Ygnacio "Enos" Henry Laca Oral History
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CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
an interview with
Ygnacio “Enos” Henry Laca
October 24, 1993
This interview was conducted by Anita Erquiaga; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norine Arciniega; final by Pat Boden; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project, 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
When Myrl Nygren asked the oral history group if we knew of any long time 4-H leaders, Enos [Ygnacio Henry Laca] came to mind immediately. I knew he had been a leader for a long time, but still I was surprised to find that it had been forty years. Add to that the years with Farm Bureau and Truckee Carson Irrigation District board of directors and you can see he is a very public spirited person. Besides all that, he has been a full-time farmer all his life, and that takes a lot of time too. Farming is more than a forty hour a week job. However, in listening to him talk it is obvious that he enjoys his volunteer off the farm activities, especially teaching and working with the young people in 4-H.
I've known Enos since I was a youngster, when his parents and mine were friends, and I was pleased to do this interview and record what I think is a story about an important part of Churchill County activities.
Interview with Ygnacio Henry Laca
ERQUIAGA: This is Anita Erquiaga of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Program doing an interview with Ygnacio Henry Laca. Today is October 24, 1993. Ygnacio lives at 2750 Testolin Road. He is known to everyone as Enos, and I will be referring to him as Enos in this interview. Well, Enos, I'd like to thank you for coming down here to do this interview today, and I want to start by asking you to give me your full name, place of birth, and your date of birth.
LACA: My full name is Ygnacio Henry Laca. I was born in Golconda, Nevada, on June 3, 1924. I was born at home with a midwife and then I think a doctor to fill out the birth certificate.
ERQUIAGA: Okay. Now tell me your father's full name and where he was born.
LACA: My father's full name is Ygnacio Cleto Laca. He was born in Berriatua, Spain.
ERQUIAGA: And how did he happen to come to the United States?
LACA: Well, he came to the United States because he already had two brothers here, and he came to herd sheep.
ERQUIAGA: Oh! He came for the sheep. A lot of them did that. And what was your mother's name and place of birth?
LACA: My mother's name is Celestina Maciotta, and she was born in Ria Bella, Italy.
ERQUIAGA: And when did she come here?
LACA: My mother came to the United States in 1921.
ERQUIAGA: And how did they meet? Where did they come to in this country?
LACA: In this country my mother came to Paradise Valley where she had a cousin living, and then with her two brothers they had a ranch rented north of Golconda, and Dad would come through with his band of sheep, and that's how they met.
ERQUIAGA: I see. And so you were born there in Golconda.
LACA: Right.
ERQUIAGA: And when did they come to Fallon?
LACA: They came to Fallon on January 1, 1928.
ERQUIAGA: And how did they happen to come here?
LACA: Well, they came here because they bought a ranch, an eighty-acre ranch here, and they had farmed here all their lives.
ERQUIAGA: And did they stay on that same farm all the time?
LACA: Yes, until Dad retired and he moved to town.
ERQUIAGA: Okay, and did you continue to live on the farm?
LACA: Yes, I lived on the farm until the Navy bought us out in 1957.
ERQUIAGA: And what was the purpose of this Navy buyout?
LACA: Navy buyout was to eliminate the noise and base expansion.
ERQUIAGA: Did they buy very many farms at that time?
LACA: Yes. They bought all around the perimeter of the base on the west, north, and northeast of the base.
ERQUIAGA: What sort of work did you do as a child on the farm?
LACA: As a child on the farm, my first job that I can recall was milking cows which I started about six years of age.
ERQUIAGA: Did your family sell the cream to the Milk Producers' Association?
LACA: Yes, the family sold cream to the Milk Producers' Association until they more or less went out of business, and then we shipped cream by freight to Tomales Bay in California.
ERQUIAGA: The cream. Not the whole milk.
LACA: The cream, yes.
ERQUIAGA: Just the cream. I see. And what else did you do? That was pretty early to start working. What else did you do on the farm?
LACA: Well, I helped with the irrigating, and then my biggest joy was when I first got to drive the team for the derrick in the summertime to put up hay.
ERQUIAGA: Oh. How old were you then?
LACA: Well, somewhere between, probably around ten years of age.
ERQUIAGA: Can you tell me a little about that driving the derrick team?
LACA: Well, it was just a team of horses on a small cart made special for that and you raised the hay with nets to the top of the stack and then backed the team up to let the nets back down.
ERQUIAGA: And did your dad do the stacking or work on the stack?
LACA: Dad did not do too much stacking. It was always a neighbor or a friend that did the stacking.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, I see. 'Cause the stacking was a pretty important part of it, wasn't it?
LACA: Yes. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: Had to be done just right.
LACA: Just right. Yeah. Now, I did a lot of stacking myself in later years, but I mean when I got old enough.
ERQUIAGA: That was a fairly hard job, wasn't it?
LACA: It was.
ERQUIAGA: Hard on the legs maybe?
LACA: Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: Well, how about your brother. What's his name, and how old was he?
LACA: My brother, Remo, and he was born November 30, 1925, also in Golconda.
ERQUIAGA: And when you came to the farm, did he do the same chores?
LACA: He did more or less the same work that I did.
ERQUIAGA: Did you go to the country schools?
LACA: No, most of the country schools were closed by the time I started, and I spent all my twelve years of schooling in town at what was Con B [Consolidated B] and then the high school.
ERQUIAGA: I see. Did you ever drive a school bus?
LACA: I drove a school bus for one semester, and then I turned the job over to my brother.
ERQUIAGA: Oh. What kind of pay did you get for driving school bus in those days?
LACA: School bus in them days was twenty dollars a month.
ERQUIAGA: Well, that probably seemed pretty good to you.
LACA: Oh, yes. Yes, it was.
ERQUIAGA: So, were you in 4-H when you were a youngster?
LACA: I think I started 4-H when I was eleven years of age, and I continued until, well, for nine years. Yeah…
ERQUIAGA: Until you finished school.
LACA: Well, until I finished school, and then even a couple of years afterwards because I was a 4-H member and also a leader the last couple of years.
ERQUIAGA: What kind of projects did you have when you were in 4H?
LACA: Well, when I was in 4-H I raised pigs, fat hogs, to take to the state fair and also registered Holstein bulls and heifers, and then I also raised white-faced steers to take to the Junior Livestock show, and my brother did the same things.
ERQUIAGA: Well, when you were in high school, did you take the ag classes?
LACA: Yeah, in high school I took ag all four years, and I was in FFA all four years. FFA stands for Future Farmers of America, and the difference between now and then in them days to be in ag and FFA you had to have a livestock project and keep records.
ERQUIAGA: You had to have some kind of a project. Every year . .?
LACA: Every year, yes.
ERQUIAGA: In ag class you had to have a-
LACA: Or you could have a continuous project. I mean, you could have cows and then, you know, the calves and so forth. Or you could raise crops or, I mean, but you did have to have a project of some kind to keep records.
ERQUIAGA: I see. I think the record keeping was a fairly important part of it.
LACA: That was one of the most important parts that they tried to teach in ag.
ERQUIAGA: Did you find that you were able to use a lot of that information when you became a farmer?
LACA: Well, yes. It just kind of blended right in. What we learned in school we tried to implement at home and . .
ERQUIAGA: Well, I understand you were a State Farmer when you were in FFA. Tell me what that means and what you had to do to receive the award.
LACA: I was a State Farmer in 1942, and you had to have good grades, your record books had to be completed, and you had to be more or less in the top, three or four or five, in the class at the time.
ERQUIAGA: In your entire class, not the ag class.
LACA: The ag class.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, in the ag class.
LACA: Yeah,
ERQUIAGA: Okay.
LACA: And, I don't know about now, but then in them days there was only ten State Farmers allowed for the whole state.
ERQUIAGA: Well, who chose them?
LACA: Mostly on your records books and your ag instructor, and my ag instructor at the time was L. C. Schank.
ERQUIAGA: That was Leroy Schank.
LACA: Leroy, yeah.
ERQUIAGA: He was a long-time ag instructor, wasn't he? Well, after high school did you start farming on your own?
LACA: No. Soon as I got out of high school, farmed with Dad and my brother, and then when Dad retired, went into partners with Remo until our families were pretty well growed up, and then finally we went on our own.
ERQUIAGA: Well, when did you start being a 4-H leader, then?
LACA: I started being a 4-H leader when I was probably about eighteen years of age.
ERQUIAGA: And what did you do? What types of clubs did you . .
LACA: Well, to begin with, we had our community clubs where we had to have at least five youngsters in an area and we would meet at different people's homes, or in them days you still had some of the old schoolhouses around.
ERQUIAGA: I see.
LACA: And then, after a few years of that, well, I also handled the, in them days was the beef club which consisted, of the livestock club, which consisted of beef, sheep, and swine. All three combined because in them days we didn't have too many youngsters like we do today, and most of those was livestock that was raised to be shown at the Junior Livestock show in Reno.
ERQUIAGA: That was their goal that they . .
LACA: That was their goal to make the livestock show in Reno. Then after that, the community clubs did not exist anymore, and they became county-wide clubs and separate. Like we had one beef club, four or five sheep clubs, and two or three swine clubs.
ERQUIAGA: And a different leader for . .
LACA: And different leaders for each club, yes.
ERQUIAGA: What did you strive to teach the kids in your club?
LACA: Well, more or less, new feeding practices that were coming out all the time through the extension office and the University of Nevada. We had from our extension agent we usually had guide lines that they wanted the youngsters to be brought up to date or taught, and that was mostly it. And then use your own working skills.
ERQUIAGA: What you were doing every day in your . .
LACA: Every day and every day. Yeah. Right.
ERQUIAGA: You would teach that.
LACA: Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: Did you have just boys in your group, or were they boys and girls in the group?
LACA: Well, to begin with, it was all boys. Then, as soon as we went into the livestock club where they had all three species, then we had both boys and girls.
ERQUIAGA: I see. Who were the extension agents?
LACA: Well, when I first went into 4-H and started leader, Royal Crook was the extension agent. Then, Charlie York, and then Bud Miller.
ERQUIAGA: Well, did this go on year round? These groups that you had meetings with, or was it just a summertime . .
LACA: Well, to be begin with, they were just summertime clubs with the projects completing when the State Fair was here in Fallon. The other livestock clubs usually started in the fall of the year and completed around the first of May when the livestock show was in Reno.
ERQUIAGA: I see. Now, I remember that a lot of the youngsters would win trips to Chicago. How did that happen? What did they have to do to win a trip?
LACA: Well, to win a trip you had to complete a number of different projects, your record books up to date, your story, scrapbooks, everything that pertained to your different projects, and then state contests was held, usually in Reno, and then the winners of the state contests usually were awarded trips to Chicago.
ERQUIAGA: Did you get to go to Chicago when you were in 4-H?
LACA: I went to Chicago in, I think, in 1944, and my trip was on rural electrification, and that included everything. My record books on all my livestock projects, and then I also worked with electricity putting up different electrical works at home and keeping records of it.
ERQUIAGA: Then, did some of your youngsters from the groups you were leading, did any of them get to go to Chicago?
LACA: Yes, they have, but at this date, I don't remember their names. (laughing)
ERQUIAGA: Remember, there's been a lot of years.
LACA: Lot of years. Right.
ERQUIAGA: Did some of your members become very successful farmers around the Valley?
LACA: Yes. There is quite a few of them.
ERQUIAGA: Well, that's good.
LACA: Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: And what types of clubs did they have for the girls in those days?
LACA: In those days they had sewing clubs, canning clubs, cooking clubs. Least, that's part of them.
ERQUIAGA: Do they still have those groups?
LACA: Yes, they still do have these groups. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: They don't get as much publicity in the paper.
LACA: No, because most of them are handled by volunteer leaders, and there's not too much publicity on them.
ERQUIAGA: And, so how long did you continue to do this work as a 4-H leader?
LACA: Well, I was a 4-H leader for approximately forty years, and after that time I've just kind of faded out. Although I still help out when needed.
ERQUIAGA: I see. What year was that that you stopped doing it regularly?
LACA: Mmmmm. [murmurs to himself, calculating the date] About ten or eleven years ago.
ERQUIAGA: You started in 1942? About?
LACA: About 1942, Yes.
ERQUIAGA: And you went with it until, probably, about 1982 or 1983 then?
LACA: Yes. Somewhere in there. Right.
ERQUIAGA: Did they give you a pen or a dinner or anything to thank you for all that work?
LACA: Well, I got a forty-year pin, and then usually just 4H Achievement night.
ERQUIAGA: Who was it that got you started being a 4-H leader?
LACA: Well, it just happened that when we'd form a club and if we couldn't find a leader, usually an older member became the leader and handled the youngsters.
ERQUIAGA: So you got involved because you were a member.
LACA: Right.
ERQUIAGA: And you were needed.
LACA: Right.
ERQUIAGA: Do you know anyone else who spent that many years as a 4-H member?
LACA: No, I don't. No, I don't.
ERQUIAGA: So how do you think the 4-H clubs today compare with those days? Are they quite different?
LACA: Well, they are different into the fact that there are individual clubs with only, say, either swine or sheep. In the earlier days you had a variety of projects from the different youngsters' different projects.
ERQUIAGA: Do they still have the cooking and sewing clubs?
LACA: Yes.
ERQUIAGA: Oh, they do.
LACA: Oh, yeah, yeah.
ERQUIAGA: Well, Farm Bureau has been very big in your life, too. You've done a lot of work with them. How did you get involved with Farm Bureau?
LACA: Well, I got involved with Farm Bureau by becoming a Farm Bureau member and then attending meetings.
ERQUIAGA: And when was that?
LACA: Oh, boy. Ah, that would be, oh, probably when I was about, probably, twenty five when I first started in and attended different meetings and what have ya.
ERQUIAGA: You got involved in all these things very young before you even had children of your own to…
LACA: Right. Yes, I did. Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: Is that unusual, do you think?
LACA: No, well, it was probably because I have the time to put in and enjoyed doing it, but then I continued after I had a family of my own.
ERQUIAGA: What are the Farm Bureau's goals for people?
LACA: Well, today the main goals are trying to keep people abreast of what's going on. Especially through the State organization and lobbying at the State Legislature for different things. Then locally, for the youngsters we have the speech contest, and we have the talent contest, and then we have Ag in the classroom.
ERQUIAGA: Now, what is that?
LACA: Now, that is where Farm Bureau volunteers take material into your schools so teachers can teach or explain to youngsters where milk comes from, how you get flour, how you make butter. In other words, to teach the youngsters that your food does not come off the shelf but it's produced off the land and off of the livestock.
ERQUIAGA: And do they have that program here in Churchill County?
LACA: It got off to a real good start this last year. Yes, they have it here in Churchill County.
ERQUIAGA: Who are the Farm Bureau members that take care of that?
LACA: Well, this year Maureen Weishaupt took over, and she did an excellent job.
ERQUIAGA: Yes. She would. You were president of the Churchill County Farm Bureau? How long were you that?
LACA: Well, as far as I can figure out, I was a member about six years. Probably two years each time at three different intervals.
ERQUIAGA: I see. As President?
LACA: Yeah.
ERQUIAGA: Did you have any special goals that you wanted to accomplish when you were the county president?
LACA: Well, not really, except we tried to put up signs on different fields and stuff so people driving by could know this is this type of wheat, this is this type of corn, and things like this . . .
ERQUIAGA: Oh!
LACA: And, but then, that kind of faded by the wayside, but the main objective through Farm Bureau is try to get a cheaper insurance for the members which we have done through Country Companies.
ERQUIAGA: They have all kinds of insurance. Car insurance.
LACA: They have car insurance, life insurance
ERQUIAGA: Health?
LACA: I think they have health. I'm not positive, but I think they have health.
ERQUIAGA: Well, how does the Farm Bureau membership compare with twenty, twenty-five year ago?
LACA: We have a lot more members than we had in the past. This year Churchill County made quota for the first time in a number of years, and I think we are approximately somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred members locally.
ERQUIAGA: And are they quite active? Quite a lot of them active?
LACA: Well, it's more or less like most organizations. It goes and comes a lot of times. Right now we have a hard time even getting enough members to attend our state convention and things like this.
ERQUIAGA: But, they still are members?
LACA: But, they still are members. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: There is something there that Farm Bureau offers?
LACA: Yeah.
LACA: Well, and then they also have the store in Reno that they can usually buy at a discount.
ERQUIAGA: I see. What kind of things do they buy at that store?
LACA: Well, at the store they have all kinds of hardware, livestock feed, oil, tools.
ERQUIAGA: Do they have baling wire?
LACA: Baling wire, yes. In fact, they were one of the big, big, big sellers of wire. Was one of their main… course with the drought the last few years it has not been quite as lucrative, but it was real lucrative.
ERQUIAGA: Well, now is there anything else that you'd like to tell me about these things that I haven't remembered to ask?
LACA: Well, I'm also, this'll be my twelfth year as a T.C.I.D. [Truckee-Carson Irrigation District] director.
ERQUIAGA: Okay. I was going to ask you that. When were you elected to that?
LACA: I was elected in 1983. In 1994 my term'll be up. I'll have twelve years in 1994, so it was 1982. Elected in 1982.
ERQUIAGA: Do you find that you have learned a lot about the irrigation project since you became a director?
LACA: Yes. What my concept was and then what I learned after I became a director was entirely different. I found out that when those directors became a director that you just couldn't do what you wanted. You had to more or less go along with the consensus of the other' seven board members, and you also learned that we were governed by state law and then, also, by the Bureau of Reclamation. In other words, you had to answer to two different people.
ERQUIAGA: So, you would say that's the main thing that you learned?
LACA: Yes, and then, also, the demands from the Bureau of Reclamation are becoming more and more, and we have not increased our work crews as far as operation and maintenance of the Project, but we've had to almost double our office crews to meet the demands of the BOR.
ERQUIAGA: And all that costs money.
LACA: All that costs money. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: Do you think a director's job is quite different now than it was twenty-five years ago?
LACA: Well, I would say that probably it's different in the fact that we are having so many demands put on for water by the Bureau of Reclamation.
ERQUIAGA: Twenty-five years ago they still were supposed to answer to the Bureau, but maybe didn't have to?
LACA: Well, we didn't have all these demands for excess water. In them days we didn't have to worry about the endangered species. The cui-ui and Reno and Sparks and Carson City for water demands and all these different things like this. In other words, what come down the rivers we caught in Lahontan and then we'd distribute it to the different ranches.
ERQUIAGA: Well, there's so much litigation going on now.
LACA: Yes.
ERQUIAGA: How does that figure out financially for the district?
LACA: Well, here lately in the last month or so we've had other groups formed in the valley that have kind of taken over some of the litigation that we had going because they kept telling us that we were an entity of the government and that we were suing the government and that wasn't supposed to be that way, but, you know, we're working for the government and we're suing the government, but now we have bench and bottom, oh, what they call recoupment and, oh, forfeiture and abandonment.
ERQUIAGA: Were you familiar with all of that when you became a director?
LACA: No. No. That all come about after I was a director.
ERQUIAGA: So, it's really been an education for you.
LACA: It really has. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: How about the ditch riders? Have their jobs changed over the years?
LACA: Well, in a way, yes, and in a way, no. The ditch rider still, more or less, the same ditches and everything. The only thing is they are required to keep a more accurate time of the amount of water that you receive and the measurements and things like this, but, otherwise, the ditch rider does more or less the same thing today as he did twenty years ago.
ERQUIAGA: Did they actually measure the water twenty years ago that each farmer got?
LACA: Well, they measured but not right down to the last like they are today. I mean, today they're really getting technical and right down to the point.
ERQUIAGA: Water's becoming very precious.
LACA: Yes. Right.
ERQUIAGA: There's a lot more people employed by the District now I would guess.
LACA: Well, more people are employed by the District, like I said earlier, in the office. As far as our field work is concerned, in fact because of the drought and everything, we are down. But, our office staff has, well, I would say almost doubled.
ERQUIAGA: Lots of paper work.
LACA: Lot of paper work because the Bureau wants to know how much water each rancher used. We have to redo bench and bottom maps for the government and all of this stuff. It just takes a lot of extra help. We have computerized everything which makes it, I guess, easier. But, still and all, the demands from the Bureau's been so great that we just had to employ more girls in the office.
ERQUIAGA: Has the T.C.I.D. done some of the work at making concrete ditches around the valley, or is that a private thing that people do?
LACA: Well, the District has done a little concrete work. Not very much. The District has lined, [tape cuts, end of side A] oh, I would be guessing, but I would say maybe ten or twelve miles of laterals, and that would be it, The District has lined the canal along the Rice Road, the T-Line. They have lined half a mile of the L-8 on Testolin Road, and there was some lining done in the Stillwater area for the reservation, but I don't think the District paid for that. They also lined approximately a half a mile of ditch for a new dairyman in the valley, but that was lined by the district and paid for by the dairyman.
ERQUIAGA: I see. That was just this summer?
LACA: Yes.
ERQUIAGA: Well, is there anything else that you would like to tell me about your work as a T.C.I.D. director?
LACA: No, I don't think so. Not right now.
ERQUIAGA: Okay. In 1981, you married Ruby. What was her maiden name?
LACA: My wife's maiden name was Ruby Dabol.
ERQUIAGA: And was she a Fallon native?
LACA: She was born and raised in Fallon. Yes.
ERQUIAGA: And when you and Ruby married, you combined your two families.
LACA: Right.
ERQUIAGA: You want to tell us the names of these children?
LACA: Yeah. She had three children. Gary Friberg, Connie Friberg Harlan, and Randy Friberg, and then I have two remaining children. Gene Laca and Pat Laca.
ERQUIAGA: And how many grandchildren do you have between you?
LACA: We have eight grandchildren between us and three step-grandchildren.
ERQUIAGA: Well, that's a houseful, then.
LACA: Yup.
ERQUIAGA: You lost two sons in separate accidents over the years.
LACA: Yes.
ERQUIAGA: Would you tell me names and when they were killed?
LACA: Jimmy was born in 1959, and he was killed in a jeep accident right on the ranch twenty-one years ago, and Joe was killed in a truck accident east of Fallon approximately seven years ago.
ERQUIAGA: And did Joe have children?
LACA: Joe had four children.
ERQUIAGA: Well, you have spent the biggest part of your adult life doing what I call public service work and a lot of it as a volunteer. Can you say that anyone in particular influenced you to be that kind of a person?
LACA: No, I can't think of anyone in particular right now. It's just that I got along with people good, and they ask me to do different things, and so I volunteered, and one reason I was in 4-H so long was because I liked working with the children and the young adults.
ERQUIAGA: That's a very commendable and was certainly a worthwhile way to spend your life. You're not through yet. You're going to continue to do these things.
LACA: Well, I suppose I will continue. If they ask, I will continue.
ERQUIAGA Well, I want to thank you again for taking the time to do this. I'm sure that there's information here that will be of interest to people, and we appreciate it, and I think for now our interview is concluded.
LACA: Okay. Thank you very much.
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