Beale Cann Oral History

Beale Cann Oral History

Beale Cann Oral History

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

April 27, 1991

Analog Cassette Tape, Txt File, MP3 Audio

English

48:47 minutes

128kbps/44100hz

CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
BEALE CANN
April 27, 1991
OH
Can
This interview was conducted by Eleanor Ahern; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norma Morgan; final typed by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum and Sylvia Arden, Consultant.
PREFACE
When I first walked into the Cann's home it was like stepping back into the past of the graceful Victorian Era. The furnishings and interior architecture of the house reflected the Victorian style. Some of the furniture had been restored by Mr. Cann and looked to be in excellent condition, but then this was Mr. Cann's pastime--restoring old things, especially antique cars. After the interview, Mr. and Mrs. Cann took me on a tour of his shop which houses his collection of restored vehicles. It almost seemed as though the contents of the shop had come from Harrah's auto collection. There was a 1923 and 1916 Model T, a Model A, 1923 REO Speed Wagon (truck), 1937 Pakcard, 1947 Plymouth, a 1937 Chevy pickup, and a horse-drawn milk wagon with the Creamland Dairy logo on the side panel. Each vehicle had been painstakingly restored to its original new condition almost as the day it came out of the factory.
Mr. Cann likes his personal cars with a little "get up and go" to them. He once drove his Gullwing Mercedes up to 110 miles per hour, thereby resulting in a speediing ticket. Today at eighty-one years old [November 7, 1910], Mr. Cann drives something a bit more sedate--a sporty, sleek black Ford Probe.
Mr. Cann is the founder of the Creamland Dairy.
[Ed: Mr. Cann's parents were Eli Cann and Edna Beale Cann.]
1
Interview with Beale Cann
This is Eleanor Ahern of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project interviewing Beale Cann at his residence, 30 East Richards Street, Fallon, Nevada. The date is April 27, 1091. The time is one forty-five and we are in the dining room of Mr. Cann's home.
AHERN: Good afternoon, Mr. Cann.
CANN: Good afternoon.
AHERN: Could you please give me your full name?
CANN: Oh my, that's kind of questionable. My name is really Ernest Beale Cann, but I've never gone by the name of
Ernest. It's just been Beale.
AHERN: Why have you never gone by the name of Ernest?
CANN: No particular reason.
AHERN: Could you explain your name, Beale?
CANN: It's my mother's maiden name. That's where we arrived at that one.
AHERN: Where were your parents from?
CANN: My mother was born in Iowa, and my father came from England. I believe it was Cramlington, England where he was born. I think he was seventeen or eighteen years old before he came to this country and he came by steerage. He hadn't gone to school at that time. He started the first grade when he was eighteen years old after he worked in the coal mines to help pay for his father's farm in Kansas. He says it only took him a very short period of time to graduate from grammar school and he had a grant to the University of Kansas, graduating as a practicing attorney.
AHERN: What made him come to the United States?
CANN: Well, his father had come previously, and he'd understood that farming was lucrative in this country and life was better, so he came over first and then the mother and the children followed.
AHERN: So when your father came from England, he arrived in Kansas?
CANN: That's right, he went to Kansas and worked in the coal
2
mine there.
AHERN: What was the reason for him never attending school, or had he attended school in England?
CANN: No, to the best of my knowledge, he hadn't. I assume that he was probably working to help support the family, and that was the reason he continued to work in the mines after he arrived in the States, to help pay for the property there.
AHERN: So at the age of seventeen he started first grade?
CANN: He started in the first grade, right.
AHERN: And did he continue on to the high school?
CANN: Yes, he continued right on through then. I honestly don't know how he financed things, but at times he would mention having lived with someone or worked and helped them with their various chores. So he had quite an interesting time. When he completed his college, law school, he moved to Denver and practiced law in Denver and then started following the mining camps at Cripple Creek and Victor.
AHERN: Where is Cripple Creek and Victor?
CANN: They're in Colorado also. They're quite near Denver. Then, of course, the boom was out here in Wonder, so he came to Nevada.
AHERN: How did your parents meet?
CANN: My father was the attorney up there and my mother was the first school teacher in Wonder. So that was the way they met.
AHERN: Then from what I understand, you were born in Wonder?
CANN: That's right [Nov. 7, 1910].
AHERN: Did you live long in Wonder?
CANN: Just a very short period of time. From what my folks told me, I was only there about two months. My father had come to Fallon to practice law here and she brought me down. I was born up there, though.
AHERN: So, from Wonder you settled in Fallon?
CANN: That's right.
3
AHERN: And have you been in Fallon ever since?
CANN: Well, yes, .really I have, attending school and working here and there. Basically, this has been home.
AHERN: So you spent your formative years in Fallon?
CANN: That's right.
AHERN: Attended school. What did you do after high school?
CANN: Well, I stayed out for a year or so after high school. For one year I worked at the sugar beet factory which was here in Churchill County.
AHERN: Where was it located?
CANN: Just east of the cemetery. In fact, it encompasses a portion, I believe, of the present cemetery on the east end of the cemetery area. And it was a real, real large building, quite an operation and was the second time that it was run. The first time, oh, I don't know, it must have been fifteen years prior to that, they had a very unsuccessful campaign. Anyway they lost money on it and, subsequently, they revamped the building and I spent all one summer, as I recall.
AHERN: Do you remember what year it was?
CANN: It was the year I graduated from high school, 1927. They did mechanical work, putting new bearings in all the shafts and that sort of thing, and then, of course, when the factory was ready to run, I continued on. I was going to be an oiler and then someone decided that I should be a timekeeper instead, so I was kinda elevated a little bit. The salary wasn't any better.
AHERN: What was the salary then?
CANN: As I recall, we worked twelve-hour shifts and I think we got thirty-five cents an hour. It wasn't really very lucrative (laughing). At the time, though, it was fine, satisfactory.
AHERN: As a child growing up in Fallon, you grew up basically, what I would consider a city kid? You weren't raised on a farm or anything?
CANN: No, my house is still here. It's at the end of
Stillwater Avenue on 356 South Taylor Street.
4
AHERN: That's wh'ere you grew up?
CANN: That's where I grew up. The folks rented a house when they first came down. Then this house was being built, so I imagine probably within a couple of years, we moved into this house and that was it.
AHERN: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
CANN: No.
AHERN: How did it feel growing up as an only child of professional parents?
CANN: Oh, you know if you don't know anything different, it doesn't mean a thing to you. You accept it and that's a
way of life, that's all. I didn't miss anything, not realizing that. Had I missed something, I didn't know it. (laughing)
AHERN: When your mother came to town from Wonder, did she continue her teaching career?
CANN: No. In fact, it was up until later years married women couldn't teach. For a long period of time two members of the same family couldn't teach. In fact, when I was first married, my wife [Dorothy Ernst Cann] was a school teacher, but she couldn't teach after we were married.
AHERN: Were you also a teacher?
CANN: No.
CANN: But she couldn't teach for the very fact that she was married?
CANN: Yeah. Two people couldn't be employed. You know it was during depression years at that time.
AHERN: So it sounded like in order to give someone else a chance at the job.
CANN: Basically, that's what it amounted to.
AHERN: That's interesting. So after your time with the sugar beet factory, when that ended, where did you go?
CANN: Well, where did I go? I'm quite certain that I worked for the Bureau of Reclamation up in Truckee. We were doing some preliminary survey work and that was prior to the building of the numerous dams up there that
5
eventually brought the water down to this area. It really operated out of what is now the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District office, but it was the Bureau of Reclamation. That's what they called it at the time.
During all my younger years when I was going to school, I really became interested in some blacksmiths. These two brothers were blacksmiths here and so, as a kid, after school, why I'd end up at the blacksmith shop [155 N Maine St.] and watch them. On Saturdays, why, I was at the blacksmith shop some more.
Then as time went on, a sheet metal and plumber man moved into the back of that building. So, I just kind of gravitated back to the sheet metal, plumbing end of it. Down through the years I learned an awful lot, mechanically, from him. He drove a number of cars and built an airplane. I have pictures of most of all this stuff. I was able to be involved in building a lot of these things. Then, if he needed some help periodically, I might get paid a little bit for spending a few hours or a few days, even, on the job. In fact, when I graduated from the University in 1933, I was looking for something to do and this fellow, Ed Smith, said, "Well, I have to put in a sprinkling system in the new City Hall. Do you want to come over and help me?" So I cut and threaded all the pipe by hand in those days and he put it in place.
AHERN: Did you attend the University after high school?
CANN: Yes, I was out one year and then I went up there.
AHERN: What was your major?
CANN: In economics with a minor in Spanish. Actually, I guess maybe I was halfway in a prelegal course, with that possible thought in mind. During the Depression, why it was pretty hard to visualize. It was almost impossible to continue, that's all, pretty tough.
AHERN: So rather than put your degree to use, you started using your hands?
CANN: That's about what it amounted to. Yes, I worked for the Indian Service over in Schurz. Well, I guess prior to that, I should say that during alternate times when I was out of work, why I ended up being involved in road construction [J. N. Tedford Co.] and I was driving truck. Then I finally really graduated and got a job as plant superintendent running a gravel plant, for the princely sum of a hundred and eighty dollars a month.
6
That was big money then. Anyway then I got this job with the Indian Service because there wasn't any road work at the time. So I spent the biggest part of the year over there operating a caterpillar--well, we called it that. It was a cat-type tractor. It wasn't a caterpillar, it was an Allis-Chalmers. It was one of the biggest ones that I'd ever seen. So that was quite an experience with them, too. They finally decided that after an Indian riding with me for almost a year on that thing that maybe an Indian should run it, so that's the way it was. An Indian ran it after that. So that was the end of my career with the Indian Service. So then it was probably shortly after that that we were married and started building a house out where the dairy is today.
AHERN: Now, how did you meet Mrs. Cann?
CANN: It was during our high school years.
AHERN: How did you meet here then?
CANN: I don't know, she was probably a sophomore or junior
year of high school that we became acquainted.
AHERN: Did you have a large wedding?
CANN: Well, this is something that was a little different. In view of the fact that she couldn't work if we were married, why we were married secretly in Yerinyton.
AHERN: What year was this?
CANN: That was in 1932 and then, I guess it was in 1933--our folks didn't know. My dad knew it, as she told him. The word kinda leaked out and somebody put me on the spot up there in Reno and I said, "No, we weren't married." And she [Mrs. Cann] said, "What'll I do about it?" I said, "Well, you go talk to Dad." And so she talked to Dad and he said, "Well, don't say anything. Nobody'll bother to check it out anyway." So nothing was done and then the rest of the family, not knowing we were married, well, we said we oughta be married again. So we were married a second time here in Fallon.
AHERN: When you were first married, you were still living in Fallon?
CANN: No, she was. I was going to school and she was teaching in the high school here in Fallon.
7
AHERN: She had already graduated?
CANN: She had already graduated, yes. I stayed out that one year and then I stayed out another year at the end of my junior year up there, so I was just a couple of years behind. I had to work to get a little more money to go back to school.
AHERN: When you said you had that house built, what made you establish a dairy?
CANN: That was kind of a unique thing.
AHERN: Tell me about it.
CANN: When we moved out there, I didn't know anything about house building, but in any event I built a house. There was a man here, Mr. Carlson, that was a contractor and he was really a cabinetmaker and a very, very accomplished man. Dad said, "Why don't you go talk to Mr. Carlson?" So I went and saw him and he kinda steered me as how to start. He didn't ever come out or anything, but I thought, "Well, you oughta pour a foundation and so on." But he said "No, the house you're going to build is going to be small," so he said, " you don't need that. Just go out and get some big rocks and then you set those on the ground and then put up your four by fours for support." In any event, we went ahead and built the two-room house with provisions for a bath when and if we ever had running water. There was no power, no electricity, so we didn't have any. We had to use coal oil lights. We got the house so it was livable, but we were broke by that time and Dad, I think, gave us twenty or thirty dollars. I know that was a tremendous amount of money and we went to Reno and we got some linoleum and went to a used furniture place, got a bed and a mattress. We got a number of things. Gee, we did real well with that money. I'm telling you it spread out a long ways.
But in any event we lived in that house for quite a little while and then my dad had a cow in town and he thought that we needed that cow worse than he, so we took that cow out there. One day this Mrs. Frazzini--they used to own the furniture store here--came out and she said, "You know, the man from whom I've been buying milk has increased their price from twenty cents a gallon to twenty-five cents. Would you mind selling me milk for twenty cents a gallon?" We were thrilled to death. Anything to make that quarter was wonderful-or that twenty cents. So anyhow, that was the start of the dairy business with that one cow and Mrs.
8
Frazzini's wanting that gallon of milk.
AHERN: By supplying Mrs. Frazzini, did you end up receiving more customers?
CANN: That's true. More and more people learned that we had milk available so then, as time went on, we managed to buy another cow now and then and it developed into, oh-I was milking about twenty, twenty-five cows by hand. Finally I got a used milking machine and that helped out a little. It was all raw milk at that time too. Then about the time that the Navy first moved in here, they were looking for milk supplies that had to be pasteurized, of course, but other than that there weren't many restrictions on cleanliness or anything else, just so we had milk. But this fellow by the name of York out here made the main connection with them and he was supplying them. We eventually bought him out, so that's what got us into the pasteurization of it. And it just gradually grew and grew and grew until we had more demand and more modern equipment all the time.
AHERN: In all this time, when you started your dairy business, were you the only one there to do everything?
CANN: You mean the actual work? Oh, my wife did. She delivered around town.
AHERN: When Mrs. Frazzini first asked you for her first milk
order, what type of container . . ?
CANN: Oh, they'd bring their own container. Lots of people had a, well just a regular like the little small half gallon jugs, you know. How they washed them goodness knows, I don't. I guess they had a bottle brush. Others ended up with metal cans. In fact, going back when I was younger in grammar school, my dad had the cow and there were two people in town that wanted milk and so they were selling to them by the quart. They put it in little lard buckets, they called them, and
there were lids that fit on them. I delivered milk on my bicycle--these little lard can--so it was the lard-can deal all over again out there where we started, I guess. Bring it over in a ten-gallon can and pour it out for them. Then, eventually, I remember we made a trip down to Oakland for some reason.
AHERN: Is this Oakland, California?
CANN: Uh huh. And had an sheet metal company make us a stainless steel tank. I guess it was maybe eighteen inches wide, two feet long, and about a foot deep and
9
spigot oh the end of it and we'd pour the .milk in that. Then I built a table with a step on it so we could put their container on the step and then open the valve and fill their container with it. That was making progress then.
AHERN: How many children do you have?
CANN: Two, a boy and a girl [Beale Cann, Feb. 17, 1936 and Frances Cann Smitten, Oct. 26, 1939].
AHERN: Did they in turn begin helping you with the dairy business?
CANN: The boy was always quite interested in it all right. As for Frances she was going to school, I guess, I don't know. He was too. But, they both helped deliver and they were always right there. They helped a lot.
AHERN: Besides milk at the dairy, what else were you selling?
CANN: At the dairy? Well, there was a time when we sold meat during the war, you know, when they had red stamps and rationed--all this thing. Actually when the rationing came in, we quit selling meat because their red stamps drove me nuts. I didn't want to fool with them any more. But nevertheless, we did get involved in the meat business which was something else on the side too. This man that we knew came by once and he said, "Would you mind if I came out to your place here and picked chickens and rabbits and cleaned them?" Then he says, "I'm going to sell them in various areas." So, he did. He bought a lot of chickens and rabbits and butchered them. That was really the start of the milk business, I guess, and our meat business. We went in together on it and of course it ended up, us being on the short end of the--receiving end of the things--I guess. It cost us quite a little to get out of it, to get rid of him, because he kinda got the best of us, but then those things happen, too. Nevertheless, we went through a weak, daunting year --selling experience, so I learned to cut meat then, too. But it was different than it is today. The cuts are different.
AHERN: But, you did sell more than just milk at the dairy?
CANN: Well, yes. Basically, it was dairy products all right.
After I got out and my son took over, he got into ice cream. We had cream and cottage cheese and sour cream and that sort of thing. But he got into eggs and cheeses and numerous other things.
10
AHERN: Did he make his own ice cream? Was everything made there at the dairy?
CANN: No, the ice cream wasn't, but everything else, cottage cheese and sour cream, all the processing, everything was done there, chocolate milk, two percent, skim milk, all that.
AHERN: Did the dairy have a name?
CANN: Creamland.
AHERN: Who came up with that name, Creamland?
CANN: Well, that was an odd thing. Initially, we started out
as Cann's Dairy and one day I was talking to a man by the name of Freddie Marsh. In fact, his daughter works at Safeway today. Freddie was working at the Mercantile at the time. Anyway he was a hardware salesman and he said, "You know, Creamland would be a good name for your dairy." I got to thinking about that and thought "By golly, maybe that's all right." Then for some reason I had run into a milk bottle that had the word "Creamland" and, I think it was from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was kinda fascinated with the design, the way they had put the name on, it was kinda curved on the bottle. So anyway, the name stuck. We had to file down at the courthouse that we were doing business as Creamland Dairy. That was the start of that part of it.
AHERN: Did you enjoy being in the dairy business?
CANN: Well, I never was inclined to be farm oriented at all, but you know it was just circumstances. That's the whole thing, it wasn't intentional. Far from it, goodness knows, my background (laughing) wasn't really geared to that sort of an operation. That's the way we ended up.
AHERN: Have you ever put your major in economics into use in the dairy business?
CANN: Oh, I think probably enough of it rubbed off that it probably helped a little bit, I don't know--there are things that you acquire that, I think, carry over and are worthwhile for you.
Then I was appointed by then Governor Grant Sawyer to the State Dairy Commission and served for quite a period of time on that.
11
AHERN: How old were you then?
CANN: Oh goodness, I don't know how old I was then. That was well after the dairy had started. It was during Governor Sawyer's administration.
AHERN: What year was that?
CANN: I just can't tell you offhand. I was through his
administration and then, who was the next governor? Laxalt was the next one. So I served all during Laxalt's term of office and then into about half of O'Callahan's. Then a little friction developed there. It was best that I no longer be a member of the Commission.
AHERN: As a Commission member, what were your duties?
CANN: At the time, you were supposed to set the price of
milk. There was so much unfair competition, cutthroat, business going on that it was unbelievable some of the things that were going on. Price cutting and gouging and kickbacks to stores and buying refrigeration equipment for the stores to get space, and some pretty vicious things went on there. And we tried to control it.
AHERN: Were you successful?
CANN: Well, up to a point. Some people were fined quite heavily by the Commission for infractions, but, actually, it got to the point where they finally condoned these rebates and did away with the guidelines that had been established and it was pretty easy to administer after that. You weren't fighting anything and you'd just go ahead and give it away. It was fine, give them the discounts and rebates. So we were fighting an uphill battle, all right, then, but in later years it turned out that they got along easier.
AHERN: Then what was your next venture after being one of the Commissioners?
CANN: Oh, I don't know. Prior to that time I served on the school board.
AHERN: Which school board?
CANN: Well, initially, we had just the Churchill County High School. That was separate from the Consolidated B District School. So I was initially elected to serve on the Churchill County High School. Then the counties
12
all consolidated their school districts. was State
law. The end result was that I was selected to be a member of this new school board. So there were two of us. Let's see there was Bill Boman, Hannah Palludan, myself. And Bill and I were selected to go with the Con B members that were selected. Other than Ramon Arrizabalaga I don't recall the members of that initial board, but I do remember the majority of the people that I served with. Carl Dodge was one of them, George Frey was another, Dale Hansen was one, Gilbert Testolin, Jim Wood, Ken Tedford. There was quite a group down through the years. So I was on there quite
a long, well, longer than I should have been. In retrospect, a person looks back and you become indoctrinated with a philosophy of the administration, I think, and you aren't looking at things objectively any more. So I think there's a time when one should get off of the commission, board, because you aren't doing the job after awhile. But, people don't seem to realize it. They've started a project, they want to see it through and I can see that point of view too, but I don't know. Looking back, I stayed too long.
AHERN: Coming back to your childhood years, do you remember your parents talking about their time at Wonder?
CANN: Not a great deal. Occasionally they would mention someone or there'd be someone living in town here who had previously lived in Wonder. Due to my dad's legal work, he acquired an interest in a mine up there and that was the one that I eventually acquired. There was equipment on the mine a big hoist and all kinds of stuff there. The man who had started that thing was from New York and I think it was a stock promotion through and through and I think that he cast a little money in, just put enough in out there to make people smile, you know, and happy. I don't remember much discussion about Wonder, really. I do recall, my folks were quite active in the Masonic Lodge and Eastern Star and they would go to various places in the state to these various conventions. When they were gone I'd be sent up to Wonder to spend my time up there.
AHERN: Who did you spend time with?
CANN: Mrs. Smith was her name. She owned the Monarch Hotel up there.
AHERN: Was she a relative?
CANN: No, just an acquaintance. In later years she moved to Fallon and had a restaurant here in town and her
13
daughter was also a school teacher here in the school, Gladys Smith.
But I do remember burros used to wander around the town up there and every once in awhile we'd go and catch a burro and ride it.
AHERN: Were they wild?
CANN: Well, they just wandered around. I don't know whether you'd call them wild or not, they were tame enough that we'd get ahold of them.
AHERN: Were they ever used for any of the mining work?
CANN: Not at that time. They had been, I'm sure, previously, but I think they were basically wild, but maybe they were gentle and there was food available I suppose I got acquainted with a couple of kids up there, I remember too, that lived up there.
AHERN: When you were sent to stay up at Wonder, how old were you?
CANN: I would imagine I was probably eight, nine years old, something like that.
AHERN: How long did you stay there?
CANN: Oh, usually, it'd be a week, ten days, two weeks at a time, just enough to keep me occupied, I guess. As long as the folks were gone somewhere.
AHERN: After your folks' marriage, how long were they in Wonder?
CANN: How long were they at Wonder? Oh, my, I think Dad must have been there probably about four years and I don't think my mother was there much more than two years. I do remember pictures, though, of the schoolhouse which was unique. It was a real small little cabin-type thing. The outside was covered with tar paper and they used little funny washers to hold the tar paper on, the nail doesn't do a darn thing. You've probably seen some of those things around. There's that little old black shack up there and that was the schoolhouse. Then my folks did own a home up there in Wonder and it was not a bad looking little house and I have a picture somewhere. When they were married, there were shoes all around the porch entryway, someone had tied onto it there. In later years that house was moved down to Frenchman's Station there in the middle of the desert.
14
It sat there for a number of years then disappeared. In addition to that he owned an office building out there too, but when he walked away from it, that was the end of it.
AHERN: And your dad practiced law up in Wonder?
CANN: Uh-huh.
AHERN: When you were spending your time up in Wonder, did you enjoy it?
CANN: Yes, I think so, I think I did because it was different. I don't remember getting into too much mischief there, though I probably didn't I could've. I do recall that I was told that I shouldn't go over to these people's house. They lived right near the hotel too. She was always good for some cookies though, I remember that. So even if I shouldn't go over there, it was a good place to visit as far as I was concerned. I do recall seeing the miners going to work. The last time I was in Wonder you could see the trail that they'd beaten up walking back and forth from the town up to the mill.
AHERN: What were they mining in Wonder?
CANN: It was silver, basically. There was some gold, I think, but basically silver.
AHERN: How did you spend your time at Wonder?
CANN: Oh, goodness, like I say I got acquainted with these two children and I guess we, just like kids, just did things, that was all. You see, here in town, I was so occupied between the blacksmith shop and the sheet metal shop that I wasn't very concerned about running around very much. Oh I had friends, we'd go riding on a bicycle or go swimming and that sort of thing.
AHERN: Do you remember taking vacations with your parents?
CANN: A few. When we did, it was camping. We would take the tent and I remember my dad had a big kind of a box mounted on the running board of the car. I remember all the food went in that and the bedding was kind of a bedroll and they had foldup beds and a table that folded up and chairs and tent and put all that stuff in the old Model T Ford. We used to go up to Tahoe occasionally. But now that was something else, too. It was a day's trip. We'd go to Carson City one day and up to Tahoe the next day and that was fifteen to
AHERN: 15
eighteen miles up to Tahoe. It took the biggest part of the day to get up there in those old Model T's. They didn't travel very rapidly. Then in later years my grandparents had moved to Clarkston, Washington, so we would go up there for the summer several times. My mother and I would spend the whole summer up there. My granddad always loved to fish so he kept us busy all right.
Now that you're retired, how do you occupy your time now?
CANN: Well, mostly with the cars.
AHERN: What cars are you talking about?
CANN: Well, I have restored a lot of cars. I shouldn't say a lot, probably fourteen, fifteen. But my son has two of them that I restored for him.
AHERN: What kind of cars are they?
CANN: One of them is a 1928 Lincoln, a convertible-type with roll-up windows. It's the only one of the bunch that's really a true classic. It's the outstanding one of the bunch that I did. The other one I did for him was a 1929 Buick. I just finished that one in the last
eight, ten months. That was a major project. Everyone liked that, because the body, itself, under the metal, is all wood and it was all rotted out and I didn't even have enough left for patterns in places so it was just an ongoing thing. I thought I'd never get through with that darn car. Then I restored a 1959 Corvette for my daughter and that was fiberglass and I said I'll never do that again. I learned a couple of lessons.
Going back to the beginning, Dorothy said, "I would love to have a Model T." I said, "You find one and I'll see if I can make it run." And she was delivering milk at the time. Next day she came home, she said, "I
found a Model T." "The heck you did." "It's out in
Ione." So there was nothing to do but we went to Ione to look. Now for twenty-five dollars we bought a Model T, made another trip out and hauled it home. Pretty pathetic looking, but in any event why it was there. And eventually, I bought two more Model T's around here for parts and managed to get it going. Since then why there are any number of companies that are building parts for Model T's. So anyway that was the start of it, but since then we have those and I have a 1930 Model A out there [in his shop], 1937 Packard, 1925 Reo, and there's another Reo that's probably a 1922 or
16
1923 that's not finished, a 1937 Chevrolet pickup and oh, a horsedrawn milk wagon. What else is out there? Oh, there is a 1940 model Plymouth and a Model A. I guess that's about the size of it. That's all I can think of right now anyway.
But we did go through a period of time, too, that we were sports car enthusiasts. And, I don't know, the first one we bought, what in the heck was it? Probably a Jaguar was the first one and we had three different Jags and then we had a Triumph TR2 and that was in the early days of the Triumphs and bought a Porsche 1600, that was way back, too. Then we got real extravagant and really splurged ourselves and we bought a Gullwing Mercedes and at the time why we kinda thought we were overextending ourselves. I think it cost about seven thousand dollars and today that car is selling for four hundred to four hundred fifty thousand. It's unreal.
AHERN: What did you do with these sports cars?
CANN:
AHERN:
Oh, we just finally sold them little by little. The Mercedes I thought was kinda awkward to get into and it was. It was inconvenient as the dickens. You'd have to sit down first and swing your legs over to get into the thing. It was inconvenient, but it was an extremely high performance car for those days. In fact it'd compare with a good part of them even today. Some of my kids were interested in it. My daughter drove the Triumph to high school all the time, and my son was kinda enthused, so he bought an MG and then as time went on why he acquired one of our Jags and we got another one, so we've been kinda car nuts, really. In fact my granddaughter was asking about it when she was doing her research. I tried to count up, and I think I came up with a figure of about seventy-two cars that I've had and that didn't count the trucks that we've purchased for the dairy operation.
Looking back on your life, if you kinda had an inclination that you wouldn't be using your economics degree, would you have majored in something else or done something different?
CANN: You know, I had no specific goal, nothing in mind. Actually I think the reason I went college was because my parents expected me to. No, I don't suppose, I probably wouldn't have gone to school, probably not. But now, our children came along and they had an opportunity to go to school, but they didn't want to. And they've both been very, very successful, so that degree isn't all important.
17
AHERN: What would you have wanted to do had you not gone into the dairy business?
CANN: That's an awful hard thing to answer. You know, I probably would have been in some sort of construction
or mechanical work. I built all the buildings out there, actually laid the bricks myself, did the carpenter work, cabinet work, wiring, plumbing, so I probably would have done something in that order. That was it. Really, the person I can give credit to is Ed Smith, who is the sheet metal plumber, actually. He was really an accomplished person. I learned an awful lot from him.
AHERN: Well, Mr. Cann, on behalf of the Churchill County Museum I'd like to thank you for this interview.
CANN: Well, you're very welcome.
Beale Cann Index to
Bureau of Reclamation Page
Camping 4-5
14-15
Cann, Beale (Skip) 9
Cann, Dorothy Ernst 4, 6
Cann, Edna Preface, 1-2
Cann, Eli Preface, 1-2
Cann, Ernest Beale 2
birth
Car restoration 15-16
Construction work 5-6
Creamland Dairy
See dairy business
Dairy business 7-10
Marriage 6-7
Meat business 9
School board 11-12
Smith, Ed 5, 17
Smith, Mrs. 12-13
Smitten, Frances Cann 9
State Dairy Commission 10-11
Sugar beet factory 3
University days 5-7
Wonder, NV 2, 12-14

Eleanor Ahern

Beale Cann

30 East Richards, Fallon, NV 89406