Lucy Melendy Oral History

Dublin Core

Title

Lucy Melendy Oral History

Description

Lucy Melendy Oral History

Creator

Churchill County Museum Association

Publisher

Churchill County Museum Association

Date

July 7, 1990

Relation

Her husband, Tip Melendy, interviewed here.

Format

Analog Cassette Tape, .docx File, Mp3 Audio

Language

English

Oral History Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Audio Cassette

Duration

1:16:49

Transcription

CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

an interview with

LUCY MELENDY

July 7, 1990

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.

This interview was conducted by Marianne Papa; transcribed by Delphi Bendickson; edited by Sylvia Arden; first draft typed by Delphi Bendickson; final typed by Delphi Bendickson; index by Gracie Viera; and supervised by Sylvia Arden, Humanist-in-Residence; and Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum.

PAPA:   This is Marianne Papa with the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project. I'm interviewing  Lucy Melendy Today is July 7, 1990. I’m interviewing Lucy Melendy in the dining room of her home at 805 North Harmon Road in Churchill County. The interview will start approximately 9:00, I anticipate in her kitchen. Thank you. Lucy, could you tell me your full name and where you were born?

MELENDY: My full name is Lucy Agnes Melendy. I hate the Agnes but I have to tell you. And I was born in Georgia, 1910.

PAPA:   Could you tell me a little bit about your parents? Their names and where they were born and raised?

MELENDY: Yeah, they were both born in Georgia, too, and raised there. My father's name was Isaac Newton Stuart, which names you don't hear much anymore, I think they were taken from the Bible. And my mother's maiden name was Ellen Lutisha Roberts. And we were, so they told me, Irish and Scottish descent. Supposed to have been related way back to the Queen, was it Queen Mary of Scotland that was beheaded? Well, yeah, that was some of our relatives.

PAPA:   What occupation did your father and mother have?

MELENDY: He was in the lumber business back there. And of course the women, in those days, didn't work; they raised families. And then when they migrated west, of course, he went into farming.

PAPA:   Now you came from a larger family. Would you tell me about your brothers and sisters?

MELENDY: Yes, I used to have three brothers and two sisters. Two of them are dead now.

PAPA: Who is the oldest?

MELENDY: Allene is the oldest. And my brother Harlan, that died, was next. And then I'm the third one. Then Earl, and Unadell, and Harry.

PAPA:   And Allene is Allene Baumann, who lives here in Fallon?

MELENDY: Yes, Yes. She, and my brother Harlan and also Earl were born in Georgia but the others were born out west.

PAPA:   Where is your brother Harlan now?

MELENDY: He's dead,

PAPA:   And when did he die and where?

MELENDY: He died in the Seventies, I couldn't tell you what year without looking it up.

PAPA:   But he lived also here in Fallon?

MELENDY: Well part time. Mostly, he was in the service and travelled all over the world you know, in the Air Force. And when he retired, he lived in Reno.

PAPA:   And you were the third child. Now who was after you?

MELENDY: Earl.

PAPA:   Earl, and he's living here in Fallon?

MELENDY: Mmmh Hmh.

PAPA:   Was he born out here?

MELENDY: No, no, Earl was born in Georgia too.

PAPA:   Georgia, also.

MELENDY: The only one born in Fallon was the youngest one, Harry.

PAPA:   Okay. And whose after Earl?

MELENDY: Unadell, is the one that died.

PAPA:   And that's your sister who died in a car accident?

MELENDY: Right. Right. Way back in 1937.

PAPA:   Okay, then after Unadell?

MELENDY: Was Harry.

PAPA:   And he was born here?

MELENDY: Mmmh Hmh. He was born over there in that house.

PAPA:   Okay. We're at 805 North Harmon. So when you say over there at that house?

MELENDY: That's my mother's home. Mother and Dad lived there. We were raised in that house.

PAPA:   And it's the house that's right between your home and the Harmon Road?

MELENDY: That's right.

PAPA:   Okay. And is Harry still alive?

MELENDY: Yes. He lives in San Diego.

PAPA:   Okay. Do you remember very much about your early childhood?

MELENDY: No. Just what I've heard the family say and my memory is very, very poor. Once in a while something will come back, you know.

PAPA:   When did the family decide to come out west?

MELENDY: I don't know what year we came. First they moved to Idaho and then they lived in Oregon. We lived in a tent in Oregon for five years before we came down here.

PAPA:   And was your father seeking employment, or better employment?

MELENDY: No. No. Not at that time. They started a little town up there but there was nobody there, just our family, in Oregon. He ran a little store and he bought coyote pelts and all that kind of stuff.

PAPA:   What was the name of that town?

MELENDY: Blitzen. The kids went up there a couple of years ago, Earl and Allene and them. Well, I couldn't walk...but I mean, I didn't go. And they found where it used to be. It's nothing but foundations and stuff, they could still find it. They even found the dug out hole where our tent used to be cause it was set in the ground. And there was a well, right in the middle where everybody lived that everybody used, it was a community well. There was nobody there but relatives.

PAPA:   What was the closest town to that?

MELENDY: The closest town was Burns.

PAPA:   And Burns is still there?

MELENDY: Yes.

PAPA:   So, was it north, south, east or west of there?

MELENDY: It was south, it was between Burns and, what's that town on the Nevada border there where you come across [Denio] north of Winnemucca?

PAPA: Was it jackpot?

MELENDY: No, way over on this other side.

PAPA: Well, we'll look it up and fill it in. Your father ran a store there?

MELENDY: Yeah, he ran the store and of course it included the post office and there were quite a few farms around and that's where the business came from, but the little place itself, where the people lived, was all our own family.

PAPA:   Now what made him decide to move the family?

MELENDY: We came from there, here. It was when this darn colony started up over here, you know, where they gypped everybody out of their money?

PAPA:   Are you referring to the Socialist Colony?

MELENDY: Yes. And that's what brought them down here, although it kind of went to pieces and people found out what they were trying to do to them, you know, before we got mixed up in it. But we did come down here for that.

PAPA:   Okay, so then your parents weren't that involved in it?

MELENDY: No, they didn't get involved, but they would have been if it hadn't blown up before they got here. Allene remembers when that all was going on but I don't.           Well a lot of people...the old timers, like George Luke, lived across the road...they remembered and they talked about it a lot but, I don't remember it.

PAPA:   How old were you then when you came?

MELENDY: I was eight when we came to Nevada.

PAPA:   You were born in 1910?

MELENDY: Mmh Hm.

PAPA:   It was 1918 then when you came to Nevada.

MELENDY: Yes. Uh huh.

PAPA:   Do you have any recollections of your early childhood of the move here?

MELENDY: No. There's a thing or two I remember. I know that my grandparents and my dad's brothers and sisters...they came down before we did. And they already had their home here when we came down, and one of my dad's brothers still lived up there and he decided he'd come down here to live. And he knew my dad was going to come later, so he brought my sister Allene and I with him. And we moved down here when he came down and then the family came later. That was the first time I'd ever ridden in a car...

PAPA:   What kind of car was it?

MELENDY: Oh gosh, I don't know...probably one of the model T's or something, I don't remember. And I don't remember the trip or anything. I remember them telling us that I think it was in Susanville that we stopped overnight or something and the name of that town is Denim. They served us olives and I had never seen an olive before. Of course they didn't tell us there was green olives and ripe olives and they were GREEN! And they made Allene and I both sick and since then we've never liked olives! [Laughs]

PAPA:   Now that was near Susanville where you slept?

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   What were the names and relations of the relatives that had moved down here before you? You said it was your father's....

MELENDY: My father's family. Yes. His mother and dad and brothers and sisters.

PAPA:   And do you remember their names?

MELENDY: Yeah. Well now I'm gonna have to think about that....I don't know....I've got it down in there on a piece of paper. Isn't that funny? Virgil was his name. Virgil Stuart. And hers was Mary. Now I got it.

PAPA:   And who were his brothers and sisters that lived here?

MELENDY: There was one called Ramzy...all old names...Alonzo two sisters, Fanny and Lizzie...that was the only ones that were left in the family that were here. But he had other brothers and sisters still back east that didn't come west...never have come west...fact is, we've got a brother...he's dead now...but once in a while some of the relatives come out and visit us you know...from back in Georgia...and he never would come cause he still felt the Indians scalped them out here.

PAPA:   What was his name?

MELENDY: His name was Henry. And you know...until he died, he never did disbelieve that...he never did come. They had chances to come out, you know? And it wouldn't have cost him anything.

PAPA:   Which other brothers and sisters are back there besides Henry?

MELENDY: Oh, I don't know, Allene would have to tell you that. I know that he had four or five other brothers...I think that's the only two sisters he had though. But he did have several other brothers. But one of them ran away from home when he was a young man, so I've heard him tell...and they never did know what happened to him. In the last few years they located him...they weren't trying to locate him but he died in Chicago and...

PAPA:   What was his name?

MELENDY: Virgil. And they traced him back...and that was the brother they'd been hunting all these years.

PAPA:   Oh.

MELENDY: But they had no idea where he'd ever went to.

PAPA:   But he still used the name Stuart? Virgil Stuart?

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   If you were eight years old when you came out here, which house did you live in or did you live in a tent...or...?

MELENDY: No. When we came here, we lived here.

PAPA:   Okay. You lived in the house at 800 North Harmon?

MELENDY: Yeah, this one right here. And I lived in that one until I married and left home. That's the oldest house left in the District, I believe, now.

PAPA:   Did your parents buy it from somebody?

MELENDY: Yeah. We bought the house from Thorntons. And the people that owned it before them had homesteaded it. And then Thornton bought it from...originally it was owned by Clark, their name was Clark.

PAPA:   What was the house like? How many rooms did it have?

MELENDY: It's still just the same as it was then except we built a porch on each end. It had four rooms and at one time, I guess it was one of the only house, really, that was close to the schoolhouse here...and they used to have their community dances over there. And the neighbor across the road told me one time...one night they went and I suppose they all had a little one too many and he said they got to dancing...and it was two rooms. And they said, "Gee, you know this would be a lot better place to dance if it was all one room." And they all went home and got their hammers and tore the partition out that same night. And fixed the floor level and they went back and had a good dance, the rest of the dance.

PAPA:   So that was in your home.

MELENDY: Yeah, this home over here. So it made a great big nice front room there and it's still the same size now as it used to be then.

PAPA:   And the school was located just kitty cornered like across the street?

MELENDY: No. It's right up here where it is now. It's a quarter of a mile up the road.

PAPA:   A quarter of a mile

MELENDY:           Yeah.. Right. From here.

PAPA:   But the school was still there then?

MELENDY: No...in those days the school was over by that colony, you know the old school used to be over there before they built this one. Before 1915, I mean.

PAPA:   So when you first moved here you lived in this house?

MELENDY: Yeah, but this school was here then because we went...we started school up there. See they built this in '15 and we didn't come until '18,

PAPA:   You're right.

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   I was getting mixed up on my time. Okay, so the school was here. What was it like going to school?

MELENDY: Well I don't have much recollection of going to school.

PAPA:   You walked to school?

MELENDY: Yeah, we walked to school, it's just a quarter of a mile. And we carried our lunch...and in those days, you know, you didn't have fancy lunch pails or nothing. We used to have those gallon lard buckets we took our lunch in. We were very poor people, I remember having cornbread and honey; that was our sandwiches. We survived and...just as happy as the ones that had money, I guess, I don't know. But when I first started up here, I was in the fourth grade. When I was eight years old, I was in the fourth grade.

PAPA:   Do you remember who your teacher was?

MELENDY: Yeah. When I first started it wag...Jack...Miss [Pauline] Jacques we called her. They had two teachers up here, one in the large room and one in the small room which was four grades each. She married Herbert Lattin and raised her family and died here. She lived the rest of her life here.

PAPA:   How many grades were in the...

MELENDY: There was four in each room. Four in each room, yeah. Each teacher taught four grades, in other words. One taught first to the fourth, I mean first, second, third and fourth, the other fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. And I started in the fifth grade when we first started school up here. I never was in what they called the small room. They called it the small room and large room.

PAPA:   Okay, so you started in the fifth grade.

MELENDY: I started in the fifth grade.

PAPA:   And, did you have her all four years?

MELENDY: No. No, I don't remember... I know I had her the first year but whether she was after that, I don't know. I think she married and didn't teach any more. You know, in those days when you married you didn't work...the women didn't. And then we had Mrs [Tina] Hughes, her name was. And uh...they called her "Teeny"...I think her name must have been just Teeny or something like that. And she lived over here right across the road at Lukes. They got a great big...what they call a tank house. That's where their water system was and everything and it's a great big high building. And above the tank part they had a little apartment built up there. And she had to go right up these steps and she had a son that went to school. I don't know whether she was divorced or a widow, but she was by herself. And her and that boy lived there and she taught here several years...fact is she was still teaching when I graduated from eighth grade.         

PAPA:   With four different grades being in the same classroom, how did they handle assignments? Did they give you individual work, just taking turns and you worked quietly or...?  

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   Did they teach the grades together?

MELENDY: No, no. I don't remember... I know we had four rows of seats and whether she had each class... one class in each row I don't remember. But I don't remember any confusion about teaching as far as teaching, you know, fifth and the sixth, they all studied the same thing only it was different books, you know, and I don't remember much about that. But...I learned a lot up there, I'll tell ya. And I started at High School when I was twelve years old, I shouldn't have been in there, you know.

PAPA:   Because you were younger than most of the other kids?

MELENDY: Yeah, I was too young, yeah, and I don't remember anything I learned in High School.

PAPA:   Where did you go to High School?

MELENDY: Out here, at the high school the old high school that sits, well it's the same one that sits there now only they built on to it, you know. Well they got a new one now.

PAPA:   It's the one on Taylor?

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   Taylor and Allen? [650 South Maine: the campus extends from South Maine to South Taylor]

MELENDY: Yeah, right.

PAPA:   Were there any incidents that you remember from your schooling?

MELENDY: Not especially...except the accommodations to get there. You know, we had no buses in those days.

PAPA:   Mmh mmh.

MELENDY: And, of course, living up here we walked and the kids that lived a ways away would ride their horses and stuff, but when you went to town school, to high school...you had to furnish your own way to get there. And there was a lady that Willis...she lived down where my brother Earl lived now, in those days. And... she had an old Model T with no top on it. (laugh) And she used to come around to pick us kids up...six of us...her kids and us and take us to school and I think we paid her 25 cents a month or something to take us to school. (laughter) But that's the way we got there. How the other kids through the valley got there I don't know. But they all got there.

PAPA:   Okay. Going back to the Harmon School. How many kids were in the classroom? It was four grades, do you remember the size of the classroom?

MELENDY: No, I don't, but I think there probably was around twenty, in all four classes. Because I don't believe there was any more chairs...uh...seats than that in there. Desks, I mean.

PAPA:   Okay. And what subjects did you study?

MELENDY: Oh, there were academic subjects. We had spelling and arithmetic and history and geography and reading and writing and…

PAPA:   Any subjects like Home Ec. or any subjects like that?

MELENDY: No! No, no, not in those days. Well I don't think they ever did. Later they had one of those hot food projects up here, but they didn't teach it in school, it was just something they had for the kids to...

PAPA:   Like a hot lunch program?

MELENDY: Yes. Mm-hmm. Because down below our school rooms down there, there's a great big long...I don't know how many feet it is...but it's a dining room and it holds 125 people.

PAPA:   Okay, but that wasn't when you were going to school.

MELENDY: No. But that's where they had the hot lunch later.

PAPA:   Mmh MMh.

MELENDY: They had a beautiful...a nice kitchen in there. And they used to have the community supper once a month. And try to get all the new people, you know, to get acquainted and come and they had crowds in those days. It finally dwindled down in later years, we tried to do the same thing but people wouldn't come out.

PAPA:   What was it like during your recess periods?

MELENDY: Oh, we'd just play games. I used to pitch on the baseball team, they didn't have enough boys to make a team.

PAPA:   Mm-hmm.

MELENDY: They played horse shoes. And they played baseball and they had our club here in the district raised the money and bought equipment for the school yards, you know, teeter totters and

PAPA:   So, did you have that when you were going to school?

MELENDY: No.

PAPA:   Or did that come later?

MELENDY: No, that came later...but...not all that much later.

PAPA:   Did you have a swing, I mean a slide?

MELENDY: Yeah, there was a slide. And all the same things that they had in those whirlygigs and things, you know. But our club raised money and bought all of that stuff for the school here, cause it was...the school was owned by the district, it had nothing to do with the town or anything, the district put up the money to build the building. I mean they owned it, that's all.

PAPA:   You were telling me earlier about an incident where one of the kids [Danny Evans] had used foul language in class?

MELENDY: Yeah. Yeah, that was when Mrs. Hughes was the teacher. She was a tough teacher. And she run all of us kids out of there and we all climbed up to look in through the window to see what she was going to do and she washed his mouth out with soap suds. But I never heard him use that word anymore, I'll tell you that! (laughter)

PAPA:   It was effective, right?

MELENDY: Yeah. Evidently. But he was mean. She used to have a...I don't know what kind of glasses you would call them, she did wear glasses, and they were thick ones. And she'd stand up at the blackboard and be doing this, [writing on the blackboard] you know, and evidently they had a beveled edge of some kind, cause she could see what we were doing behind her.

PAPA:   [laughs]

MELENDY: And we would get heck every once in a while...and we...how did she see what we were doing. And we found out later she could see through this edge of her glasses. You know, there wasn't a rim around them, they were just...she'd never turn around but she'd say, "So and so, quit doing that!" Whatever we were doing. Yeah, she was a good teacher.

PAPA:   You also told me about an incident with the slide?

MELENDY: Yeah, this same kid, and he had always carried this pocket knife and he'd...

PAPA:   Do you want to tell us his name?

MELENDY: Well, he's dead now, so I guess it wouldn't make any difference. And he was Danny Evans. And he was mayor of the town here for years and years and years after that, so he turned out alright, but he was a mean little kid, let's put it that way. But he'd run his knife up through the slot, you know, the boards had a little slot about that big between each board, cause there was four or five boards across to make the width for the slide and he'd run his knife up there when somebody'd go down there, until he got caught, well he hurt somebody bad one time, I forgot who it was now, but...I don't think he did that any more either.

PAPA:   Did you have problems with slivers?

MELENDY: No. No, them boards were finished off real smooth. No. but just knives! [Laughs] Right? That was something!

PAPA:   Do you remember what type of chores you had as a child?

MELENDY: Oh, yes. Milking cows mostly.

PAPA:   How many cows did you have?

MELENDY: We had...well it varied, we never had the same number of cows. There were six of us kids and we all had to go and help milk even if there wasn't enough cows to go around there'd be one on each side, but we all had to go. We didn't any of us ever stay and help Mom with the housework. We all had to and we worked out in the fields and... In those days we shocked hay by hand, you know.

PAPA:   Mmh mmh

MELENDY: You didn't have machinery you have now.

PAPA:   So the girls and the boys all worked outside?

MELENDY: Right.

PAPA:   Did your mother have any help in the house?

MELENDY: Once in a while...well...when we were in there after we were through, you know, we'd always have to help with dishes and all that kind of stuff... make the beds...but I meant during the day when the field work was going on...we were out in the fields.

PAPA:   Okay. So did you learn to bake then, by helping your mother?

MELENDY: Yeah. I never learned to cook much until after I was married. But I could run the machinery! (laughter) And use a pitchfork, I'll tell ya and things like that, It was all team...horses, you know, we didn't have any tractors or anything in those days either.

PAPA:   What were your favorite activities when you were a child?

MELENDY:           Well, we really didn't have any, I'll tell ya. All we did was work when we had spare time. We were just talking not long ago when they had a birthday party for me, oh...I don't know...first birthday party I ever had in my life.

PAPA:   Oh.

MELENDY: And they surprised me and it was just a few years ago. And I had mentioned earlier to my daughter-in-law...how poor we were, you know, when we were growing up, and I said, Allene or I, either one ever had a doll, all the years, we never had a doll. And they brought me a big beautiful doll. When they had this party for me. It was the only first doll, I still got it, and it's beautiful.

PAPA:   Oh, who were the people who brought you the doll? What were their names?

MELENDY: My son, Wallace Taylor and Bobbie. [Roberta Wilder]

PAPA:   Uh Huh.

MELENDY: You know them?

PAPA:   No, I don't.

MELENDY: Oh, I see. Bobby helped, maybe she still does, with that genealogy thing at the Museum. So, I thought maybe you knew them.

PAPA:   Now, you said that you were poor. Did you feel poor?

MELENDY: No. No. I guess we'd always been that way. Didn't know any different.

PAPA: Right.

MELENDY: And we never had any Christmas. They used to have a huge Christmas Tree at the School house...you know...and have a program and everything...every Christmas and pass out the candy and nuts for the kids and everything. That was always a week or two before Christmas vacation would start and when they were through they always gave us the tree, cause we had the big room over there that the boys had torn the petition out so they had room for the big dance, otherwise we would never have had a Christmas Tree. And we used to think that we had died and gone to heaven if we got an orange or banana or something at Christmas time.

PAPA:   So, were your neighbors as poor as you were?

MELENDY: I think most of them were.

PAPA:   And so, like you said you didn't feel any different?

MELENDY: No, no. Everybody was poor in those days.

PAPA:   Right. Now, did you have any time to go play with your friends?

MELENDY: No. I don't remember ever going...one night I remember going and staying all night with a friend of mine in all the time that I went to school. No. And we didn't go and play at their places, they didn't come over here and play. I imagine they had to work like we did on the weekends. And of course after school we had to milk and we had chickens and pigs, we raised everything. You know people that came from the south...the only kind of meat they ate mostly...we had beef, but we never killed one...was pork. Pork was the southern dish. And boy, we were always butchering hogs or something.

PAPA:   And you had chickens too?

MELENDY: Yeah. We made our own sausage and hams and everything in those days. Everybody had a little smokehouse, you know, where they smoked their meat.

PAPA:   And where was yours located?

MELENDY: It was between here and that house. There were two or three buildings and trees and everything. We had two trees that I remember...although they've been gone a long time, but they were huge trees and people that lived here before us had built a bench or something, I don't know what… Anyway it was just a board probably two foot wide...the width was between the trees and the trees had grown into it...it had been there that long that they had grown into that thing. And we had a big outside tub with a fire thing under it...my dad had made it, you know. We could build a fire and heat the water and that's where we did our washing out on this bench. We always washed outside except in the real cold weather.

PAPA:   So, you mean, washing yourself after working all day, or do you mean laundry?

MELENDY: No, no. Our clothes. Laundry. Yeah. Oh, no. We'd have to get in the...once a week we'd get in the tub in the middle of the kitchen floor and have a bath (laughter).

PAPA:   And you had to haul the water for that?

MELENDY: Oh yes.

PAPA:   And heat it?

MELENDY: Yeah, yeah.

PAPA: Did you save water by taking turns in the bath?

MELENDY: I can't remember that. I know we had a pump. One of those old hand pumps. I think I've still got it around here someplace. And it was right outside of our back door over there, fact is, the hole where it used to go down is still there, but it's got a cover over it. And, so we could go just a few steps outside the back door to get our water.

PAPA:   That was convenient.

MELENDY: Yes. Uh huh.

PAPA:   Was that considered a luxury in those days?

MELENDY: No. Everybody had a pitcher-pump they called them, but a lot of people had them even in their homes over the sink, where they used the pump and it would go right in the sink. But ours was outside on the walk there. But in those days your well wasn't deep. Oh...I don't know how deep they were but they were shallow wells, they called them. And you couldn't do your washing or anything without starting to fill your tubs the day before or something cause the well would go dry and then you'd have to wait for it to fill up before you could finish.

PAPA:   And then did you and Allene help with the wash and...

MELENDY: Oh yes...

PAPA:   So you did have other chores besides...

MELENDY: Oh yes...we learned how to do things even though we didn't have a chance to do them much. She helped more in the house than I did, I know that.

PAPA:   And you hung out the clothes on clothes lines?

MELENDY: Right. Of course in those days the old timer people, they used to iron everything. Iron the men's underwear. And shoot...I haven't ironed anything here for I don't iron once a year here. You know...the clothes you buy now, they don't wrinkle, Yeah...they don't wrinkle. I think that's great!

PAPA:   What type of iron did you have?

MELENDY: Oh, those old flat irons. I've still got them in here. They just sat on the stove and you had to iron 'til they got too cold to iron with and then go back and get a different one and it was on the stove staying hot and you kept them all hot that way. I think we had four or five that we kept on the stove all the time and we'd just keep rotating 'til we got our ironing done. And my mother used to iron all the time.

PAPA:   But you had your share too?

MELENDY:           Oh yeah...I knew how to iron. Yeah, I've still got those irons. I hadn't thought of them in a long time, they're sitting in the cupboard in there.

PAPA:   What type of heating did you have in the house?

MELENDY: Just wood...wood and coal. Yeah. Course we had... there was a lot of trees when we first came here. I don't think we ever bought coal but we never bought any wood. But somebody was always cutting and splitting wood because it took a lot of it. We had a big stove in the front room, I've never seen one since then or before then that I remember of...it was a big wood and coal stove and up in the pipe about that far off the top of the stove where the stovepipe went up through the ceiling...it had a little oven built into the stovepipe. And you could bake in it.

PAPA:   And that was the one that was in the living room?

MELENDY: Yeah. The one that was in the living room. Course we had the one in the kitchen regular old range with the oven and everything. But...you could put things in there and bake them...when you had a good hot fire going in the stove. I've never seen one since then.

PAPA:   Did you have a picture of it?

MELENDY: No, no.

PAPA:   You didn't take pictures in those days?

MELENDY: No. I bet you there wouldn't be a person out of ten that had a camera in those days.

PAPA:   Did you have...like a radio for entertainment?

MELENDY: No. Mother and Dad...I don't know...it was years after we came here but they did get a second hand piano from someplace, I don't know where. They used to sing...my mother could chord. She couldn't play, you know, but she could chord enough they could sing those old religious music. And her and Dad used to sit there and sing. And she'd play those chords. I don't know...I think she gave it to one of the grandkids, that piano. My dad used to have a mandolin and he'd play that.

PAPA:   Oh.

MELENDY: He used to sit there and play "Violet Cabbage Down." You remember that song, or do you? No, I don't bet you don't. You know to this day... no one in the family knows what happened to that mandolin. I wish I knew where it disappeared to. I used to say... you know... after the houses were gone and nobody lived in them... that. old big old cellar over-there that...if they ever tore that cellar down I bet we'd find that mandolin but...I don't think so now because I've been in there so many times and... cleaned, you know, this and that I know there's some old, those old fashioned wash boards in there that we used to wash our clothes on.

PAPA:   Oh, really?

MELENDY: Yeah. I think there's two of them in there. And the guy that bought the place said he's going to tear that cellar down. Every year he's going to tear it down. And I said, "Well, don't throw anything away, I want to go through if there is anything in there before you discarded it." But busy as he is, he'll never tear that down. No.

PAPA:   Now what did you have for refrigeration?

MELENDY: We had what they called a cooler. We made our own. They were Just a boarded up...well fact, is they were made mostly of screen, is what they were...iust a big box screen that had shelves in it. And it was surrounded with screen. And on top of it, it had a kind of like a great big bowl or bread pan or something, but it was deep. And you'd keep that filled with water. And you'd keep sacks in that and they hung down over the sides of this thing and it kept...you'd be surprised how cool it kept your stuff. You had to keep that filled with water but...it did soak out and drip down and it would cool it through that screen.

PAPA:   So, did you have cows to milk?

MELENDY: Oh, yeah. We sold cream.

PAPA:   So then you had fresh milk to drink.

MELENDY: Yeah, we had fresh milk. Always made our own butter. Fact is, I made butter even after I moved into this house. Cause I love homemade butter, but...gosh you wouldn't find anybody nowadays that knew how to make it, I don't think.

PAPA:   How did you make the butter?

MELENDY: Well, you just saved your cream. I like the sweet cream. In those days we used to sour it to make the sour cream butter but...when I made mine I just used the sweet cream. And you just put it like you're going to make whipped cream. And you'd just keep whipping it and it would go into butter.

PAPA:   Okay, but you'd whip it by hand?

MELENDY: Yeah. With an egg beater. Usually. No, we had the old churns. I've still got an old churn in the cellar there.

PAPA:   And you also used the churn?

MELENDY: Yeah...one of those...yeah, I've got the insides of two of them out in the shed. But the crock part that you put your cream in, you know, it had a lid on...a wooden lid that had a hole in the middle where your dasher went up and down. I don't know whatever happened to the crock, it probably got broken, but I do have the two centers out here in the shed. You don't see them much any more either.

PAPA:   Now, did you make the cream and the milk just for your family or did you sell to your neighbors?

MELENDY: No...we sold...we sold it. They used to have a creamery here in town. And if you had extra cream, they'd come and pick it up. Once or twice a week, there weren't so many laws in those days, you know, you could just do most anything with it. They made butter right there and sold it, of course, at the creamery. We walked a quarter of a mile up here every night and every morning to do our milking. Corrals were a quarter of a mile up the road.

PAPA:   On Kirn Road?

MELENDY: No, no, right here on the ranch. And we 'd have to walk up there and milk...and of course, we had a little...what they called the milk house. And it had a cream separator in it. And also, usually a gasoline engine to pump water or something for your cattle. And we would separate the cream right there, the milk, right there in this little milk house, we called it. And then we had a great big push cart we called it. And it would hold four of those ten gallon cans of milk and we'd push that clear to the house every morning. And bring the cream down here.

PAPA:   So how many cows were you milking?

MELENDY: Oh, it varied, sometimes we only had half a dozen and other times we'd have twelve or fifteen. We never had a big dairy.

PAPA:   But that was a sideline. Your main farming was alfalfa?

MELENDY: Yeah. We'd raise only alfalfa in those days. You didn't even see grain too much and corn. Only in your garden. Field corn...I never seen too much of that. It wasn't too many years later, though, that people started raising field corn. You know, they found out it was good food for cattle and cheaper than raising alfalfa. It didn't take as much water. And they did start raising corn but... everybody had...my dad used to have a garden… you see where this pasture is down here?

PAPA:   So that's to the south of your original home?

MELENDY: Yeah. Well it goes clear down here...and he had that whole thing in garden. He used to keep all the neighbors in garden stuff. Because they didn't want to bother with planting. He'd give it all away. He never sold anything.

PAPA:   So you kids then had to weed the garden and help...

MELENDY: Yes. Definitely. And irrigate.

PAPA:   So for the alfalfa and your personal garden did you irrigate them with water from the Lahontan Dam?

MELENDY: Yes. Lahontan Dam. Yes.

PAPA:   And that was in place when you moved here?

MELENDY: Yes. Yes. Well they started that way back in 1906, I think, was when it first...I know they started building it according to what George Luke told me in 1903.

PAPA:   But when you moved here everything was set up...all your ditches and everything such as that?

MELENDY: Yes, yes.

PAPA:   And did you have like regular spring cleaning?

MELENDY: No...not really. Those old time people that came from...especially these other people...they were cleaning all the time. And I remember...I laugh to tell people...that big broom that's over in that house there...and my mother used to...her house had to be spotless, you know. And she had nothing to clean with except what she...made our own soap and all that kind of stuff, you know. Allene and I, we would have to scrub that floor. And she'd say, "Well you scrub half of it and I'll scrub half of it," and we'd use ashes, you know, to make the boards white. And...boy...I used to measure that so I wouldn't do over my half. (laughter) I hated that job. I've heard Allene tell that. She'd say, "Lucy used to measure that so she wouldn't get one board more than her half." Yeah. I'm sure I did too.

PAPA:   Did you ever have relatives come and stay to visit?

MELENDY: Oh yes. My mother had more company than anybody in the valley, I think. Was always somebody here. It was years before they really started coming out from back east because people didn't travel much in those days. But in later years...even in the twenties, when I was in high school and everything...there was a lot of our Georgia relatives came out. Of course that one I told you about that thought Indians still scalped people, he never came, but...mostly my mother's folks. My dad's folks didn't come out much.

PAPA:   Did you have a regular work schedule, like on Mondays you would do something?

MELENDY: Well, more or less, yeah. Monday was wash day. Tuesday was ironing. And Wednesday was cleaning and...so on and so forth. But uh...it wasn't something that we stuck rigidly with you know. But, normally, yeah. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...after we moved out here and had no way of going to town...my folks used to go to church a lot, but... we didn't go to church at all because we didn't have any way to go. And...you know, it was too far to walk to town or even go horseback that far to get to church. And so we never did go. My folks were, when they were down south, they were all strict Baptists.

PAPA:   Then when you went to high school, what changes were coming about in the community?

MELENDY: Well, there were quite a few cars when I started going to high school. When we first came here I know when we went to town to do our shopping, we went on the wagon with a team.

PAPA:   Now, did you own a car? I know you said when you came down-

MELENDY: No. No that wasn't ours, that was my dad's brothers. But we didn't own a car for years and years and years. I think it was in the twenties before we ever bought a car. My dad had, I don't know if you've ever heard of them, we used to have an old Velie, they called them. Did you ever hear of a Velie?

PAPA:   No.

MELENDY: I have some pictures of that old Velie. I don't think they made them very many years...maybe only one but...anyway it was kind of a bigger car than you usually see and my dad thought he was getting something.

PAPA:   What color was it?

MELENDY: It was a kind of a tan. We had that for a long time.

PAPA:   So when you went to high school, then somebody picked you up because you didn't have the car then, right?

MELENDY: Yeah...right.

PAPA:   And did they have high school dances or any high school activities?

MELENDY: Yeah, they had them but we never got to go because we couldn't...we had no way to go anyplace at night. I never went to anything. What little activities they did, like playing volleyball and stuff like that...we did it during the daytime at recesses ...in the school building. But...yeah...this is high school now. But at night we never went anyplace.

PAPA:   But the activities...you had your girls' sports separate from the boys' sports?

MELENDY: Oh yes, yes.

PAPA:   And...you graduated then from high school?

MELENDY: Mm Hmm.

PAPA:   Did you get married right after high school?

MELENDY: No, I graduated in '26 and then...the year '27 I just stayed here and worked around the ranch and did nothing. And then in '28 I went back to high school and took a post-graduate, what they called it in those days, a post-graduate course. And I took up typing and stuff I didn't take during the school years, you know, which I should've learned a trade of some kind. Shorthand, typing and uh...

PAPA:   So your intention was to go to work then?

MELENDY: Yeah. Then I got married. You know how you do.

PAPA:   And who did you marry?

MELENDY: Milt Taylor, I was married to the first time.

PAPA:   Could you tell us a little bit about him?

MELENDY: Well, He was a farmer, rancher. He used to feed cattle for the great big Moffat outfit that had cattle all over the western states. And he was in charge of the feeding here in this valley, you know, he would buy the hay and see that everything was fed and they'd ship the cattle in and he'd put them in the corrals and take care of them. And we lived on the Island District in those days, I lived down there...I think I put it on that paper over there how many years I lived in Island and...

PAPA:   You said twenty-one years.

MELENDY: Twenty-one years in the Island District.

PAPA:   Okay, was that in different places or...

MELENDY: No...all the same place.

PAPA:   Where in the Island District? Do you remember?

MELENDY: Yeah. Our house burned down and we built another one which is still there. I see they've built on to it last time I was down by that way. It was the first ranch this side of the Dodge Brothers Ranch down there. And on the Schurz Highway. We lived there for a long time and we raised our own cattle and then, like I said, he took care of the feeding of these other...they were stock cattle. And we milked a cow and had horses and stuff like that.

PAPA:   You said that your house burned down.

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   Did you have help from your family and community or how did you cope with that?

MELENDY: Well, mostly just ourselves. The District did give us a shower and in those days if you gave a shower, it wasn't new stuff, it was stuff they give you that you could use, you know, and boy, I got a lot of stuff. But we had nothing left of our home. It was just...it was I think the hardest wind that I've ever been in here in Fallon, that day. It naturally would be, you know, if your house is on fire.

PAPA:   Uh, huh.

MELENDY: It was blowing so hard. And I always had men to cook for. And the fact is I cooked for twenty-five men down there for five years. And I was sitting there waiting for the men to come in to dinner...I had dinner all ready. And I looked up to see what time it was, or something, and the whole roof above me was on fire. And I hadn't even heard it.

PAPA:   Do you have any idea what started it?

MELENDY: It just had to be a spark from the chimney. You know, you had wood stoves in those days. And it was an old, old, old house. It was built out of a car off the railroad. Those railroad cars. [End of side A] I was married in 1928.

PAPA:   Okay, you said you were married in 1928.

MELENDY: The first time.

PAPA:   And that you were living in the Island and your house caught fire.

MELENDY: Mm hm. It burned our corrals and everything. The only thing left standing that wasn't in the line of the wind was our old bunkhouse. And we pitched a tent and slept in it and I cooked in the old bunkhouse.

PAPA:   So there was no fire department, if your house caught on fire...

MELENDY: The neighbors came.

PAPA:   You would have to put it out yourself.

MELENDY: There was a funny thing happened. When that fire...Charlie Melendy, a lot of people that will remember him...he lived out that side of town and him and, you know Buck Kirn? Well, him and Buck Kirn was run on to each other in town and Buck was on his way out cause he'd heard that our house was on fire. We were good friends. And he says, "Charlie, come on." He said, "Tip and Luc-  mean Milt and Lucy's house is on fire." And Charlie said, "Well, I know you're lying to me but I'll go." Buck says we started out and he said I was driving like mad cause I knew, you know, it was true. And he said they got down far enough where they could see the smoke and Charlie says, "Step on it, for Christ's sake." He said, "Their house is on fire!" And he'd been arguing with him that, no he knew it couldn't be on fire.

PAPA:   And how did they put out the fire?

MELENDY: They didn't put it out. It just burnt everything. There was nothing left to put out. The wind blew that old building...I don't think it burned more than half an hour and it was gone. The only thing left standing was...we had built a walk-in deepfreeze or refrigerator. It didn't really deep freeze but it kept your meat for weeks and weeks and weeks and it was built on one end of our back porch. On the north end and the wind was from the north. And that was left standing.

PAPA:   Were you able to save any furniture?

MELENDY: No. Didn't save any- My little dog burned up and my bird and everything. I did save...take the dog out but he went running back in there.

PAPA:   Uh huh. And so but no persons or...

MELENDY: No, no. My oldest child was in school and the youngest one was there with me but...I rushed him and went up to Grandpa's and left him up there and went back to see what I could do but, of course, I couldn't do anything.

PAPA:   How many children did you have at that point?

MELENDY: Two.

PAPA: Two?

MELENDY: I only had two. That's all I ever had.

PAPA:   And what were their names?

MELENDY: Barbara June and Wallace Milton. June died last year.

PAPA:   How many years did you live out there? Did you and your husband...

MELENDY: Twenty-one.

PAPA:   Was your husband alive the full time that..

MELENDY: Oh yeah. We separated. We separated later. And then about five years after that I married Tip Melendy.

PAPA:   When you separated, did you keep living there or did you come back to live with your family?

MELENDY: No. We bought a house in town and I lived there. Fact is, we bought the house in town before we separated. Then he had bought another place that joined ours down there and later he moved out there and I stayed in town there by myself.

PAPA:   Did you buy the place in town...

MELENDY: Yeah...

PAPA:   So the kids could go to school and...

MELENDY: Mm Hmm. And then...I had a half interest in that...what in those days was the Toggery.

PAPA:   What was that?

MELENDY: It was a clothing store. You know where the Sagebrush Cafe is...I mean the Sagebrush Bar on Main street there?

PAPA:   Uh huh.

MELENDY: It was right across the street from that, south.

PAPA:   Did you work there?

MELENDY: We bought a half interest in it. I did.

PAPA:   Okay, but you didn't work there?

MELENDY: Yes, I did work there. Yeah.

PAPA:   While you were married or while you were separated?

MELENDY: While I was separated and then I moved to Reno. I lived in Reno for four or five years. Worked at Gray Reid's.

PAPA:   What was it like being a woman separated at those times? Were you shunned by people or...

MELENDY: No, no. Any shunning that was done was my own fault and I did it. I just kind of withdrew and stayed away from everybody. I don't know why. You know?

PAPA:   But that wasn't a common practice in those days, was it?

MELENDY: No. That's true. But it happened all the time just the same. And... oh that wasn't that... that was way back in the 1940's so that wasn't that far back. But that was one reason that I moved on to Reno and I thought well, I'll make new friends up there.

PAPA:   What year did you move to Reno?

MELENDY: I moved to Reno in 1949. I bought a ranch up there out of Reno out at Steamboat. And I lived there for four years. Worked. Drove back and forth and worked at Gray Reid's.

PAPA:   Now I've heard you were quite a quilter.

MELENDY: Well, I used to. I can't see to do it anymore much but I did a lot of quilting, yeah. Did in those days. I did professional quilting. I quilted for people. They'd mail their stuff to me from...I had some from Boston, Texas, Utah, all over.

PAPA:   When did you first get interested in quilting?

MELENDY: My first mother-in-law quilted...she had a quilt up all the time and she's the one I learned it from.

PAPA:   So when you were a child or at home...

MELENDY: No. We didn't quilt. No. My mother I noticed...well I still have some of her old quilts that she made, evidently when before she married probably. I don't know when they were made, but after we moved out here and then we had to work so hard that she never made any quilts after that. She was a beautiful quilter. She used to help the neighbors. We'd go have quiltings but she never made anything.

PAPA:   So you would help the neighbors quilt so you did have some experience?

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   What was your mother-in-laws name?

MELENDY: Well, she was dead when I married my second husband. Oh, you mean my first mother-in-law?

PAPA:   Yes, your first mother-in-law.

MELENDY: Her name was Taylor...what was her first name? [Rachel Taylor] I remember my father-in-laws name was Tom. Isn't that awful?

PAPA:   It'll come to you when we're talking about her.

MELENDY: I know. I know it will.

PAPA:   Then she was the one who got you interested in quilting?

MELENDY: Yes. When her children got married, she gave each one of them six quilts and a feather bed and two pillows.

PAPA:   Six quilts?

MELENDY: Mm Hmm. Hand made quilts. And of course, mine all burned up in the house, so she made me six more. And the feather bed...

PAPA:   Do you remember what they looked like? Were they any special patterns or...

MELENDY: No, they weren't fancy quilts, they were just regular piece quilts, like they tie now. They weren't quilted. They were just tied.

PAPA:   Oh. They were quilted or tied in those days?

MELENDY: No. Tied. But she used to quilt too. But the quilt she made for the kids were all tied.

PAPA:   And so when you were in the Island District, then you started becoming interested in…

MELENDY: Quilting.

PAPA:   Quilting. And how did it turn into a business for you?

MELENDY: Well, it wasn't really a business. It was just… I used to take that quilting magazine, "Quilting Newsletter" I think they called it, or something like that. And one time I sent them a picture of one of the quilts that I had made and they wrote back and wanted me to write them a story about it, you know, and I did and they printed it in their book.

PAPA:   And what did the quilt look like?

MELENDY: It was Hibiscus...and it was mostly shades of pink and rose and deeper reds, but it was a beautiful thing and when that picture got printed, I started getting letters from all over the United States wanting me to quilt. And, so I just started taking them. It wasn't any special business that I went into and advertised or anything, you know? But, you know, years and years after I quit taking that magazine, I'm still getting letters. I got one not long ago. She said she'd had somebody give her a bunch of those copies of that magazine and she seen my name and address and she didn't figure after all these years that I'd still be here, but I did and I answered her.

PAPA:   Now, was there some special story with the picture in the magazine?

MELENDY: No. But just...well I just happened to tell them about our club that did quilting for people and so on and so forth, in those days. That we'd quilted for people...well it was mostly around the valley here. But then the quilts that I got after I answered those letters that came, they were from people I didn't know and so I didn't want to have different kinds of quilting on it, so I usually did them all myself.

PAPA:   Were there any special quilts that came in, like materials made from a woman's dress or any special theme?

MELENDY: No. Not that I know of. Most of them that came were appliques. And I don't know what they were made out of but they would send me the tops all done and then I would buy the lining and the batt and quilt it for them, and bind it and send it back. Of course, in those days, you didn't get too much money. I made a quilt once for a lady down in Vallejo, California. She wanted it quilted real close, you know, and I made up my own pattern. There was no pattern on it like there is on a lot of them. I quilted that and sent it to her and I charged her $150. And she says, "My goodness, I expected to pay a $1,000 to have that done."

PAPA:   And what year was that?

MELENDY: Oh, gee, that was way back in about the 1940's I guess. And one time I did it...well I think it was that same quilt. That I kept track of the hours quilted on it.

PAPA:   And how many hours was that?

MELENDY: It was hundreds. I don't remember now, but it was way up in the hundreds and I thought, "Gee, if I just got a minimum wage for each hour, it would be worth $2,000," to quilt a quilt like that, but people couldn't...you couldn't realize that...when our club did the quilts it was mostly around $100 or even less when we first started. Depending on how much was on it, of course. But nobody knows how much work it is to quilt a quilt. It takes you months if you do it yourself. You know, especially if you just do it in your spare time like I did.

PAPA:   Was there anything else you wanted to tell us about the business that you had on Main Street?

MELENDY: No. Not especially. It was a wens wear store. Well the old timers will all remember the Toggery. I wasn't there very long. Cause like I said I sold my home and moved to Reno.

PAPA:   Would you tell me about the Homemaker Clubs? How did you first get interested in them?

MELENDY: You mean the one out here or the local...just our district club.

PAPA:   Which one was first…?

MELENDY: Well, the Harmon Club. Of course, when I first came back here I didn't join it.

PAPA:   Didn't you belong to one of the other clubs?

MELENDY: I belonged to the Island Club, yeah.

PAPA:   Okay, and was that known as the Island Circle Club?

MELENDY: Yes, Island Circle. I belonged to that all the time I lived down there, I belonged to that. Then when I moved...went to Reno and then when I moved back, of course, I came here when my Dad died. Then I joined the Harmon Club.

PAPA:   So how many ladies were in the Island Club...Island Circle Club?

MELENDY: Oh, there was about 15.

PAPA:   Was it your project to do quilts or?

MELENDY: No. We didn't quilt. That club didn't quilt.

PAPA:   That club didn't quilt?

MELENDY: No. There was only the Harmon [Social] Club that did the quilting.

PAPA:   What did the Island Circle Club do at that time?

MELENDY: Oh. They didn't do anything much. We had a little business and they had a food sale once in a while to raise some money or something like that but big projects, they didn't take any on. It was mostly just a social club that you just visited, seen your neighbors once a month, mostly what it was for, you know. I used to write the Island...like my sister does now for Harmon, the Island Circle News for the paper. Allene, she found one of those in one of her old, old papers, one of my columns that I had written years ago, And she gave it to me and says you might like to keep this. I do, I've still got it. And I seen it the other day and I was looking through it and, you know, a lot of those people, to save me, I can't remember who they are. I know that one of them was telling about taking a trip to Lovelock. One of our members had moved to Lovelock and then she once entertained and we all went up there. And we had car trouble and all this stuff. And we sat out in the hot desert waiting for help to come and made up a poem.               And the poem...it was a pretty good poem to. Arid you know, about the car trouble and the flat tires and things, then it had a list of all of them that went. And I can't... there's only two or three of them that I can remember. That's awful. But I don't know who those other people are, and I'm sure they were neighbors of mine in the district down there...I don't know.

PAPA:   So then, after you had moved to town, then you said you moved to Reno. What year was that?

MELENDY: That was in '49, And I was up there for five years. Then when Tip and I got married, of course we...

PAPA:   Were your kids on their own?

MELENDY: My daughter was married but my son was still at home, Fact is, when I moved to Reno, he moved up there with me and then...but he was grown practically, at least he was 18 and he went into the service and was in the Korean War over there.

PAPA:   And then you met Tip? Or had you...

MELENDY: No. I've known Tip...Tip and his first wife stood up with me when I got married the first time

PAPA:   Oh, really?

MELENDY: Yeah.

PAPA:   And what's Tip's uh...full name?

MELENDY: Well, Tip. His name was Clifford. But he didn't want people to know that.

PAPA:   Uh huh.

MELENDY: Clifford Melendy. Hyrum. The Clifford part is alright, but don't tell anyone his name was Hyrum, he said.

PAPA:   Anybody who comes to the Museum will know.

MELENDY:           When he was a little tiny kid, he said, that he used to...remember that song, "It's a long Road to Tipperary"?

PAPA:   Mm Hmm.

MELENDY:           He said he used to sing that day and night and they got to calling him "Tip" and he was Tip all of his life. Fact is, that's the way he did business under Tip most of the time. Nobody knew who Clifford was.

PAPA:   So, was his name Clifford Hyrum?

MELENDY: Yeah, Clifford Hyrum.

PAPA:   And you knew each other as children?

MELENDY: Yeah, yeah. We knew each other long, long...years ago

PAPA:   Then, when you married him you moved back to Fallon, where did you live?

MELENDY: No. When he and I first got married, he was working out at Eureka. And we moved out there. And then we moved to Winnemucca. Tip was one of those guys that could do anything, in any kind of work, you know? He knew how to do it. And he got on with a construction company there in Winnemucca and we were there...we only stayed there one year and then he was offered a job running a big ranch up on Pyramid Lake...that mountain above Pyramid Lake there. And...we lived there then and...then, when my Dad died, we moved here and we've been here...we were here until Tip died.

PAPA:   Now we're at 805...so your parents...when did they move from the front house?

MELENDY: They never did.

PAPA:   So they continued living in the front house and you moved to the back house?

MELENDY: No. We...I built this house.

PAPA:   Oh, you built this house?

MELENDY: Yeah, and I mean I built it. Really. Most pert near everything in this house I built. My husband was working down to the base and he'd help at nights, you know, when he'd come home and sometimes we'd work 'til midnight.

PAPA:   What year did you come back here then?

MELENDY: In '55.

PAPA:   In 1955. And that's when you built this house?

MELENDY: Yeah. We built the house...No, we didn't build it right away but we built the house in '57. We were over with my mother for a long time and then we built this house. And I've been here ever since. We sold it recently but he gave me permission to live here as long as I live. No rent. It's a good deal.

PAPA:   Then you and your husband built the house?

MELENDY: Yeah, we built the house. He'd come home at night and...oh, what we had started the night before, I'd have it all put up and nailed when he got home the next night, and we'd put up another bunch. We just put one nail in each thing, you know. Cause I couldn't lift them and nail at the same time. And while he was workin', I'd put up the side. He used to tell people I built the whole house and I pert near did but...I drew the plans up and the guy that come put the electricity in, he said, "Who drew these up?" And I said, "I did." He said, "How did you know exactly how many outlets you were going to have and how much wire it was gonna take?" He said, "I didn't have a foot of wire left." I told him how much wire he was gonna need and all this stuff.

PAPA:   And how did you figure it all out?

MELENDY: I don't know. I couldn't do it now. But I sure did... I took a piece of 4 X 8 sheet of this sheetrock and I drew the plans on it, cause they were...so there'd be an inch to the foot. And the guy that came put the windows in, I didn't know how to do that and… he was looking at it and he said, "You know, you sure did a fine job of drawing this out here." 'Cause I had every opening and all the plumbing and everything figured out right down to the last inch. I don't know...I don't know how I did it. It was later, we built eight foot on the other end of it. The house wasn't as big to start with. Not very big now, but we built eight foot later.

PAPA:   Did you have to worry about building codes or inspections in those days?

MELENDY: No, not in those days. But now you would. They wouldn't let me get away with it now. I built those cabinets in the kitchen there. The lower ones. I didn't build the top ones. And cause I had metal...fact is one metal one's still left up there in the center. But I had them...the whole thing was that white metal on top and then I built the bottom ones.

PAPA:   Did you have any electrical tools or was it all done with a saw or...?

MELENDY: No. The only thing electric I had was a skill saw. Well, actually what those cabinets were... they come in kits. All you had to do was put them together. And they were made pretty good. I have no complaints. They're still going and that was years ago.

PAPA:   That was in the late fifties and this is the nineties and they're still working.

MELENDY: Yeah. They're still working. Yeah...So...I was pretty proud of myself in those days but...now you'd think back and think, how did I ever do it. I used to do paper hanging. I always did...around the valley, I've papered lots of these homes around the valley in the old days. And I had a partner. Well, it was Tip's sister-in-law. She wasn't...in those days...I mean, I wasn't married to Tip then she wasn't my...[Sister-in-law]

PAPA:   What's her name?

MELENDY: Her name was Agnes Melendy. She's dead now too. And we used to go and paper together. We always had a job if we wanted to take it. I've papered lots of houses, so I did all my own papering and laid all my own carpets and...well not the later carpets but when we first built the house, I mean... and... 'cause in those days I put the square blocks down, you know in linoleums and I made all those...

PAPA:   So there's a cement base under here?

MELENDY: Uh… foundation...yeah, is all. There's just a crawl space. We have no basement or anything under it. But the floors were linoleum squares, you know, and you had to glue them down, I put them all down. Did all my own paper hanging and all my own painting and...I don't know.

PAPA:   If there was something you wanted to do and you didn't know how, did you go to the library and look it up or?

MELENDY: No, no.

PAPA:   Just talk to people?

MELENDY: Tip knew. He knew how to do everything. He could do wiring. He could do plumbing. He was a good carpenter. Those guys in those days, he was just like all the rest of the men though. He'd take a job, go and help the neighbors fix their houses up and just do perfect. But when it got to his own home, anything that would hold, that's the way it stayed. You know? And he could fix anything so it would work. We used to go out to fishing or something out in the mountains...and so help me, the car would break down or something and he didn't...wouldn't have a box of tools. Some way he'd fix it so it would run to get home. I don't know how he used to do it, but he did. He could fix anything. Course it wasn't fancy but it worked. When I sold this place to this kid and... course we had old, old fences, you know, and they were half down and...he'd always patch 'em up with baling wire and all this stuff. And when this kid bought it, he put new fences around the whole ranch, the yard and everything, it looks nice. And he said...he used to call them ‘Melendy Fences'. He's got a Mexican works for him and he called them 'Melendy Fences' cause he said, "You could take a hand and pull them down." (laughter) And you could, but they kept the cattle in. Yeah, it sure is amazing what you can do when you have to. There was a hundred foot chicken house here. My dad raised chickens. And after he died, and I don't think in the last year or so that he didn't raise chickens, but the building was still here. And I tore this big old chicken house down and saved every nail and every piece of lumber and everything out of it. And I left twelve foot of it out there and took the big doors on this end and put on the end of that shed where I cut the rest of the shed off, we moved it you know? And tore it down. It's still out here, I use it for a shed. And while Tip was working at the base and I had all that stuff saved and we had all...you can't buy that kind of lumber now, but you know that was in the base of that like 2 X 4's and 4 X 4's and things...they don't make that kind of lumber any more. And I saved every speck of it and a lot of it's in this house. This is a well-built house for as cheap as...this house only cost us $1500 to build. You know, we did our own work.

PAPA:   But you did all your own labor?

MELENDY: Yeah. All our own labor and we used all the lumber out of that chicken house, so we didn't have to buy very much.

PAPA:   Well, I think many times you used whatever you had.

MELENDY: That's right. You made do with what you had because you knew if you didn't you did without because you couldn't buy. Course lumber wasn't high in those days either but just the same it was more than we could afford. Just starting out. 'Cause we started when we bought this place from my mother. She lived over in the house and we bought it from her cause my dad died, and she was in and out of the hospital. She wasn't too well. And rather than lease it and go through all that paper, I said we'll just buy it and pay her so much a month, and that'll give her something to live on, you know. She was getting Social Security. And 'cause I knew I couldn't...I wasn't the type that wanted to live with somebody else. I said if we're going to stay here, we're going to build a house. And...Tip said, "Well, if we're going to, let's get at it." That was his attitude for everything. We're gonna do it, let's get at it. So we got at it. It didn't take us long.

PAPA:   How long did it take you to build the house?

MELENDY: We built this house in about...I guess...less than two months. And he was working all day down at the base. This neighbor that lived across here, this Guazzini the old man that died not too many years ago. He used to say, "I couldn't sleep at night." He said, "That Tip was over there just hammer hammer, until twelve o'clock. Which was true. We did, we worked as long as we could see and as long as the lights would reach where we wanted to work, what outside lights we had.

PAPA:   Now did neighbors come over and help you at all?

MELENDY: No, The only neighbor that, well and he didn't come, we paid him, was to build the chimney. And that was Alfie Luke across the road here. He was a great guy to do rock work. But he was real slow and meticulous. And it took him a month to build that chimney. And fact is, we had the rest of the house done and the chimney wasn't done yet. And, Tip said, "Well, I can't stand this any longer." So he told him, he says, "I don't want to hurt his feelings," because he wasn't charging us too much, course he was gettin' his meals, but that was the main thing. I think that's why he drug it out, cause him and his brother living over there alone, you know, they didn't have too many good meals. And so Tip said to him, I heard him one day, he said, "You know, Alfie," he said, "I don't want to put a few blocks or few bricks in on this chimney," he said. "I don't want to have a chimney and I can tell people I didn't even help do it." He said, "I'm gonna help you finish that." And we had about ten feet to go yet. And he put that up in one day. That guy would have taken him another month. He'd put a brick up and then he'd take it off and he'd measure it, and he'd eye it and put it back, and then he'd take it loose again and he'd change it to another place...you don't realize how slow somebody can be.

PAPA:   Especially when you're used to a husband that moves fast.

MELENDY: Yeah. And we wanted to get it done so we could move in. Yeah it was...

PAPA:   Now, this was when you joined the Harmon Social Club then?

MELENDY: Right, Yeah. When we came back here.

PAPA:   Okay, so that was in...

MELENDY: Around '57 when I joined...

PAPA:   1957 when you joined it?

MELENDY: Yeah, Mm hmm.

PAPA:   And what was that club like?

MELENDY: Well, it was a business club. They had projects going and projects going to raise money for this, that and the other. Because they practically paid for everything that was done at that school house. They put all that big dance floor in and they built on the...when they had outdoor toilets, you know, when they decided to put the indoor ones in, they built all that. And, they were always raising money for something.

PAPA:   And how did they raise the money?

MELENDY: Oh, they had food sales, and mostly they did it making quilts. Quilting quilts for people.

PAPA:   And then they sold the quilts?

MELENDY: No. They just made them...quilted them for people and charged them so much for the quilting. And once in a while we'd make one for somebody. And, I don't know, I think there wasn't any kind of a project that they didn't...and they'd raffle something off, you know, Anything that they could raise a few dollars.

PAPA:   Didn't they have monthly dances and...?

MELENDY: Yes. Years ago, before they consolidated the school, they did, yeah. They had a dance up there every... well, maybe oftener than that, I don't know, But at least once a month. And they raised money...

PAPA:   Was that when you were living here or before that?

MELENDY: That was when I was living here before I married even the first time. They had those up there and...well the club was going then too, but I didn't belong to it because I was just a kid.

PAPA:   Did your family go to the dances there?

MELENDY: No. No, they didn't dance. But my mother used to go because the club would always put on a meal. At midnight. Sandwiches and cake and coffee, whatever they were going to serve. Lot of times homemade ice cream even. It was all free, after you paid for your dance. Course it cost the ladies that did it money, but...what they made they went right back into the club for some project. I don't think there was any club in the valley that, paid for as many projects in their own district as ours did.

PAPA:   So your mother never belonged to it or...?

MELENDY: Yes, she belonged to the club.

PAPA:   Oh, she did?

MELENDY: Yeah. And she quilted and helped them. And... she was always a volunteer for anything. You know, for baking.

PAPA:   Did she bring you kids along, during those times?

MELENDY: Well, everything she went to...we were in school. So she didn't have to. But...yeah what people when their kids were under school age, they took them every place they went. It was...you know, they didn't have babysitters like you do now and nurseries where you can leave them and everything, you took them or stayed home. Yeah.

PAPA:   And so...

MELENDY: Oh, there's Kathy now.

PAPA:   Okay, so if she had to go someplace she used the buckboard?

MELENDY: No, no. The only place she ever went was to walk or else one of the neighbors would pick her up. But...no, no, she never...the only place she ever went, I imagine, in that not buckboard, we called them a springwagon, when we went to town. She'd go to town and get groceries.

PAPA:   Well, thank you for the interview.

MELENDY: Well, you are sure welcome.

Interviewer

Marianne Papa

Interviewee

Lucy Melendy

Location

805 North Harmon Road, Fallon, NV

Comments

Files

Lucy Melendy Oral History.docx
melendy, lucy.mp3

Citation

Churchill County Museum Association, “Lucy Melendy Oral History,” Churchill County Museum Digital Archive: Fallon, Nevada, accessed March 29, 2024, https://ccmuseum.omeka.net/items/show/625.