Della Renfro Oats Oral History

Della Renfro Oats Oral History

Della Renfro Oats Oral History

Churchill County Museum Association

Churchill County Museum Association

June 5, 1991

Analog Cassette Tape, Text File, Mp3 Audio

English

Audio Cassette

2:28:51

CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
DELLA RENFRO OATS
June 5, 1991
This interview was conducted by Marian LaVoy; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Sylvia Arden; first draft by Pat Boden; final typed by Glenda Price; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum,

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are those of the interviewer and interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Churchill County Museum or any of its employees.

Preface: Della Renfro Oats exudes charm, self-assurance, and efficiency. On the morning of her interview, she entered my home with her niece, Margy Davis, and after a few minutes of getting to know one another, she sat at my table for this interview.
She has a remarkable memory and in her describing her early childhood dwelt briefly on the illness of her mother, which left the children in the care of their grandparents and father. Her father remarried and she spoke lovingly of her stepmother.
Live for the young Renfros in the Harmon District and later in the Island District gives the reader an Insight into life during the Great Depression.
School years are described and of particular interest are descriptions of her years at the University of Nevada in Reno. She was an excellent athlete, a good scholar, and worked to earn her tuition and spending money. The untimely death of her father was a stunning blow, but she continued her education and eventually became an outstanding educator. She served two terms on the Churchill County School board and was a valuable asset to the board.
The Oats family were pioneer Fallon residents and sons of Alfred and John became active in the Dairy business. At one time, they had the highest producing Holstein herd in the United States. Della was hostess to people from all over the world who made special trips to view the dairy operation and buy the famous cattle that Alfred had spent his entire live developing through cross breeding and artificial insemination.
Della continued her teaching career, raised her family, and stood dutifully by Alfred during his final long illness. She now resides in Battle Mountain, Nevada with her daughter and son-in-law who are both outstanding teachers and visits her son who is a prominent tax lawyer in Reno. As Della says, “Life has become good.”


Interview with Della Renfro Oats
This is Marian Hennen LaVoy of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project interviewing Della Renfro Oats at my home 4325 Schurz Highway, Fallon. The date is June 5, 1991.
LaVOY: Good afternoon, Della.
OATS: Hi, how are you doing?
LaVOY: Just fine, thank you. Della, I'd like to ask you,
would you give me the name of your parents?
OATS: Yes, my mother was Margaret [Ione] Shipe. She married my father, who's Charles Wesley Renfro.
LaVOY: When were they married? Do you have any idea roughly? Well, where were they married?
OATS: Oh, they were married [Oct, 18, 1905] in Berkeley, California.
LaVOY: And how did they happen to come to Fallon?
OATS: My father always had the idea that he loved ranching. He was raised on a ranch in Madera. My father was forced to quit school after grade four to work on the ranch. His father promised him if he would stay with him until he was twenty-one years old he would give him a team of horses which was quite valuable in those days. My father quit school and when he was twenty-one there were no horses given so he went to California to Oakland. He worked for the railroad there. He put himself through business college while working for the railroad. My mother's sister was married to the fella he was working with and he introduced my father to his wife's sister. That was my mother. They were married down there.

LaVOY: And how long did they live down there before the came to Fallon?
OATS: I understand they lived there five years and then my father had this idea, the freedom and the peace he would get to go back to ranching made him take a homestead in the Harmon District. He homesteaded a hundred and sixty acres.

LaVOY: Now, were any of the children born in California?
OATS: Yes, the oldest one in the family, my brother, Donald, was born in Berkeley in 1907 down there and they stayed there about three years before they came to Fallon.

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LaVOY: Then who was the second child in the family?
OATS: I was born, I was the Second one. I was born in 1911.
LaVOY: Were you born in Fallon or in Berkeley?
OATS: My mother went down to Berkeley with her folks to have her next two children. I was born in Berkeley and then came back to Fallon maybe in three weeks.
LaVOY: What was your birthdate?
OATS: January 23, 1911.
LaVOY: And then your sister, when was she born?
OATS: Eleanor was born July 21, 1913.
LaVOY: So then she, too, came back up to Fallon after birth?
OATS: Right. Her folks believed this was wild country up here and so they wanted her back down there where she'd have a doctor and could have her children.
LaVOY: Just for our record, what were the names of her folks?
OATS: Mr. and Mrs. Will Shipe.
LaVOY: Fine, now suppose you tell me something about your father's ranching here in Fallon. You said that you were in the Harmon District.
OATS: Yes, when I was probably two and a half he left that place--I presume he sold it--and leased the Leo Pinger ranch. Mr. Pinger was very interested in the gold strike in Alaska so he went up there and my father leased the ranch for about five years. There my sister, Bernice was born, and my mother had the baby at the house. I went to school there in the Island District for two years. We rode horses to get there.

LaVOY: Where was the school?
OATS: In the Island District.
LaVOY: Now where is that?
OATS: That is, oh, I would say, five miles south of the Dodge
place. It is destroyed now. The school is not still standing.
LaVOY: Do you remember any teachers from that district?

OATS: I was only there for two years. I remember the Schafer family, the children went. My mother took sick when I was in the second, grade and we went to Berkeley so she could have medical attention. The teacher, I've forgotten her name, decided I should skip to the third grade and a small school like that, one teacher taught all eight grades. If you were in the first, second, or third grade you could listen to the spelling, the arithmetic of all the students and I probably excelled then in these major [subjects], you know, so she sent me a note to California when we went down there, to be skipped into the third grade. When I got there and got into third grade one of the questions she said, "What history book did you use?" I said, "We never had history." "What geography did you use?" I said, "We never had geography." "Well," she said, "I think you better go back to second grade where you should be." Which I did, so, in other words, we had reading, writing, and arithmetic (laughing) and spelling in the country school that I attended.

LaVOY: Well, how long did you attend school in Berkeley?
OATS: One year. I attended the third grade there and then my mother took quite ill. We were with my grandmother but with the four little children it was too much for her so my father came down and rented a place for her not too far from my grandmother's. And, oh, I should say, in the meantime, we moved to what is now the Dodge place and my father kept my brother, Donald, that was the oldest one in the family. The other four of us stayed with my mother in the house until she just was not able to take care of us. At that time my mother had several sisters. Each one took a child and they kept us until I'd finished the third grade in Berkeley. Then we were too much for my mother's relatives so my father got one of his sisters who was married, never had children, but she did want, so she took the four of us younger children. We were in Oil Fields, California, for one year. I attended the fourth grade there. At that time my father hired someone to keep house for us. That was Louise Wendt. She had married Otto Baumann and he was working for my father. It was the present Dodge Ranch but at that time it as owned by R. L. Douglass and at the time my mother was then quite ill. As I say, I spent my fourth grade in California.
Then we returned to Nevada and my father hired Louise Wendt Baumann. Her husband had died a short time before with spinal meningitis. She had two little children age one year and four at the time and she kept house and took care of us and later she became my stepmother.

LaVOY: Well, that's very interesting. Did your mother pass away?
OATS: Not at that time, not for a number of years.
LaVOY: Well, tell me now, you were living out on the Island District on this ranch. What was life like out there?
OATS: R.L. Douglass owned the ranch and it was a combination of the Charlie Frey Ranch where Judy lives now and the present Dodge Ranch. We were on the thirteen hundred and sixty acres that R.L. Douglass and my dad came to some agreement, some partnership, and I think they were in business for probably two or three years and they had a falling out. Either my father didn't meet what he expected or wasn't able to make the payments like he expected. We left there and went to the Wightman Ranch where he was for one year. Then when my father was at the Douglass Ranch he had invented the first net and low wagons to take the whole wagon load of hay off to put it in the stack in one operation. Previous they had these big forks and it would take any number of forks to take the loose hay--there were no baling hay at that time--and take it off. So he had invented these nets--I imagine it was the first in Churchill County--I don't know about other places and he felt those were his when he left the ranch. R.L. Douglass said, "That is now my property," and my father had invested his money and so forth in making these three wagons with the nets. So one dark night, with the help of someone else that I do not know, he went to the ranch and took those back to the Wightman Ranch. The next day R.L. Douglass came and said, "You have stolen my property. I want it back." And my dad said, "They're not yours. Try and get 'em back." We never heard about 'em again, they were there. Then probably the next year, R. L. Douglass came back and he could not run the ranch by himself and he asked my father to come back under another contract. We went back and altogether I imagine he had done business about five years with R. L. Douglass. Then, R. L. Douglass at that time was head of the IRS in Nevada. It paid well and it was a political job and so he didn't want the thirteen hundred and sixty acres to farm so he made an agreement with Bob and Carl Dodge and my father. Each one of the Dodges owned a third, my father owned one-third, and they went into business together and it was a very large ranch. They would get their hired help in the summer, I remember, before machinery when everything was done with horses. We would have maybe

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sixty men to cook for in the cookhouse during the summer. By the time they had one crop up it was time to start another one. Now, it was interesting to me to find out how they got their help. They used to call them tramps. They were the seasonal employees. What they would do is come into Fallon on the freight cars, free. They'd come to Hazen and there catch the Fallon train into Fallon. They would go down on Maine Street and if the sun was in their eyes they'd go to the other side and sit along the sidewalk in front of Kents' store. They would take a large truck with a big bed on the back. My father would go in and park there on Maine Street and go along here. These men were coming to get the summer jobs would maybe have a very slight bedroll and maybe one change of clothes and he would say, "I want this one and that one," and pick out the ones he thought would do the best of work and take 'em out. We lived ten miles out of town.
LaVOY: Excuse me, what did he pay them?
OATS: They were paid, as I recall a little later, two and a half a day for their work. Earlier, I imagine, it was much less. They would work and Saturday night he would furnish a truck to take the ones that wished to go into town to have their Saturday evening out. Maybe when he went back for 'em late that night there'd be a few of 'em that weren't able to get on the truck and we'd be short of a few hay hands Sunday morning. This went on and at the end of the season--we usually put up three crops of hay, then they would leave and probably go to another community.

LaVOY: Now tell me, did you help your stepmother do the cooking for these men?
OATS: Oh, my stepmother didn't do the cooking. Later on she did, but early we hired a cook. We paid that cook two and a half a day for her work. There could be a helper to do the dishes and help with vegetables and set the table, wait on the table and so forth and that person was hired then and would receive two and a half. Later on when we were older in high school, my stepmother did take over the cooking job. I think they raised the salary then to five dollars a day when there was a big crew. My sister, Eleanor, and I helped her. We did the dishes, of course, coal and wood stoves, no dishwashers. We didn't have breakable dishes, we had the unbreakable kind and you can imagine the food that had to be prepared for sixty men. We would work, we'd get up at least by five in the morning and the end of our day was eight at night.

LaVOY: Would those dishes have been the plates that had the enamel on them?
OATS: They were the enamel plates and they did chip.
LaVOY: Give me an example of what was cooked through a day.
OATS: Breakfast, oh, it was a full meal. Breakfast we'd have ham, eggs, potatoes, and of course coffee and a fruit. It was usually a dried fruit or applesauce. We had a big storage house that was for nothing but buying food by the large quantities. The bottom was a cellar where we could keep potatoes and onions and so forth and I imagine that house that stored the food probably was filled two or three times a year. A truck would bring in the products. I have no idea where they were ordered, but they came in cases, canned beans, canned peas, and so forth.
LaVOY: Well, now you mentioned what the breakfast was. What would lunch have been?
OATS: Oh, I beg your pardon, yes. Lunch was a full-course meal. Sometimes even for breakfast we had steak for the meat and for noon was always meat, potatoes, vegetables, salad and dessert, pie, cake, all homemade and the evening meal was another full-course dinner, meat potatoes, vegetables, and dessert, salad.
LaVOY: Well, everyone worked so hard.
OATS: Oh, no, it was a farmer's meal at all times.
LaVOY: Now, where did the men sleep?
OATS In bunk houses. The ones that brought a bedroll were able to put that on their little bunks. They probably had straw under them or hay and those that didn't have a bedroll just slept on the hay or straw.
LaVOY: That's very interesting. Life has certainly changed.
OATS: Oh, no refrigerator. We had a cooler. You know what I mean?
LaVOY: One that the ice was in?
OATS: No, not an icebox. These coolers were made and they kept cool by… we had burlap sacks on a big screen, like the sides of a box. There was a pan of water at the top and a pan underneath to catch the extra water and by evaporation that water went down the burlap, that's like the old
burlap sacks that they used in the farming and we had
it on the back porch where there could be a breeze and that really did well to keep our milk and so forth.
LaVOY: Well, did you make butter at that time?
OATS: Yes, we did, and that was one of the chores I did not like.
LaVOY: And tell me about that.
OATS: We had cows. They milked those and we separated the milk with a hand separator. Then you took the cream and churned the butter and it was a rather large churn but it was certainly something I didn't care to do. You never know, you had to get it just right or all at once it wasn't butter. It turned to water, watery.
LaVOY: Then after, did you have to work it with your hands to get the water out of it?
OATS: Yes, to put it in pats, in the butter patties.
LaVOY: Did you salt it?
OATS: Oh, yes, yes, and it was salted.
LaVOY: And that was kept in the coolers too?
OATS: Yes, and it was always just right to serve.
LaVOY: How often did you have to make butter?
OATS: I think we probably made it as often as we'd get quite a large container of cream.
LaVOY: Did you make cottage cheese too?
OATS: Yes, we did.
LaVOY: Tell me.
OATS: And I remember they'd put the milk on the back of the stove. We had an enormous cook stove. Oh, a few of the men had rooms, the ones that were there steady through the winter, would have rooms in this old cookhouse. It was an enormous building moved down from Virginia City when they had the silver rush up there and that was the cookhouse, the certain section was a cookhouse and the rest were rooms for the men that would stay year round.
LaVOY: Now how often did they make bread?


OATS: Probably every other day we made bread.
LaVOY: Now you say we, would that have been the cook and these girls?
OATS: Yes, yes. And, as I say, we did get paid when we were able to do it. We were in high school and so we had a little savings from that.

Well, that's very interesting. Now, regressing just a bit, where did you go to school? You said that you went to school through fifth grade, in California, then you came back here and where did you go?
As I say, I did the third grade in Berkeley and my father's aunt took us; I did the fourth grade in Oil Fields, California. Now that's about seventy miles from Fresno and ten miles from Coalinga. My uncle was working in the oil fields and then we came back to Fallon and that was at the time my father had hired someone to keep house for us which eventually was my stepmother. I went to school then in Fallon in the Consolidated B because the Dodge Ranch was in the district at that time. I went to school from the fifth grade to the twelfth grade in Churchill County. After I completed my freshman year my father said, "Now I know you're looking forward to college. I'M not going to be able to help you." In the meantime, of course, there was the five children of our immediate family, my stepbrother and my stepsister, and then, of course, when I was a sophomore in college, my father and stepmother had a son so that made eight, so he told me if I wanted to go to college, I should drive the school bus. No female in Churchill County had ever driven a bus, but since we were the last ones on the route and my brother had just graduated from high school, he went into town to see those in charge of the school buses and said, "I want my daughter to drive the bus." "Does she drive?" He said, "No, but I'm going to teach her this summer." So they said, "Well, no, females are not capable of doing something like this." And he coaxed them and he finally said, "If she causes any wreck, any damage, I will pay for it, but I want her to drive the bus." And the salary was twenty-five dollars a month. Well, they finally condescended and I was the bus driver. I drove it my sophomore, junior, and senior year. My father deposited my money in a savings account in the Fallon bank. I think I received one per cent interest and the time I finished high school I had seven hundred and fifty dollars in the savings. So with that it enabled me, with working all the time I

LaVOY: 9
attended UNR, to get through college.
Good. Now I want to regress just a little bit. Who were some of your teachers in, say, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade?

OATS: A Miss Gerjets was an art teacher… [long pause] Miss Laura Mills was a very fine teacher. [long pause] I would have to think about that.
LaVOY: Now who were some of your close playmates, close friends in these lower grades?
OATS: I tell you I had a very close friend. Her name was Verna Winters. Her father was District Attorney in Churchill County at the time. She was an only child at that time and I was, I think, both a comfort to her and she was to me. We were friends in the grade schools. Another one I recall is Melba Rogers. She married Boman who was later, years later, head of our bank in Churchill County and to tell you the truth we had no time for friends. We'd get on the bus in the morning, get to school, soon as school was out, you got on the bus, went home and had chores to do. We seldom ever got to town for anything. I can recall I attended one show during my high school career and that was when relatives came up from California and took us.
LaVOY:
OATS: Well now while you're still in grade school, did you have any pets or any animals that you enjoyed playing with out on the ranch?
Yes, we had stray cats that would come there, My father had a feeling that any dog or cat you'd pick up germs from, so we usually hid them and we did that on the side, we'd hide them and they would know when we'd take food to them. That way we were able to enjoy them and we had lots and lots of cats dumped. People would dump them off at the places, especially where there were a few dairy cattle where they could have their milk and so forth.

LaVOY: Did you have a horse?
OATS: Oh, yes, I did have a horse. In fact, I told you I
rode to school on a horse in the Island when we lived at Pinger Ranch that later Don Travis purchased and now his nephew is on there. I can't recall his name.
LaVOY: Do you recall the name of the horse?
OATS: Oh, yes, Molly was my horse. She was a rather large bay and her one problem was if she ever saw any water,

whether it was a mud puddle in the desert or the canal, it was right near our house; I had no control of her.
She'd lie down. I would jump off so I wouldn't be in
the mud with her or be rolled on.
LaVOY: She'd lie down with the saddle on?
OATS: Yes, oh, yes. [End of side of tape]
LaVOY: Well, it's very unusual to have a horse that lies down in the mud with the saddle on.
OATS: That was just her way of showing me she was boss. When I was on my way to school sometime if there'd been a hard rain, down in the mud she'd go and I would jump and then I would walk the rest of the way to school. My brother had a mustang and it was much livelier than Molly. My mother often hired a Mrs. Nobel who lived over on the Schurz Highway to come and help her sew. This particular day her husband had brought her over in the morning. She told her daughter, Dorothy--they had one child--to ride home with my brother on the back of his mustang to our place. That afternoon she told my brother -- They were both very bashful children, maybe sixth grade, fifth grade--she got on the back of his horse. She was too bashful to catch ahold, put her arms around his waist to stay on. I think he was riding bareback and there was a curve going from the school to our home. He rode very fast. He ran around this curve and Dorothy slipped off. He didn't know it. He came on home and her mother came out, said, "Where's Dorothy?" "Well, I don't know. I started out with her." And the poor mother was frantic. She thought she'd probably broken a leg, been killed or something, so I remember them running up the trail, up the ditch bank, and here comes Dorothy walking. She wasn't hurt, she'd just slipped off.
LaVOY: Oh, my. (laughing) Were there a lot of horses on the
ranch?
OATS: No, on the Pinger Ranch we just had the two saddle horses and when we got to which is now the Dodge Ranch, all the work was done by horses. There was no machinery at that time.
LaVOY: Were there a lot of horses?
OATS: Oh, I couldn't tell you how many. It would take… to cut the hay it was two horses and probably they were running at least ten machines. The rakes had two . . . leveling, I think, would probably be eight. My dad was excellent at leveling land. In fact, he could almost
do what the laser does now. In this valley he was often called to come and level land. Now the laser takes over everything. And when he had time he was very glad to help his neighbors.
LaVOY: Did you ever watch the hay men get the horses all in their harnesses?
OATS: Yes, after I finished my freshman year at the
University, believe it or not, I was rather thin and I had worked hard at the University. In fact, it was such a change for me, I had no idea what college would be. We'd always been so close to home and so forth and my father thought I was looking a little pale and a little thin so he decided that summer he'd put my sister next to me and myself on the rakes. And so we didn't actually harness the horses. The men did it for us but we drove the rakes and so I worked through that summer.
LaVOY: Well, that must have been a lot of fun, really.
OATS: Well, it was. I don't know whether you know Whitey Harrigan or not, but he had come to work for my dad when he was probably thirteen or fourteen and I was at a dinner with him last year and he reminded me about the time he had to get my rake untangled from the fence and the post, but really I just let him enjoy that but it was my sister that had done it.

LaVOY: Oh, the rake she'd gotten too close to the fence?
OATS: Too close to the fence as she was going over the bridge and the wheel and horses went one way, the rake the other.
LaVOY: Well, that happened very often in those days.
OATS: Oh, yes, in those days. It was quite interesting.
LaVOY: Now I'd like to hear something about high school. I understand that the mores of the school were much different than they are now.
OATS: Oh, considerably! There's no comparison. I follow the present educational system because my daughter and son-in-law are teachers in the Battle Mountain high school and even though they are strict up in that area compared to other places in Nevada, why it did not compare to when I attended school.

LaVOY: Tell me about it.

OATS: Well, we had a principal, George McCracken. I understand a number of years before they had a principal who was very lenient with the students. So when they elected him, they elected him to really turn the school over and he did. If you received three demerits for minor things you were on the broom squad. That's the way you could work it out. It was up to you to put in, I think, three hours for each demerit. Then you'd work those off. You cleaned windows, you swept the hall and, of course, no pay. This was working off your demerits and he was very strict on the social relations between boys and girls. If you were holding hands, I think it was almost a suspension but after you got so many demerits and they were not worked off, you would be suspended for a few days. I would think the janitor had probably fifteen on his broom squad so therefore you didn't need too many janitors at that time.

LaVOY: Was that Art Corbeil?

Art Corbeil was one and later on when I was teaching Sonny Lofthouse was another one. But they had all these students--course you know how it is breaking in students--but believe me they took care of part of the labor.
I understand that Mr. McCracken had the girls walk on one side of the hall and the boys on the other. Is that correct?
To a certain extent. If it were possible the right-hand side, as I recall coming in the front door, was for the girls to go upstairs to the chemistry and the home ec. and so forth and the boys would take the opposite side, but there were lots of times where they had to go on the same side.

LaVOY: What was the dress code?
OATS: The dress code, there was no extra skin showing, I assure you. I can remember one time a girl came in-¬they had these three-quarter socks, they were quite colorful and otherwise we wore long [socks], I wore rayon. Now I think some of the ones that could afford them had silk socks, but this girl came to school and her skirt probably let one inch of bare skin between the skirt and these three-quarter socks showing. She was sent home to properly dress.

LaVOY: Oh, my!

OATS: That is the truth and certainly no low cut of anything. I don't even think they wore sleeveless clothing at that time.
LaVOY: What did you wear for gym?
OATS: We wore bloomers.
LaVOY: With socks?
OATS: Oh, I think we were allowed short socks with our tennis shoes and we wore middys--it's a top--and bloomers and they were the full kind, you know, that came down with rubber bands. No short shorts, I assure you.
LaVOY: OATS: What were some of the games that you played in gym?
We played basketball or go outside and play baseball. I can't recall playing softball and we'd exercise in
the gym. It wasn't like it is nowadays. They did have
showers but usually one could hardly take a shower. There wasn't time. You had a half-hour of P.E. and then had to be in the other class immediately and the showers were not very convenient at that time.

LaVOY: What were your favorite subjects?
OATS: As long as I can remember from the time I started the Island School, arithmetic, which then went into math and I had Mr. McCracken as my math teacher in high school. He was an excellent teacher and I think that was the one that made me decide to major in math in the college.

LaVOY: So many people have mentioned Mr. McCracken but nobody has told me, was he married?
OATS: He wasn't married at that time. We had a home ec teacher named Miss Olive Colpus and he was socially connected with her and after a number of years--he had a mother that he lived with and was caring for and so I don't think he married Olive Colpus until she died.
LaVOY: And then he married this…
OATS: This home ec teacher. Now at the time, I was teaching, I mean at that particular time and even a number of years and all the time I was teaching, married teachers were not allowed. Soon as you married, you lost your contract.

LaVOY: You're speaking only of women?
,OATS: Women, oh, I'm sorry. I mean women, definitely,
females.
LaVOY: That seems very unfair.
OATS: LaVOY: OATS: It was very unfair. In fact it was one of the reasons Alfred and I were not married earlier.
I see. Tell me who were some of your closest friends in high school?
As I say, we were so busy on the place and had no time
for social life, This one very dear friend, I'm still in touch with her now. She is not as fortunate as I in my senior years. She's my age. She had her birthday this year, eighty also, and as I say she had everything she wanted, a nice home and they would take me in and the only time I even attended a high school function usually was to go in and stay all night with her.

LaVOY: And what was her name?
OATS: Verna Winters and then later on she married and his name was Jacobsen. And I am contact with her at all times and she has two children.
LaVOY: Well, that's very interesting. Tell me about your graduation from high school.
OATS: Our graduation was very simple to what things are now. I can't ever remember of hearing of robes at that time; we wore simple dresses. Mine, of course, were homemade with the exception, I think I got my first bought dress for baccalaureate and it was a two piece ensemble that I certainly used in college and our dresses were very simple. Most of them, I presume, had bought them by then, but mine was homemade and we had our baccalaureate service on Sunday and our graduation on Monday night. I think we had about forty-eight students in the class.
LaVOY: Where was the baccalaureate held?
OATS: In the high school, in the auditorium.
LaVOY: Do you remember the name of the minister that came and spoke?
OATS: Yes, definitely. Reverend Brewster Adams from Reno and I enjoyed him so much even when I got to the

University. Very few had cars then, and several of my friends and myself would walk clear down to his church, clear down by Idlewild Park.
LaVOY: Yes, his daughter's a very close friend of mine.
OATS: Oh, how nice.
LaVOY: Do you remember what he said?
OATS: Yes. One thing I remembered and I think it's the reason they always invited him back. He said, "Now this is the best looking class of boys and girls I have ever seen."
LaVOY:
OATS: Well, I can see why they would invite him back. Now, you're ready to start college. Tell me how you happened to choose Nevada.
There was no other choice. It was close, I mean, it was in sixty miles of Fallon. I hardly knew other colleges existed. I mean, they would've been more expensive and as I say I knew I had to work. One of the first things I did when I registered was to see the dean. Dean Mack lived in the dormitory which was Manzanita Hall.

LaVOY: Is this Effie Mona Mack?
OATS: Yes, and I went in to her and told her I wanted to go through college, I had little money, I could register but I had to have work. Well, she put me doing janitor work in the hall. It wouldn't embarrass me now but then I was embarrassed when people from Fallon would come to visit their students and I'd be caught in the hall mopping floor, but, you know, in three months there was a vacancy in the dining hall for a waitress and I graduated and I enjoyed waiting table. I did that all through my four years of college and I worked out. Lots of times Dean Mack would hear of places in Reno. There were not places really to go out to dinner at that time like there are now and the ones that entertained would have the dinners in their homes. The ones that were well-to-do had their dinners catered and then they would ask for University girls that knew how to serve, come into the home. We were paid thirty-seven and a half cents an hour at the University for our services. When we'd go out and work in other homes, I used to work at the Twentieth Century on Saturday afternoons serving luncheon and they would pay us fifty cents an hour, so there was a favor. I had an
interesting experience one time. I worked in many

16
homes. I can't even recall all the homes I worked in. One was, I loved P.E., I played all sports and we'd be out on the field until just in time to come in and shower and get out the dining hall to set up. Dean Mack met me at the door this day and she said, "I have work for you tonight and you get paid fifty cents an hour and it'll be five or six hours and I'll get somebody to substitute for you in the dining hall. Do you have a white ironed uniform?" I said, "Yes." So she said, "I'll call a taxi for you. You run up and shower and get ready." I got out, it was way out South Virginia then, of course, now it wasn't way out. I got in this home--I can't recall the name--this lady was having a rather formal dinner for Senator Tasker Oddie, the one Oddie Boulevard in Reno is named after. The reason she was having him for dinner was her husband had just lost the state I.R.S.--that's the Internal Revenue Service. They said I understand somebody from Fallon, R.L. Douglass, is taking my husband's position. I said, "My father is on his place." That made-
LaVOY: You don't remember the name of the person whose house you were at?
OATS: No, and I'm sorry. He was an older man, he'd just lost this position and they were entertaining Tasker Oddie because he had a great deal of influence and he was hoping to get another political job. I wished I could recall their names. He was, I'd say, in his fifties and she was very much younger. Probably twenty years younger and when I got there, I took a taxi out, the taxi cost fifty cents which they paid and I walked in the kitchen. She'd had her dinner catered. It was a turkey dinner. My position, what I was supposed to do, make the gravy and make the biscuits, which, with all my experience on the ranch, I had no problem with, set the table and then she warned me and she said, "Now, I want you to know my dinner plates are worth twenty dollars apiece." They had gold on them and that made me so nervous and frightened. I thought if I break a plate, I'll be out of school. And now, I presume, they'd be five hundred dollars a plate or more, and that worried me. But anyway we started with the dinner and she told me in the kitchen, she said, "We're having this Tasker Oddie for dinner, I don't want anything to happen," and she cautioned me and I told her I'd be very careful. Well, he sat up to the end of the table. She sat on his left, her husband over on his right and I completed the service, the main meal, and then before we got ready for dessert and coffee, I removed all the plates, I brought out the tray with the sugar and the cream and sat it next to Senator Oddie. Then I served

17
the rest and as she went to reach for the cream she knocked it all over Senator Oddie.
LaVOY: Oh, my!
OATS: Suit just covered and you know I couldn't help but snicker. I mean, after she had warned me to be so careful in how I served the dinner that night. Her husband was very generous and very kind. He drove me home after the dinner. He not only paid for my taxi, he paid for five or six hours, I don't recall, for my services.

LaVOY: Well, how did Tasker Oddie react to cream all over him?
OATS: He was the loveliest person. He said, "Don't worry." They took napkins and wiped his beautiful suit off. As I say, he was just a very gracious person.
LaVOY: I have a feeling the man didn't get the job he was
looking for. (laughing)
OATS: (laughing) I tell you, her husband was much older. Another time I was serving luncheon at the Twenty-Thirty Club in Reno and as I went past one table some lady says, "Oh, hello. Do you remember me?" She was under this great big hat and here is this society lady that I had helped her with Tasker Oddie's dinner.
LaVOY: Oh, that's wonderful. Who were some of the other people that you went out and served for?
OATS: Another person I remember serving dinner, I can't even tell you the location in Reno, was Judge Harwood and it was a very lovely family. His son was Professor Harwood at the University of Nevada. He taught
English. He was a very severe person. You wouldn't think he was friendly whatever. However, I worked in their home a number of times and later on, he was head of Lincoln Hall. He and his wife moved there. When was a senior beginning of my last semester at college I had a call one day from Dean Mack over in her office. I went over to see her and she said, "Professor Harwood would like to talk to you if you'll come over." And I went over to see him and he said his wife was very She'd just had a miscarriage and they needed somebody in the home. He would pay me. I was to move over there, live there, and serve them breakfast. They would take care of lunch and then I would serve dinner. There wouldn't be too much work but he would pay me two and a half dollars a day. I went back. Miss Mack told me to come back and tell her after I had a visit with

18
Professor Harwood and I told her what they wanted and she told me on the side, "Do not do that. This is your last semester at college. You want the time. If you need any help financially I'll gladly loan you the money. Don't tie yourself down".
LaVOY: What a wonderful thing.
OATS: I did not take it and I went back and told Mrs. Harwood. She was lying down on the couch. Those days they believed bed rest was fine for every illness and she said, "Now, I can tell by the expression on your face you're going to turn me down." I said, Well, I thought it over and I don't think I'm going to do this." I was so interested in sports, I was playing tennis and to get everything in... I could work in the dining hall at mealtimes and it didn't take too much of my time, so I didn't take it. And she jumped on me and said, "Miss Mack told you not to do it."

LaVOY: And what did you say to that?
OATS: I think I just said I decided myself, I'd rather not.
LaVOY: Did you ever wait tables for Miss Mack?
OATS: Oh, I waited table for Miss Mack all the time. Soon as I had the position in the dining hall, for some reason I got the two top tables. The head of one table was Miss Mack and on the other was Miss Wood. She was the assistant dean and head of the dining hall. And, as I say, they often had professors there, friends, and so forth, and I enjoyed waiting on her table. But, one time I thought I'll relieve a little of the pressure and I'll trade someone. I no sooner had taken another table, Miss Mack walked in and asked where I was. I was at the other end of the hall and she said, "I want her back up here immediately." I always served her table then.
LaVOY: You must have done a marvelous job.
OATS: Well, Miss Mack was a darling. The first year she does really seem both severe and harsh but I think she wants the freshmen to prove themselves. After that, as I say, there was no kinder person. The night I received the call my father had been shot, she met me at the door at eleven o'clock that night. I had transportation to Fallon. She offered me money and offered to help me pack and just did everything in the world for me and, as I say, I was home one week and then back to the University.

LaVOY: Well, now, I don't mean to upset you, but how did your father happen to be shot?
OATS: I know a number of the reasons and I was told by various people the person that had him shot and also the person that did the shooting. I do not want to reveal anything further. They are living people that could be hurt and I have no proof and I would just rather not talk any further.
LaVOY: All right. Now, you started college in 19 what?
OATS: 29.
LaVOY: You started in in 1929?
OATS: In the fall of 1929.
LaVOY: All right then, after your father's death--what was the date of his death?
OATS: My senior year on March 19, 1933.
LaVOY: Is when he died?
OATS: Yes.
LaVOY: All right, you came home for the funeral?
OATS: Right.
LaVOY: Can you tell me something about the funeral?
OATS: Yes. I came home and of course we were all in shock. He was found dead up in a pasture maybe five miles from
our home. It was in the evening about six o'clock. He always carried his rifle with him to shoot coyotes and there was also a step over the fence. Now, there's a number of possibilities, but that evening he hadn't come to unharness his horses and he would never leave them tied up and so they'd started checking for him and they found him up there with a bullet through his head. I was very upset. I checked my stepmother's insurance policy. It said if the insurance company is to pay the double indemnity it would not be paid if a suicide was committed. If it were an accident on the job, it
would. In other words they would double the value of the policy. She was so wrought she didn't pay any attention to me. My father was buried. I remember the middle of that week two friends from the University, one friend had a car, her name was Helen Peterson from Elko, later Helen Wayman, and this friend now that I have in Elko, Mary Wilkerson, they came down to Fallon to console me and to be sure that I would return to the University. Evidently the rumor was I would not come

back and finish my senior year, I had a very close friend, it was a boy, and during that week I received a lovely letter from him and a hundred dollar check.
LaVOY: Della, would you care to tell me who the young man was that gave you the hundred dollar check? [tape break]
OATS: No, I don't mind. His name was Robert Marean. His father was in here head of the Reclamation Service. Incidentally, he's a cousin of Ruth Coleman that's lived in Fallon all her life.
LaVOY: Was there a large funeral for your father?
OATS: Yes.
LaVOY: Where was he buried from?
OATS: He was buried out here in the local cemetery and my mother put her application in for the Nevada industrial insurance which, at that time, paid five thousand for a death and also she tried to collect the double indemnity. The insurance company said it was rumored then, and I understand who had told that, I'm not saying, that he had committed suicide and the people that we had hoped were going to testify for us at the hearing went on the other side. So the insurance company said, "We'll pay it all if we can prove if he shot himself, there would be powder burns on the face. If he didn't, there would be no powder burns." So as I had tried to tell my stepmother, if she'd allow them to check the body before burial then there would have been no problem, no question about them refusing. So they had within six full days to exhume the body which they did. At that time the body was so deteriorated that they could not tell and so the attorney my mother had hired for her side in collecting the insurance met with the insurance company and they agreed to pay two-thirds. They paid all of the original. They agreed to pay two-thirds of the double indemnity and the State Industrial Commission agreed to pay two thirds. And the lawyer--he was an attorney from Carson named Roeson--he suggested that, she instead of going to court, take the two-thirds. He received a third and she received one-third which did help her.
LaVOY: Then what did she do? Did she move?
OATS: We had to be off the place by the first, we had one month, so I imagine it was two weeks we had left to get off the Dodge place and we rented a little house right across the street from West End School in town.

LaVOY: Must have been a terrible shock for all of you.
OATS: It was a terrific shock.
LaVOY: You went back to the University and, as I understand it, you were majoring in mathematics.
OATS: Right.
LaVOY: You mentioned to me that there were fifty-six boys in this engineering class or calculus?
OATS: Yes. In one class that I was taking, which was advanced calculus, at that time there were sixty-six engineers and four math majors and we had to pass the same course as they did. The particular person that was head of the class was ill that year, very strict, had no patience. Sometimes if you gave the wrong answer you had a book going by your head, or an eraser or a piece of chalk. He never threw anything at the four girls in the class, but I decided. I came down with flu, was put in the University hospital for one week and I felt as if that was too much of loss to go back in his class that semester. Some very kind friend of mine that was in the engineering class offered to help me. We'd meet at the library every night and just gratis, by gratis, he helped me and I got through the course fine.
LaVOY: What was his name?
OATS: His name was Russell. I can't think of the other name.
LaVOY: Who was the teacher?
OATS: Professor Charles Hazeman. He had cancer and he was very ill at the time.
LaVOY: Now tell me, this was close to graduation when all this problem came with your family?
OATS: With my father.
LaVOY: When was graduation?
OATS: May that same year my father, as I say, was killed,
March 19, 1933. I graduated May in 1933. The one part
was, there were three women in the graduating class. They were going to receive the Wolf blanket for an award. The highest honor that the women could receive was the Gothic N award and to maintain that, if you

22
maintained it in your senior year--I was president of Gothic N--and kept up and made the team in three sports, that year they were going to give each one, one of the regular football team's blankets and I was really so excited I was going to get one. There were three of us going to get one. One was Helen Wayman from Elko, the other one was this close friend I've had all through my college years and liked, Mary Trudell, and myself. I came home for one week. I was so busy, I was just taking enough sports to get my three major ones in and that particular week I was home was the rifle final week where we entered with other colleges. I was not able to do it and I was turned down. I did not get my blanket. It was my fault. I was procrastinating and I was putting off what I should have done earlier in the year.
LaVOY: Did you say rifle?
OATS: Yes, I took rifle.
LaVOY: You were on the rifle team?
OATS: Yes, and we didn't go to other colleges. We went over in the barracks and shot and the targets were sent to other colleges. You know, there was hardly any intermural girl sports then.
LaVOY: Where were the barracks?
OATS: The old gym in the top floor, way up in the second.
LaVOY: Tell me about graduation. Did you graduate outside on the quadrangle?
OATS: No, we were in the old gym.
LaVOY: Do you have any memories of graduation?
OATS: Yes, it wasn't too long after my father was shot. It was during the Depression and my stepmother and my two-year-old brother came to my graduation and I hoped to get a school after graduation. There were very few school vacancies in the state of Nevada. There were two women in the math class and two men. Two of the
Reno students had positions there. I didn't get any. I would even try for a country school. I had both my high school teaching certificate and my secondary. I don't think they required as many units as they do now
in the education department. I came back to- Miss Mack had a call for someone. No, what I was going to do- Each summer after I was through school, except my first summer, I went to Lake Tahoe at

23
Homewood and waited table and so I would leave for there shortly. It was during the Depression, you know,
there weren't too many guests and so we really had a good time because you were treated on an equal basis at that time.
LaVOY: So you did that after you graduated?
OATS: Soon as I would finish, yeah, and I also did it four years all totaled after I graduated at the Lake to supplement my salary here.
LaVOY: Where did you get your first job as a teacher?
OATS: I got my first job in Fallon the second semester. They needed one, they didn't need any before.
LaVOY: So what did you do for that semester before?
OATS: I worked at Lake Tahoe during the summer for Homewood as a waitress and that fall, since I didn't have a position, Mrs. Joast who was head of the resort asked me if I would stay with her until she closed up in October. Miss Mack had told me if I hadn't found something, to come back to the hall. I could have a free room until I found something. So when I finished at Lake Tahoe in October when they closed down the resort I came back to Reno and Miss Mack had had a call from the manager of the Penney store in Reno. His wife had just had severe surgery and she was not supposed to do anything for at least a month or two. The position paid, I think, a dollar a day, board and room, and with the understanding that as soon as his wife was able to do the housework and take care of her small child again he would put me on at J.C. Penney in Reno. I had only worked there two or three days when my stepmother in Fallon called and said, "Some teacher in Fallon has to have a leave of absence for the rest of this semester and I've already called Mr. Best and he will take you to substitute while she's gone." I hated to tell this couple but I could not lose this opportunity. So my stepmother came for me. I went back to Fallon and when I called about when I should start substituting they told me there was some lady in Fallon that could not even supply children with underwear that winter and they decided they'd better give it to her. There I am in Fallon with no position but I immediately got on working for Gevelhoff who had a hardware store, dishes, etc., down across the railroad tracks and I was working for him until I could get something else. He had hired me because he was going to have a sale, so I went to Mr. Hartman at Penney's and asked him for a job. He

24
said, "I'll be glad to take you about Thanksgiving time to break you in for Christmas." So that was something to look forward to. In the meantime they had graduation at Oats Park and those students coming in the high school had to have a teacher that would teach Algebra I twice a day and English twice a day. I had a major in math, not in English, so I did get the position. I don't whether I should tell this or not, but Mr. McCracken was always very favorable to me, told me when I left Fallon he would like to have me back there for a teacher. One day, my step-brother was dating Tom Kendrick in Fallon. And he called me and said “you better come and check with the trustees” There were three at that time, Mr. Smith in the Newspaper, Mr. Drumm – That’s Andy Drumm’s father – and Tom Kendrick.
And I went to them and applied. The next night they met without the principal and hired me as the teacher. I understand, and this lady was a very fine person, she had gone to Stanford, she was excellent in the subjects I was not in, such as debate, dramatics, public speaking, but she could not do the math, but I understood, on the side, that Mr. McCracken favored the other person but I ended up as the teacher. And the reason I know, I met this girl again, she was very prominent, she went on to get her law degree and she just said one day, "May the best man win." So that started my teaching in Fallon.
LaVOY: Do you care to mention her name or not?
OATS: Mary Katherine Morris. She was a niece of a piano teacher in Fallon. She was very popular with the politicians. She would speak for them in their campaign speeches and an outstanding speaker.
LaVOY: She probably became an outstanding lawyer, too.
OATS: I understand she did. I understand she was in an automobile accident later on and lost the sight of one eye and I do know she is dead now. And her aunt, as I recall now, was Miss Cutler.
LaVOY: Here in Fallon?
OATS: Yes.
LaVOY: Now tell me about your teaching career.
OATS: I enjoyed teaching very much. Right at first, as I
say, I had the two algebra classes and the two English classes and I would have those all day and they handed me a business arithmetic class so that--we taught five periods a day and there were forty-three--this is my first semester of teaching--students in there, most of

them seniors. It was a course so they could pick up a graduation credit and most of them in there, I'm afraid, knew almost as much as I did and I felt that they would challenge me, which they did. As I say, I often think about it now and some of my friends that were in that class but, as I say, I never had any trouble with discipline. I had the respect of the students and vice versa, however the problems didn't begin to exist that they are now in teaching.
LaVOY: Who were some of those students?
OATS: Oh, I tell ya'. Some of them have even been to see me in Battle Mountain. Jerry Alberson is one and Remo Laca--I'm thinking of some here in Fallon--Amelio Bell, Paul Scholz, Harold Rogers, Virgil Getto, Robert Getto, oh, I can think of lot of them, hardly mentioning girls, Alma Nygren .

LaVOY: Well, now these were not that first class, but these. were students that you taught throughout the years?
OATS: Yes, right. This wasn't necessarily in that class. I
think Laverne Drumm was in my first class--that was a sister to Andrea.
LaVOY: How many years did you teach in Fallon?
OATS: I taught practically ten years. Shortly after, I did not get the substitute job, I went from Gevelhoff's to another substitute job, some other teacher, and replaced her and altogether I taught about nine-and-a-half years, ten years, nine and a half in the high school.

LaVOY: Tell me, when did you meet the man that became your husband?
OATS: I met him at my niece's, Margy Davis' father's wedding to my sister in 1936. I did not know Alfred Oats existed at the time. I knew there were Oats brothers and we were both dating others at the time and we didn't start dating until two years later. He had an obligation which parents did in those days. His father had rheumatism and his mother really needed help.

LaVOY: Your speaking of his father, would that have been the John Oats?
OATS: Right, often called one of the founders of Fallon and a benefactor due to his donations of the city park.

26
LaVOY: What do you remember about the old gentleman, John Oats?
OATS: I didn't know him a great deal but everyone was very fond of him. He was very kind, always loved to tell these stories about the time he was in Austin and when he had the cattle out there, about the great hard winter of 1889 and 1890. I think that was the time he came to Fallon because they'd lost most of their cattle out there, the snow was so deep and they couldn't feed them and so forth. As I say, he just was a very highly respected man, very generous.
LaVOY: What did he look like when you knew him?
OATS: The most of the time I saw him, he was sitting in a chair because it was difficult. for him to get around,
but always smiling, and jolly and talking. He was a small man, a short man in stature.
LaVOY: That's why the Maine Street is wider at one end than the other?
OATS: Oh, that's what I understand. Now whether that's a tale or truth, I do not know.
LaVOY: What business had he gone into?
OATS: When he came to Fallon? He came over here and bought the acreage which is now an the east side of Fallon understood or when I knew about it, extended to Stillwater Avenue up to far as Serpa Lane.
LaVOY: That would have been the east side of Maine Street?
OATS: Yes, east side of Maine and it went to Stillwater Avenue and extended then down north to Serpa Lane and then of course out across from E.C. Best but they purchased that land from his two sons, Alfred and Johnnie, for that school.
LaVOY: Oh, I see. Now he had the two sons and Alfred is the one that you married?
OATS: Yes.
LaVOY: What is his full name?
OATS: Alfred Alexander Oats.
LaVOY: And when was he born?

27
OATS: In April 18, 1903.
LaVOY: His brother, what was his brother's name?
OATS: John Oats, Jr.
LaVOY: And you don't know when he was born?
OATS: Yes, he was born November 14, 1904.
LaVOY: I just want to ask you something I don't quite understand, did brothers marry sisters?
OATS: Yes, but, as I say, I had no idea who he was at the time. I was acquainted with John cause he'd come to the house for my sister [Eleanor].
LaVOY: Now which sister did John Oats marry?
OATS: He married Eleanor [Renfro] which is the mother of Margaret and Robert Oats.
LaVOY: Now, wait a minute. He married your sister?
OATS: Yes, that's the mother of Margy and Robert Oats.
LaVOY: All right now what was your sister's name?
OATS: Eleanor.
LaVOY: Eleanor Renfro.
OATS: Eleanor Louise Renfro.
LaVOY: Eleanor Louise Renfro married John...
OATS: John Oats, Jr.
LaVOY: And where do they live?
OATS: They first lived 197 East Stillwater, in town, which was the home that the Oats owned and then when they fixed up the house out on Schurz [Highway] then they moved out there and they were there until the time they both died.
LaVOY: Now that's the home that…
OATS: Margy and Robert Davis are living in, but we sold it to Gomes, Louie Gomes.
LaVOY: Then when did you and your husband become interested

OATS: 28
one another?
Well, they used to have just lovely dances at the Fraternal Hall. It's up there on the east side of South Maine, it's the Fraternal Hall building and there's a very large upstairs. They used to hire a band and oh, they really had nice dances, special dances for Christmas, New Year's, and then dances in between and I used to dance a lot with him. I wasn't sure who he was, but it was after I had met him. I had taken John, Jr. and Eleanor to Reno to a church that I attended while I was at the University, to be married; and I stood up with my sister and he stood up with his brother. But, as I say, I hardly remembered who he was, but then, I used to go to dances here and he often danced with me. Then all at once I realized who he was and I don't know, about a couple of years why one time he asked me to go to the show and we started. I think we were both fortunate and happy how it turned out, that each one of us had a narrow escape. (laughing) You know what I mean.

LaVOY: When did you marry him?
OATS: On November 12, 1943.
LaVOY: You mentioned that Mr. McCracken didn't--you teachers could not marry. Did you date him with the idea of marrying him prior to your teaching?
OATS: As I say, we would have liked to marry earlier. A teacher couldn't be married and teach. Your contract was gone and, as I say, at the particular time, it was inconvenient for him. His father was not well and his father died April, 1943, and he decided after that, they had the house in town his mother could move to which she wasn't very happy about. He had to be on the ranch because he was a dairyman, an outstanding dairyman, and it was three o'clock in the morning to maybe late at night sometimes for the work, you know.

LaVOY: Did your husband own his own dairy?
OATS: He and his brother, John.
LaVOY: And where was this dairy located?
OATS: On North Maine Street in the city limits, but they were there. The ranch was there before the city was so they
didn't put them out. Now it wouldn't happen.
LaVOY: Approximately where was it on North Maine Street?

29
OATS: Right across the street from the baseball park. Ours was the last house. It's a brick, red house. Do you see where all those apartment complexes are going now? Do you know where the new Lahontan Valley News is? It's on our property where our home was.

LaVOY: Oh, I see, and where all the homes are going up now, that's where the dairy was.
OATS: That is it. The old barn is still there.
LaVOY: The barn is still there?
OATS: Yes and I see there's a sign on it. I was terribly disappointed when. I came over for Memorial Day and the yard looked like it hadn't had any care but I noticed as I came through Fallon today that the weeds had been mowed and it looked a little better.
LaVOY: When did your husband and brother-in-law start this dairy?
OATS: My husband graduated from college in 1925, UNR, he was an ATO [Alpha Tau Omega] there and he graduated in agriculture. His father, I think, had already purchased them four registered Holstein from a herd in here that was a most outstanding Holstein herd on the logs [record books]. They lived out in the Harmon District and so with the nucleus of those four animals my husband was very interested. His brother, John, took care of the crops and my husband did the dairy and it wasn't just for the production of milk, it was for producing outstanding dairy animals and he received oh, so many awards.
LaVOY: Tell me, how many cattle did they milk?
OATS: In those days you didn't have to milk as many as you do now to make a living. I think the highest they ever milked might have been eighty five dairy animals and now they would probably have a hundred and fifty counting the calves and bulls.
LaVOY: How many milkers did they have?
OATS: Always one milker. Alfred milked and he usually had a milker.
LaVOY: And they milked eighty-five?
CATS: Eighty-five, of course, with machine.

30
. LaVOY: Now what time would he have to get up in the morning?
OATS: He got up every morning at three.
LaVOY: My goodness! [tape ends] Three o'clock is an ungodly hour for anyone to get up.
OATS: Yes, he didn't have too many problems with the cows. He would try to rest in the afternoon for an hour or two and sometimes if the cows were calving he was up half the night. He was a good veterinarian himself. He didn't have his degree but he had gone and taken courses and so forth, so he really did most of the work. He would study for hours on how to breed this cow to that sire to increase both the production and the physique of the cattle. It was almost like a Miss America contest when they had their checks.

LaVOY: The dairy was called the Oats Dairy?
OATS: Oats Brothers Dairy.
LaVOY: Now with him handling all the cattle and the milk and everything, who were the distributors for the milk?
OATS: They would come to our barn. We had an enormous refrigerated tank and the milk was pumped from the cows with a machine into that big tank and then a great big tanker truck--we at one time sold to VreNon, then later we sold to Cann's and then later they belonged to the association and these big tankers would come from Reno and pick up the milk at various farms.

LaVOY: About how much milk a day went out? Do you recall?
OATS: I think our tank he I knew--a thousand gallons
and it would be nearly filled in a day.
LaVOY: My goodness. Did your husband win any awards for all this?
OATS: Oh, oh, so many. He was elected honorary State Farmer in 1947 and then he was a recipient of the first Nevada Distinguished Breeder's Award in 1979. He also received the Distinguished Ag Alumni Award from UNR in 1984. He was a life member of the national and the state Holstein Association, past president of the Nevada Chapter. Both he and his brother, John, donated a registered Holstein heifer every year at the Nevada State Fair--it was in Fallon for many years—to the boy or girl in Future Farmers, FFA, or 4-H that would win

31
the showmanship contest.
That was very generous.
Well, it was his idea to encourage better breeding. You get a lot more milk from a cow that gives a lot of butter fat on the same amount of food as you do from one gives a small amount of milk.
The food end of it, were you familiar at all with how he rationed the food for the cattle?
No, I can't tell you the amounts but I do know they got all the hay which was in the manger at all times. Sometimes they were out on pasture when we had the pasture and they could come and go and in the barn they fed them so many pellets which would be their grain supplement and so forth. I can't tell you how much he would give some cows that produce more milk and were larger than they would another cow. In one year he had the world's record cow that he had bred--the name, Betty Aggie--that had produced over a thousand pounds of butter fat but it was a world record.

LaVOY: Oh, must have been very proud of that.

At another time he sold four years old and each say, it reminded you of was on figure, not what produced this bull, Rag Candy Breeding Company.

a good breeding bull that was year we'd classify them. As I the Miss America contest. T they produced and he had
Apple, that he sold to Curtis At that time it was a lot of

money because it was twenty-five thousand dollars and after the bull was proven they finished paying for the bull and that actually put both his brother's two and
my two through college. It came in just handy.
LaVOY: Well, now, you were living in the brick house close to the dairy?
OATS: We were living in the old farmhouse when we were married.
LaVOY: OATS: And how long did you live there?
We lived there until, I would say, when we had those three strong earthquakes in 1954 in Churchill County and we moved in about July of that year, so it'd be July of 1954 when we moved into our new house.

LaVOY: And where was that?

32
OATS: Right next to it and it's on 560 North Maine Street now, still stands.
LaVOY: Now while your husband was busy with the dairying, what were you doing?
OATS: I was also very busy. I had not only a lot of chores in the home, I worked in PTA, I was a room mother for nine years. I helped in Girl Scout work, Cub Scout work, in the children's church functions maybe preparing food or taking and we'd often have parties there. I did miss teaching. I was really too busy at the time and a married teacher couldn't be hired. My husband didn't hear very well and I always had to do the phoning. There were long distance calls.
We had visitors--I often wish I'd kept a log--from even South America to come and check on our herd because as I say, for a number of years, it was the highest breeding herd in the United States for milk production and he often sold not only the breeding bulls but often cattle, the dairy heifers, for breeders. All these people would come to see the dairy cattle, see the offspring, see the breeding before they'd want to purchase a sire for their herd or maybe a few registered heifers. One time was very interesting. This fellow was head of the commissioners in Los Angeles County. His name was Jessup and he was very interested in our breeding. He wanted to pick a bull for his herd. He brought his manager of the cattle and the manager's wife. They were Spanish people. I could understand the manager. The wife came in the kitchen. I always had these visitors for dinner. Sometimes you wouldn't know five minutes in advance but they would be there for the meal. So she came in my kitchen. I was at that time, until we moved at the new house, we had a coal and wood stove. No cooling system, so I think my kitchen was maybe a hundred and twenty degrees, I'm not sure. She was sitting there and I was trying to visit with her. She couldn't speak a word of English and I tried. Finally she said something that meant hot and out she went and sat under the tree. But anyway they had dinner with us and they did select a breeding bull. Another time a fellow from Ecuador, South America, was going to the University of Nevada to get his master's on breeding. He heard about our herd and he was working for a very wealthy fellow in Ecuador and he asked him to come in our herd and pick four registered heifers and one breeding bull. They came down from the University. I had dinner for them. They had their two children. He was doing a two-year program at UNR and he did speak English. His wife did not speak English

and I was in the same position. I did serve them dinner and we all had a very nice time and they made arrangements to take these animals to South America. We had to get--I can't recall the person's name--he trucked them after they passed all inspection to Florida where they were put on a plane and transported to Ecuador. We did receive word that they were fine animals and they were a good addition to his herd.
LaVOY: Well, now tell me, did you and your husband travel to many dairy shows?
OATS: My husband did. I didn't go very often. As I say, we
always had a milker usually, or maybe two extra hands for meals and my daughter, Mildred, as I say, is a teacher in Battle Mountain. She loved those animals just like my husband. She knew all the breeding, she could mention all the names and he did. They went to California and when she was free to go with him, she went with him. She was just as interested in the breeding as he was and Fred and I stayed home. But then he was elected to the Holstein Convention from Nevada several times. He would pick the places he would want to go. This one time Mildred had just finished high school. The convention and the national sale was held in Washington, D.C. He'd never been there and of course Mildred was very interested and it was a great help to him to have Mildred because he had a little difficulty in hearing then and so they both
flew back to Washington, D.C. for the week and they stayed at a hotel and so forth. Cannon was from Vegas and each one of the states, their representatives were supposed to invite the senators and representatives from their state. Mildred and Alfred had invited Alan Bible, a Senator, and Cannon from Vegas and Baring. Baring and Cannon were able to attend, bible was tied up and he invited them to the white house for lunch one day. However, they had something to do, so they didn’t get to go. But I think Nevada was one of the only ones that did have their representatives at their dinner table. We have a large picture of them and that was one of the highlights, I know, of my daughter’s life. And he attended several others before we were married.
LaVOY: Something that I wanted to ask you, where did you tell me you and your husband were married?
DATc: In the Methodist parsonage in Fallon by Reverend Mee.
LaVOY : What did you wear?
OATS: Navy blue suit with a fancy blouse and an orchid corsage. I tell you, we weren't financially fit in those days. Alfred wore a very lovely business suit. And my stepmother had this camera that took pictures postcard size. She says, "Don't worry about taking pictures, anybody else, 'cause I'm going to take your marriage pictures." And she took all these pictures. His mother had a dinner, she wouldn’t go to the wedding she- I don’t want this on tape. She didn’t want- [tape cuts out]When she took all these pictures, we were anxious to see them. No one else had taken pictures and she found out she took her pictures over another roll that she'd already used. We had no wedding pictures.
LaVOY: How terrible!
OATS: We went on our honeymoon and in Sacramento we had several pictures taken and, as I say, we just did not get any wedding pictures, but his mother had a lovely dinner for us up at the farmhouse and all the relatives attended.
LaVOY: Who were your attendants?
OATS: My sister, Eleanor, that married Alfred's brother, John, seven years before.
LaVOY: And who was his attendant?
OATS: His attendant was his brother, John, that he had attended seven years before when I first met Alfred.
LaVOY: So you just switched teams. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
OATS: Believe it or not, you know, it was during the War. Gasoline was rationed. The only time you could get gas to go any place is for a necessary business trip. Mr. Hursh, Warren's father, was on the board to give out the gas coupons and this fellow in Los Angeles--he was the chairman of the board of county commissioners of LA, very well-known fellow and so forth--and he had purchased one of our pure-bred bulls. So Alfred did want to go check on that bull and see the offspring, see what the heifers looked like. It amuses me when I think of how careful horse breeders and animal breeders are and sometimes the kind of children we get from no planned parenthood, you know what I mean. But anyway that gave us gas to get as far as LA and back. So he had some cousins in Sacramento. We stopped there for awhile and to see the sights and I met some of his relatives and then we took in other places of interest. We went to Fresno where I had some relatives and on down that way to LA and we had time to stop and see the places of interest at that part and we went clear, as I

35
say, down to LA to this place where he'd sold the bull and I think he probably spent two or three hours. I was sitting in the car while he went into the herd to see the offspring of this registered bull he sold this millionaire years before. So we did have a nice honeymoon and we did have gas to get there and back.
LaVOY: I don't think I asked you the date of your marriage.
OATS: On November 12, 1943.
LaVOY: Now, how many children do you have?
OATS: We had two children. I thought I was too old at that time. In fact, the doctor I went to said, "At your age I think you better go to Reno." It was a Dr. Sawyer that was here in Fallon then and, "Go to a specialist." I was thirty-four when my daughter, Mildred, was born on May 10, 1945. I was thirty-six when my son, Fred, was born. They were both born in Reno, one at St. Mary's, one at Washoe Medical. I had no problems whatever at my old age and now you think nothing of that.
LaVOY: Who were your doctors in Reno?
OATS: Dr. Bibb was the maternity specialist for both Mildred and Fred. I was supposed to go in and stay two weeks in advance due to my old age (laughing) so, he could keep a good watch on me. This very dear friend that's now in Elko, Mary, was living in Reno at the time and I was going in and stay with her. One night I just had uncomfortable pains and I thought it was something else. By six o'clock in the morning I rushed to the barn and we had someone else slip in and take Alfred's place and we took off for Reno. Mildred was born that day. Never had seen the doctor until the delivery room.

LaVOY: My goodness!
OATS: And everything was fine. And one nice thing about it, there was a teacher here, a very loved, respected teacher named Miss Hattie Brown. Her sister was head of the nurses at Washoe County and she would come in. I don't know whether I should tell you or not. She pulled the rag off of my face and said, "My gosh, Della, you have 'em like a rabbit!"

LaVOY: (laughing)
OATS: But, I mean, really, I just was fine.

2.6
LaVOY: Well now your daughter was born at Washoe Med?
OATS: Washoe Med and Fred at St. Mary's.
LaVOY: What are your children doing now?
OATS: My son is in Reno. He's a very successful tax and estate planning attorney and my daughter is teaching in Battle Mountain. I recently checked with the principal that said she was one of the most prepared teachers he's ever been in contact with.
LaVOY: Well, that's wonderful. Now tell me your children went on to school and when did your husband pass away?
OATS: He died about three years ago, July 9 is the time we moved to Battle Mountain. He wasn't a bit well. My daughter and son-in-law used to drive from Battle Mountain to come down to visit and help me on the weekend. He really hadn't been well since 1970 when he had eye surgery, cataract surgery, by the old method. Now it's so simple. He had a bad heart attack after the second eye surgery. They did one one week and one the next. He was in St. Mary's for three months and from then on--one interesting part--when I brought him home he couldn't walk, he'd been down so long. At that time they kept them in the hospital. Now, Medicare, they do what they can and out you go. He had a very close friend that he'd gone to college with, a Dr. Vernon Cantlon, and he had started his herd from my husband and his brother's herd here in Fallon by coming down and buying six heifers. Those six heifers started the nucleus of Vernon's herd and if we ever had a medical problem that couldn't be handled in Fallon, Vernon was always there. And, as I say, he was a very dear friend of my husband's. Vernon died, I've forgotten when, in the 1980's, I think, but he wasn't well and then we would go to his brother, Ed Cantlon. But my husband was in the hospital, I counted up, six months all together from 1970, for various things, two prostate surgeries and oh, appendicitis, double pneumonia, you know so many things. He wasn't well. So one day my daughter and son-in-law came down from Elko and they said, "Instead of us driving down here every weekend," or when they could--it's three and a half hour drive--"why don't you build on to our house up in Battle Mountain?" I talked it over with my
husband. "Oh, no, I would never leave Fallon." Within two weeks I really had him convinced. We were located at North Maine. It got so the big trucks would come in there, park overnight. There's a little Seven-Eleven

37
store there. They'd keep the refrigerators running all night and the noise was getting terrific and Fallon was getting congested for old people I really felt, you know, and we decided to do it and that's when we put our property up for sale. They got a builder out of Winnemucca, Echeverria that's a cousin of an attorney in Reno. He contracted the home and they built on. I didn't even see it 'til we moved up there 'cause my husband wasn't well and then they came down and loaded us up in a U-Haul one day and we moved to Battle Mountain. It worked out beautifully. My husband wasn't well and I had him to the doctor there a number of times. His last illness, we took him into Elko and he was in the hospital three weeks there and they had done everything they could and then we moved him to the Battle Mountain hospital and he died within a week. He died June 5, two years ago today, 1989.
LaVOY: What had happened to the dairy?
OATS: In 1968, my husband, as I say wasn't well. It was hard to get a milker. It would be okay to get a milker for just an ordinary herd but his needed so much planning and about his breeding program he felt like he couldn't go on. His brother, John, did not care, wasn't interested. He was interested in the farm and putting up the crops and he was very good and so they decided to sell the cattle. We had dealt with a Dr. Schultz. He had his veterinarian degree. He had a registered herd in California. He was very interested in our herd and they often came through to visit. We used to go out on the desert and look for artifacts. They loved to do that. She just loved it. Now, of course, it's against the law to pick up arrowheads. But, over the years that we have done that, you'd be surprised how many city people just enjoyed it and they came one day and Alfred turned to him and said, "Would you like to buy our herd?" and he was shocked to think we were going to sell it. He said, "Don't give anybody else a chance. I want a figure." And within a couple of days he told us--she was also very interested in his herd, he was also a vet--and she said, "No, all we're going to take is the milking animals and a few of the bulls. We don't want the young animals." And Alfred says, "I
can't do that. It's all the herd or none." They, agreed right away and so one day they came in with big trucks. All the cattle left and we got a good price at that time. And, as I say, it practically broke my husband's heart.

LaVOY: Well, how did you react yourself to having all of those-

38

Well, as I say, I was so busy in the home and I knew it had to come. He talked it over with his family and his brother, you know, didn't want to take it over and so they agreed, both agreed on selling and so, as I say, it was a successful sale, it was responsible people. It wasn't somebody would take them and call you up later and say this one was sick and that one and we want our money back. We didn't have to deal with any of that. They were all trucked out in one day.
Mildred felt very badly. She was almost looking
forward to a time when if she married or if she could manage that herd, the breeding and so forth. But at the time she was in college and, so as I say, they were sold.
After I brought my husband home after his first long illness of three months in the hospital, I had been before this, oh, maybe for about ten years, my friends' children that needed extra help in math. I would tutor them. I didn't ever charge anything and I enjoyed doing it and it kept me in touch and I had several very interesting ones I tutored. One--she's a dear friend now--Toni Recanzone, she's married to a Dan Caruso from Reno that's back in Ohio getting his doctorate medical degree. Toni was--I don't think she minds if I say this, I was going to check with her, we phone each other and write and so forth but I didn't. It was difficult under her circumstance, she had some physical problems by birth and her mother came to me one day and said, "I hear you've tutored others. Would you tutor my daughter and we'll be glad to pay you whatever you
ask." I said, "Oh, no, no, it's not that. My husband
was just recovering from a long illness He can't walk yet and I do spend so many hours with him." And I said, "I'll talk it over with him." I talked it over with him and he said, "I think maybe you'd better not take it on," because it was going to be an everyday deal. I thought it over and I thought, "I need a little something." I was under quite a strain with these illnesses and so forth, I knew I could do both. My children were gone, they were in college I guess and so I called up Marian Recanzone and told her I would be glad to try to help Toni, do what I could and that was the seventh grade. She came to me, sometimes it might be five days a week, it might be three, and I remember one night her father, Mario, the judge, came by for her three times in the evening. He would leave her off when he'd go to his meeting or something and finally Toni and I finished. Of course, we had a lot of fun talking, visiting in between but she stayed. She would never give up. She had so much interest and she wouldn't

leave my house until she understood every problem. It wasn't I did the work, she copied it. She wanted to understand it and one o'clock in the morning and he was, well he wasn't really furious, but he said you can't do that to those people. But you know I didn't mind and I would put Alfred to bed ahead of time and I just loved working with Toni and I did all the way
through high school and I just enjoyed her. Sometimes
she'd tell me her problems and we'd visit and my children loved her. She went on to Nevada, graduated and in Reno she finally got a position. She substituted quite a while, but the position they gave her was not- [tape break] –The position in this school where she taught both the physically handicapped and the emotional and without a helper, it was too much for her and that spring her health broke. And after she left teaching then, she went on down to Sacramento State and got her master's in counseling. Now she's in Ohio where her husband is finishing his medical and she is counseling on the college level. Very happy and you don't know, she just became a part of my family.
LaVOY: Well, how nice of you to have taken her on and helped her like that.
OATS: Well, yes, but in return you don't know what she did for me, especially at the time that my husband was so ill.
LaVOY: You served on the school board, too, did you?
OATS: Oh, yes, first I was on Grand Jury from 1958 to 1962 and they since I had been a teacher, they put me on the committee for checking the schools and this and that. I got so interested, I ran for the school board next time and so I served two terms. I served from 1962 to 1970 and at that time I would have run for a third term but my husband was too ill.
LaVOY: What other organizations did you belong to?
OATS: I really am not very much of a joiner. As I say I mentioned what I had done for Scouts and PTA and all of those. My children always came first, or I should say, my family always came first and as I say my husband's business was very important and we had so many visitors, We had them from Canada, South America, and oh, just so many places. I wished I had kept track over the years, the people that sat in our old house and had dinner with us with the idea of visiting the herd. Not for me.

LaVOY: Well, that's wonderful. When the cattle took off, you

OATS: 40
just closed the barns down?
Yes, we had a couple of bulls that I think we sold and we kept them up there. We were in town and a dairy bull is very dangerous. We had them in enormous pens. There was no chance for them ever to get out or we would have been in trouble. E.C. Best School is on land we sold for the school and sometime the children would cross over the highway, come through our fields and end up at the back of our farm. One day my husband looked out of the barn and here is a young boy in the
bull pen with a very large bull. I don't know whether it frightened the bull so badly or what, and he let out a yell and ran over there and the boy got over the fence. But he could have been killed. A dairy bull is very dangerous. They seem like your pets, they'll turn on you in a minute.

LaVOY: Then did you sell your property?
OATS: We sold forty acres on East Williams across from E. C. Best to Churchill County. They're meaning to build a new courthouse, a jail and some other buildings that the county is going to need.
LaVOY: And the land that…
OATS: That's in front of that, that is on East Williams—I think there's thirty-six acres in there--and that is city property. What the county bought was in the county but we could have taken it at anytime and that is not sold. There are a number of inquiries I think at the present time and up where we lived in North Maine there were eighteen acres up there. Now that al belonged to Oats Brothers and of that, all of it has been sold. We first sold our house and five acres on the frontage to Munoz. He is a builder. That's when we moved to Battle Mountain. Then we sold and that included the land where the new Lahontan Valley News sits and now some lady, I understand, has built. She bought the land then from Munoz and now we still have some acreage there. Munoz bought and he's paying us on time. But, as I say, I don't know what will go up there.
LaVOY: And your brother-in-law kept his land down here?
OATS: Oh, I beg your pardon. Before we moved to Battle Mountain we sold the Schurz Highway Ranch to Louie Gomes. He really wanted it and he had talked to my sister several times one time before and he wanted it and of course that was the time there was still water

but he did a beautiful job.
LaVOY: Your sister passed away?
OATS: Yes, she died. Her husband died, my husband's brother, in 1975, quick heart attack. She died, oh, I think, about two years, or a year and a half after that, she. married Whitey Harrigan after her husband had been dead maybe two years and do you know she died of a quick heart attack. They were married, I think in October and next January she died, quick heart attack.
LaVOY: But the land that was there was all in the Oats Brothers?
OATS: Yes, but before my husband died we had sold the whole place even where Margy Davis is living now, to Gomes. Now I don't understand what their relation with the property is now but they're living there.
LaVOY: Here the Oats family owned all this land for so many, many years and now it is just what is left of your husband's and your property.
OATS: It's thirty-six acres on East Williams, but that is
Oats Brothers too. Margy's in on that, too.
LaVOY: Your family was such an early family here in Fallon, it seems a little incongruous that now here after all these years have passed this huge, huge amount of property is down to your thirty-six acres.
OATS:
LaVOY:
OATS: Yes, yes, but it was timely, the sales and it was necessary for us, you know. It was really our savings over the years.
Well, you've had such an interesting life. Is there anything else that you can think of that you might be interested in sharing?
Well, one thing I forgot to say, Alfred and John Oats one time won the Ford Efficiency Award for their forage crops and with that was two thousand dollars which they donated to UNR agriculture research.

LaVOY: Well, that's wonderful. My goodness.
OATS: But, as I say, over the years I love to crochet. I used to crochet lots of articles. Now I crochet afghans and any number of times in Fallon, like the senior citizens, the Laura Mills Park, and so forth, I made afghans and donated for their auctions, you know,

42
and I imagine I made a hundred, hundred and fifty afghans in my life. I love to crochet. Some of them, of course, are the smaller baby afghans or so forth and I still do it, and I make them for gifts.
LaVOY: Now what are you doing up in Battle Mountain for entertainment?
OATS: Well, I tell you, I love where we live. The scenery's beautiful, beautiful hills, but I always loved the desert. We live out seven miles and we come to Fallon, oh, a number of times a year. We often go into Reno and, I read a lot, I crochet a lot, I phone my friends in Fallon that I have quite a few that are very dear close friends [redacted on request of Della Oats] and Anne Berlin, she keeps me posted on the Fallon news. I kid her. I always tell her I want to subscribe for the Enquirer again and I'm still interested in Fallon. I take the local paper and I follow what is here. I made lots of friends at the University, When we were on the ranch out here we had very little time for any social life over the years. I really am very thankful that I am well at this age. I did have a cataract surgery a little over a year ago in Elko to a Dr. Fritchie. Incidentally, he's a client of my son's and in the hospital four hours, out, fine, and my eye now is excellent.
LaVOY: And your poor husband had such a long time with his.

Now they put a lens in your eye right during the surgery and he had thick glasses after he had his and I really think that was really part of the downfall of his health following that eye surgery. I was going to a dentist in Battle Mountain--he was over there part time--and he worked part time in Reno. And a month ago he is leaving Battle Mountain working full time in Reno. He's also a client of Fred's. So I'm going to try and make Reno appointments with him. I don't drive to Reno anymore or to Elko, but I have a very close friend in Elko and we visit her quite a little.
That is just wonderful. The last thing that I want to ask you about. I notice you have a paper here that's the eulogy for Alfred A. Oats by Virgil Getto. Where was that given?
That was given here when he died, at the mortuary and Virgil was one of my pupils years ago and we always thought the world of him and he used to come to my husband. He first had grade cattle and then he decided he want some registered ones so he bought some from us

43
to start his registered ones and he was at our house so much conferring with Alfred about the cattle or something and he gave the eulogy and I could leave you a copy if you're interested.
LaVOY: Yes, I'll add it as an addendum to your interview.
OATS: And he did a very fine eulogy.
LaVOY:
OATS:
Well, I don't see how you have the time to put up with so many tapes for so many people.
LaVOY: I enjoy it thoroughly.
OATS: Well, I certainly thank you so much and I am very pleased to meet you.
LaVOY: Well, on behalf of the Churchill County Museum Oral
History Project I want to thank you for this interview

Sylvia Arden

Della Renfro Oats

4325 Schurz Highway, Fallon, NV