. What a marvelous human being. She just really helped a lot.
ERQUIAGA: I noticed that you are falling in your mother's footsteps and have rentals.
CARTER: Oh, yeah,-.that's my pastime. (laughing)
ERQUIAGA: Keeps you busy no doubt.
CARTER: Yep. It's a full-time business.
ERQUIAGA: What does your husband do?
CARTER: My husband's an appraiser. He's pretty busy, too. Just gave up being the VA [Veteran's Administration] appraiser. Trying to pull back a little bit. Oh, we're both in our late sixties. We sold four units
this year, too. Every little bit helps.
ERQUIAGA: Do you have any plans for doing anything exciting if you retire a little more than you are?
CARTER: We like to travel. We're planning another trip to Italy this coming February, and last February we went to Switzerland, and we--it may sound like kind of a strange time to go, but there's a huge carnival in our town of Ivrea that is a unique kind of a story.
Ivrea's freedom from the tyrant because it was owned by a--way, way back in the medieval times Ivrea had a, I call him a dictator, but that's not what it would have been. Like a king or whatever. He ruled the
community, and this story is that they got liberated. Anyway they have always celebrated the week before
Lent. It's a week long. It's just like all over Europe, there's a Lenten week before Lent starts with all kinds of festivals. Well, Ivrea has tied their liberation in with this pre-Lenten and it's a real celebration for six or seven days. Every day there's something going, and we're going to go. And then also northern Italy is where the skiing is and we intend to go to Mont Blanc and ski. So, if everything works out,
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we'll probably go. We like to travel. We don't travel
that much, but we like to ski. We usually ski a week at Jackson Hole and a week up in the Sierras. Last year we didn't because we went to Switzerland. This year we probably won't because we're going to Italy. We have timeshares we'll give to the kids. They went last year and they had a wonderful time. Other than that, oh, just live my life.
ERQUIAGA: Is there something that we've forgotten to talk about here?
CARTER: I don't know. What do you want to talk about? ERQUIAGA: I just wondered if we'd covered everything.
CARTER: Did you glean anything interesting that you haven't heard from somebody else? I don't know.
ERQUIAGA: I think so, but if we don't have something else that we ought to get down on this tape, maybe we'll complete our interview.
CARTER: Okay.
ERQUIAGA: I do thank you very much for taking the time and
CARTER: Oh, hey, it's fun to talk and reminisce. ERQUIAGA: It really is. Thank you very much.

Anita Eriquiaga

Mary Getto Carter

190 West Center Street Fallon, Nevada.