Ward Nichols Oral History

Dublin Core

Title

Ward Nichols Oral History

Description

Ward Nichols Oral History

Creator

Churchill County Museum Association

Publisher

Churchill County Museum Association

Date

June 5, 1994

Format

Analog Cassette Tape, .docx File, Mp3 Audio

Language

English

Oral History Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Audio Cassette

Duration

1:23:34

Transcription

Churchill County Oral History Project

an interview with

WARD NICHOLS

Fallon, Nevada

conducted by

Sylvia Arden

June 5, 1994

This interview is part of the socioeconomic studies for Churchill County's Yucca Mountain Planning and Oversight Program.

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

Ward Nichols' great-grandfather was Warren Willard Williams, one of Churchill County's earliest and most influential pioneers. Ward was unable to share any firsthand information about his great-grandfather who died before he was born.

[See Addendum for information on Warren Willard Williams]

Ward Nichols' grandmother, Abbie Williams Danielson, died two weeks after his mother was born. She was raised by great-grandfather Warren Williams and his two daughters, Ada and Cora. After attending private schools in San Francisco, Oakland and New York City, his mother, Abbie Danielson, married William Buehl Nichols. Ward was born in San Francisco a year later. They returned to Fallon when Ward entered the third grade.

Ward's father bought the twelve-hundred-acre Fallon Ranch where Warren Williams lived, leasing it to Ed Venturacci, and later selling it to him. The Nichols family moved to Reno in 1933 where Ward attended high school and the University of Nevada. He was in the Marine Corps from 1942 until 1946.

Ward returned to Fallon in 1962, commuting to work at the Nevada Scheelite Mining Company, fifty miles from downtown Fallon. He became active in the the Elks Club, Rotary Club and Navy League.

Interview with Ward Nichols

SYLVIA ARDEN: This is Sylvia Arden, interviewer for the Churchill County Oral History Project, interviewing Ward Nichols at his home, 541 Rachel Court, Fallon, Nevada. The date is June 5, 1994. Good afternoon, Mr. Nichols. I'm so pleased you're allowing us to interview you for the Churchill County Oral History Project. Would you please tell us your full name, your date and place of birth?

WARD NICHOLS: Well, my full name is Ward Williams Nichols; place of birth, San Francisco, California; my date of birth, May 9, 1922.

SA:         Of course we are gonna start briefly with your great-grandfather Warren Willard Williams, who was one of Churchill County's earliest and most influential prominent pioneers. We have the statistical information on him, so I'm not going to ask you that. But did you ever meet him?

WN:       No, I didn't. He was dead before I was born.

SA:         Did you ever meet your great-grandmother who was Abbie Madison Williams? We also have those statistics. Did you ever meet her?

WN:       Yes, I did.

SA:         Can you tell me where and when?

WN:       Yes, she was living with my aunt, Cora Williams Hursh, the later years of her life. And I saw her from time to time when I went down to see my aunt.

SA:         How old were you when you remember starting to see her? Were you a young boy?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         Do you remember anything about her? Can you tell me anything at all, what kind of a person, what kind of a woman she was, or anything about her?

WN:       Well, I don't remember too much. She was a sick lady during the period that I knew her. She did love to play cribbage, and she would miscount sometimes when she was playing with my uncle, Ernie Hursh. (laughter)

SA:         Well then let's move to your grandparents. Do you remember your grandmother? I think that was Abbie Williams?

WN: Yeah, Abbie Williams Danielson was my grandmother, and she was dead before I was born. In fact, she died two weeks after my mother was born.

SA:         Oh, that's sad. Before we move to your mother, did you know your grandfather, John Earl Danielson?

WN:       Yes, I did.

SA:         Did he live here in Fallon?

WN:       He lived all over. He lived here in Fallon for a time, and then the later years of his life, he lived in the Battle Mountain area.

SA:         Now, sadly, that your grandmother died when your mother was born, who raised your mother?

WN:       My great-grandfather, Warren Williams raised my mother.

SA:         Your great-grandfather. What about your great-grandmother? Did she also help raise her?

WN:       That I don't know.

SA:         So did your mother move into the Warren Williams household?

WN:       Yes, she was with him. And her two aunts.

SA:         Did her father stay in her life? Did your grandfather, her father, stay in her life? Did he connect with her regularly?

WN:       Not too regularly. They weren't strangers, but they weren't close either.

SA:         Do you know the date your mother was born?

WN:       My mother was born December 30, 1903, in Sacramento, California.

SA:         Do you know what brought them there? Were they living there at that time?

WN:       No. The doctors up here sent my grandmother down there in case she had a bad experience during childbirth.

SA:         Was she ill before childbirth?

WN:       No.

SA:         Now, I want to know if your mother talked to you about her years as she was growing up in the Williams household. Did she describe her grandfather?

WN:       Oh yes, she was very close to her grandfather, but she spent most of her younger years in schools in California.

SA:         I see, in other words, during elementary school?

WN:       Well, during elementary school she went to school in Fallon, but my mom was thirteen years old when her grandfather died. And so she went to school at Miss Head's and Miss Burke's in San Francisco and Oakland, California.

SA:         Were any of her relatives there, or did she go alone?

WN:       No, she was down there by herself. Both my Aunt Ada Keddie and Cora Hursh were frequent visitors to the San Francisco area, and my mom lived at the Fairmount Hotel, if I'm not mistaken.

SA:         The one in San Francisco?

WN:       In San Francisco, yes.

SA:         I want to go back to those years, from the time until she reached thirteen. Did she describe at all, did she talk about her grandfather who was such an unusual man, and what it was like in that household without a mother and having this wonderful grandfather the main person in her life. Did she ever talk about that?

WN:       Well, she talked about it, but we didn't dwell on any particular thing outside of the fact that she was very fond of him and he of her, apparently.

SA:         Before she was thirteen, did she have any kinds of responsibilities or things happening in her life that would be unusual, living in that kind of a household?

WN:       As far as I know, she did not.

SA:         Was she close to her aunts?

WN:       Yes, she was very close to her aunts.

SA:         Now, did her grandmother die before she was thirteen, before her grandfather?

WN:       You mean her Grandmother Williams?

SA:         Her Grandmother Williams.

WN:       Well, her Grandmother Williams lived down on the Peninsula out of San Francisco for a long time, and she had a nurse that stayed with her all the time.

SA:         Oh, so she wasn't well. After your mother went to San Francisco, bring me through her years until she married. Did she stay away from Fallon during those years? Or did she return before she married, do you know?

WN:       Oh, she would come back here in the summertimes and go to school down there during the school year.

SA:         Do you know where she stayed after her grandfather died, when she would come in the summer?

WN:       She stayed with one of her aunts.

SA:         Did she go on to college as she was growing up?

WN:       No, she went to a normal school in New York City.

SA:         Oh my! Who made that big decision? Did she?

WN:       No.

SA:         Her aunts?

WN:       Her aunts, I imagine, because I think they were trying to get her away from Fallon so she wouldn't marry my dad! (laughs)

SA:         Oh, she had already met him? Tell me about that.

WN:       Well, apparently, they used to have dances down at the Fraternal Hall just about every Saturday night around here, and my father came to town with his grandfather, who was drilling for oil here at that time. And they met at the dance, I guess, and fell in love and (laughs) so my mom was sent off to school in New York.

SA:         How old was she then, about, eighteen?

WN:       She was seventeen, or sixteen-and-a-half.

SA:         Did she talk about how she felt when they were sending her away?

WN:       Well, apparently they told her that if she would graduate and get her high school diploma back there and learn all the niceties of life, that they would think about her getting married.

SA:         So then, obviously she came back and married. When was that? Did she stay through her schooling in New York, or did she come back early?

WN:       No, she went back there and finished and came home. I forget when she got married. (laughs) I wasn't there!

SA:         Did she come home during those summers, or did they make her stay there full-time so that she wouldn't see him?

WN:       I think she stayed back there right straight through. She was only back there, as near as I can remember, probably a year at the most.

SA:         Do you know the date that they married?

WN:       Yeah, they were married June 18, 1921.

SA:         And did she tell you anything about their marriage, did they go on a honeymoon, did they have a family wedding?

WN:       They were married in the Episcopal Church in Fallon. I don't know, I presume they went on a honeymoon--I don't know.

SA:         Do you know where they made their first home?

WN:       I don't know that either.

SA:         That's okay. Do you know what your father was doing to earn a living when they married--or was he?

WN:       Yes, he was working for his grandfather, whose name was also William Buell Nichols, and when I was about one or two years old, my dad went to work for the Southern Pacific Company in San Francisco as a land appraiser. So we moved to San Francisco at that time, and I lived in San Francisco and Santa Cruz and Los Gatos for a period of about four to five years and then returned to Fallon.

SA:         I'm going to bring you back, 'cause we didn't get you born yet. (laughs) How long after their marriage were you born?

WN:       Eleven months!

SA:         Oh, well that’s legitimate! [laughs] Were there any brothers or sisters later in the family?

WN:       No, I have no aunts, no uncles, no cousins. My dad was an only child, my mother was an only child. I'm an only child, I have an only child.

SA:         That is pretty unusual, isn't that?! Now, when your mom and dad married- Wait, let me go back a little bit. We didn't learn anything about your grandparents on your father's side. Can you tell me anything about them? first starting with your Grandfather and then your Grandmother Nichols.

WN:       Not very much at all. I didn't meet my grandmother or grandfather until I was about twenty-seven years old.

SA:         Why?

WN:       My father didn't ever keep in touch with his family.

SA:         In other words, they weren't here?

WN:       No, they never lived here.

SA:         Oh, he came with his grandfather?

WN:       Right.

SA:         I see. And how old was he when he came with his grandfather?

WN:       Well, my dad was nineteen or twenty when he got married, and my mom was eighteen.

SA:         And you were born here?

WN:       As I said before, I was born in San Francisco.

SA:         Okay. Now, how old were you when you came back with your mom and dad to Fallon?

WN:       You mean after I was born? I came right back to Fallon.

SA:         And how long did you stay in Fallon before your father got jobs other places?

WN:       Probably two years.

SA:         You don't remember any of those?

WN:       No.

SA:         Then on this next time when you returned to Fallon, how old were you then, and what brought them back to Fallon?

WN:       It was after the Depression, he went to work for the bank receivership in Reno, and we lived here in Fallon with my Aunt Ada. And we lived here, I came back in the third grade, so I was probably eight or nine years old. And I went to school here through the seventh grade.

SA:         Would your father come home weekends?

WN:       He came home every night.

SA:         Every night he traveled home! It took a long time, then, though, didn't it?

WN:       Probably at least two-and-a-half hours, and at that time, part of those roads were dirt roads.

SA:         My goodness! And the vehicles didn't travel as well.

WN:       No.

SA:         So that was kind of a hardship there. Now tell me, from your very earliest memories, when you came back to Fallon--and you were about eight or nine when you came back so you'd have some good memories--where was the house that you were living in with your aunt?

WN:       On Williams Avenue.

SA:         What did Williams Avenue look like then?

WN:       Williams Avenue at that time was a dirt road. It had cottonwood trees down the north side of the street, a few on the south side, but mostly on the north side. And they were there because of an old fence that had been built, and the fenceposts turned into trees. That's a fact!

SA:         About how tall were they? Of course when you're little, things look taller.

WN:       They were huge, just like the big trees out in the park here.

SA:         Oh my! So you had a lot of shade in the hot weather.

WN:       Oh yeah.

SA:         I know I understand they took them down later when they were enlarging the highway.

WN:       Yeah, they put in what they thought were good trees, elm trees, and it ruined the town. (laughs)

SA:         Now just from whatever you can remember, what did the main part of town look like when you were back and going to elementary school? I know kids may not observe much, but what was it like? About how many stores? What stores do you remember?

WN:       Well, there were probably about. . . . There were six or seven bars on the west side of Maine Street, the main street of Fallon. My cousin's aunt and uncle owned the Buster Brown shoe store on the east side of Maine Street.

SA:         What were their names?

WN:       Edna and Jesse Eldridge. Eldridge and Hursh.

SA:          Were there any candy stores or ice cream parlors?

WN:       Yeah, there were Laveaga's Ice Cream Parlor. . . .

SA:          Were there any movie theaters here then?

WN:       There were two: one pretty close to where it is now, and one across the street from it.

SA:          You mean across the street near where the casino is now?

WN:       It would have been inside the casino now.

SA:          Oh! Did you go to the movies?

WN:       You bet!

SA:          What was it like inside the theater?

WN:       Oh, it was just a big theater. The first I remember, they played a piano or organ down in front. There were no talkies at that time, they were all silent movies.

SA:          Of course when you were small, you wouldn't have an idea, but looking back, what do you think the population was, about? Compared to today, would it have been half the size or a quarter of the size?

WN:       You mean as far as the county is concerned?

 

SA:          No, how big the town was.

WN:       The city itself?

SA:          The city itself--not the ranches, the city.

WN:       Oh, maybe, at that time, six or seven hundred people, I imagine.

SA:          Where did people do their grocery marketing?

WN:       Well, there was Kent's grocery store and Jarvis and Bible--I think they called it a dry goods store and grocery.

SA:         You said the Buster Brown shoes--was there a place to buy clothing?

WN:       I don't remember. I don't think there was a Penney's Store here at that time, I'm not sure. A lot of clothes bought through catalogs. That I do know.

SA:         Did you ever get to select your clothes?

WN:       My mother selected my clothes.

SA:         What did you wear to school? How did you dress for school in elementary?

WN:       Well, when I first came home (laughs) I wore a pair of shorts for the first two days, and got in several fights! There was a Penney's Store, because my dad told my mother (laughs) to take me down and get me a pair of long pants. (laughter)

SA:         Before we move into school, I want to know a little bit about your father as a person, so I can get a feel for the kind of a man that he was. Tell me a little bit about him.

WN:       He was probably the most well-liked person I've ever met--and very quiet, good-looking man. He had quite a brain. He was just a good person.

SA:         What were some of your father's interests outside of his work? The thing that amazes me is how, starting so young, he was able to get so many different kinds of jobs. But what were some of his interests when he wasn't working?

WN:       Well, mostly just things around the house.

SA:         Was he a sportsman, or was he more intellectual?

WN:       Well, he loved sports of all kinds. He played golf, but he wasn't a sports player per se. He was just interested in all sports.

SA:         Did you participate in any sports with him, or go fishing or hunting or swimming or play ball? Did you do anything with your dad?

WN:       Yes, he was not a hunter, and he wasn't a fisherman, so we didn't ever do that part. But I played tennis with him and we bowled together and played pool and that type of thing.

SA:         Did you and your mom and dad go on any picnics?

  1. Oh, occasionally we would, yes.

SA:         Did you ever go to the Lahontan Dam area for picnics?

WN:       We'd go up there, usually, around Fourth of July every year. The family always went in together and got a big bunch of fireworks and go up there and have a picnic and set off our fireworks and come home. (laughs)

SA:         When you say "the family," how many members of the family? Because I know there was this extended Williams family, and I don't know about the Nichols family--you're all but one the only child, so maybe not too big a crowd. Who would go?

WN:       Well, we went with my second cousin, Nadine Hursh [Domonoske], and their family. And my mom and dad and myself. And anybody else that wanted to tag along, I guess. We always had a crowd.

SA:         Would there be a lot of other people from Fallon there?

WN:       Oh, it was the place to go on Fourth of July to shoot off firecrackers and Roman candles.

SA:         How old were you the first time you went to the Lahontan Dam area, and how old were you the last time you were there?

WN:       I don't know how old I was the first time I was there. The last time I was there, I was up there about two weeks ago.

SA:         Can you describe what it was like when you were a kid, and is it any different now, and about the water level in the lake. Can you talk about that a little bit?

WN:       I really can't, because I don't remember that much about it.

SA:         Did you go after it was a recreation area, with the boating in the lake? Because they did create a recreation area later.

WN:       There might have been boating up there, but we didn't ever go boating, and I don't remember… I think the boating and fishing started in Lahontan Dam later on.

SA:         I was wondering if you remembered the contrast.

WN:       No, I don't.

SA:         Now you mentioned that your dad came back after the Depression, so that you weren't here during the Depression?

WN:       Yeah. I was here. We didn't leave here until 1933.

SA:         Okay, do you have any recollections, or were you too young to remember what it was like here during that Depression?

WN:       Yeah, I can remember what it was like, it was tough! (laughs) Sometimes we'd have a tough time, you know, digging up fifteen cents, and I'd walk out to the dairy and get a gallon of milk and bring it home and we'd let it set, and the next morning we'd take maybe, oh, probably a good pint of cream off the top where it'd settled. And the milk was, at that time, unpasteurized, unhomogonized--they'd never heard of the word.

SA:         And of course you weren’t ranchers, because the ranchers didn't suffer as much because they were raising their own food. Was your father working during that Depression period?

WN:       Yes, he was. As a matter of fact, it would have been about 1936 or 1937 my father bought the Fallon Ranch from the receivership in Reno. And that was later sold to Ed Venturacci. [End of tape 1 side A]

SA:         Now when you say he bought the ranch, how big was the property, how many acres?

WN:       Twelve hundred acres.

SA:         Oh my goodness! So he had accumulated enough to purchase that. Did you live on the ranch?

WN:       No. We were living in Reno at the time.

SA:         You said the Fallon Ranch, so that was here?

WN:       Right. I think it was Mr. Fallon's original ranch, and my great-grandfather, Warren Williams lived on that ranch. And during the Depression we lost seven or eight ranches and probably fifty or sixty thousand head of sheep and five thousand head of cattle.

SA:         How did you lose all that, do you have any idea?

WN:       Yeah, the banks took 'em over.

SA:         Oh my goodness! Then what did your father and mother do?

WN:       Well, Mom and Dad lived in Reno.

SA:         In other words, they bought it, but someone else was managing the ranch, is that it?

WN:       Venturaccis were leasing the ranch from my father.

SA:         Okay, and it didn't work out?

WN:       Oh, it worked out fine, but they wanted to buy the ranch, and my dad was not a rancher and I guess he decided that he wanted to sell, so he sold it.

SA:         I thought you said he lost a whole lot of animals and land during the Depression. Was that other property and animals that the banks took? What did he lose?

WN:       My dad didn't lose anything. This was all Warren W. Williams' estate.

SA:         Oh, I thought you meant your dad.

WN:       No. No, my dad bought the Fallon Ranch from the fellah that took over receivership of the banks.

SA:         Okay, he bought the ranch. Let's follow through on his role in buying the ranch--not going back to your great-grandfather. Your father bought the ranch.

WN:       Right.

SA:         After he was married.

WN:       Yeah, I was thirteen years old.

SA:         So follow through on your father's ownership of the Fallon Ranch. How long did he own it?

WN:       Oh, I guess we owned the Fallon Ranch for at least three or four years.

SA:         But it was leased, is that right?

WN:       We leased it to the Venturaccis, right.

SA:         So you had no personal involvement on the ranch?

WN:       No, outside of the fact that I'd come down here in the summertime and help 'em hay a little bit. I was a little bit too young and too light for heavy work.

SA:         How old were you the first summer you did that?

WN:       Oh, probably fourteen or fifteen.

SA:         What did it look like? Was it just hay?

WN:       Mostly alfalfa, yeah. And we put up a lot of hay.

SA:         Did you stay there on the ranch with them when you worked there?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         What did you stay in? Their house?

WN:       Yeah, I stayed upstairs in the old house over there.

SA:         Was that the old house that belonged to your great-grandparents?

WN:       I'm not sure whether they built it or whether Mr. Fallon built it.

SA:         In other words, it may have been there when they bought the property, it was that old?

WN:       Yeah. It's still there.

SA:         And where is that located, the area where you went to work on that property that your father bought and leased?

WN:       It'd be the northwest portion of Fallon, I guess. It was probably between Maine Street and Williams Avenue on the south and east boundaries, and the river on the north boundary, just about Gummow Drive on the west boundary.

SA:         So the property was sold?

WN:       Right.

SA:         Now did some of that property get sold again for development in the city?

WN:       I would say probably, oh, a good 30-40 percent of it has already been developed in.

SA:         So somebody made a lot of money in these later years? (laughs)

WN:       Oh yeah, definitely. (laughs)

SA:         Now, do you know what year your father then sold that ranch?

WN:       In 1939, just before we got in the war.

SA:         And then how long were you in Fallon before you then left? You were in Reno then, you said, right?

WN:       Uh-huh.

SA:         When did you next come back to Fallon?

WN:       In 1962. I mean, I was in and out, but I didn't ever live here.

SA:         It was a period you might have been in Reno, but did you observe anything during the period the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] was here in Fallon doing a lot of the rebuilding of the ditches and work on the Newlands Project? Do you remember any of that?

WN:       Yeah, I remember a little bit when the C.C. camp was west of town, out by the old fairgrounds. And there are quite a number of people that were in the three Cs that stayed in Fallon and got in business here.

SA:         Do you know if anyone else is still here? I'd love to interview someone who was part of that. I haven't been able to find them. If you ever hear of any, be sure you let me know.

WN:       I can find out for you and let you know.

SA:         I think that would be important, because we're trying to gather that kind of information.

Let me backtrack a little bit. Where did you go to high school?

WN:       Reno High School.

SA:         You went to Reno. You didn't go to high school here at all?

WN:       No.

SA:         Alright, after high school what did you do?

WN:       Went to the University of Nevada [Reno].

  1. And what did you major in?

WN:       I started out as a mining engineer, and then I changed my major to business administration.

SA:         Now, tell me as those years were moving along, how was your mom, and what was she doing as you were getting older? Did she have interests outside of the home?

WN:       No. Well, she had interests, yeah. I went in the service in 1942 and Mom worked as a Red Cross driver. They were quite the bridge players. And they seemed to always keep busy.

SA:         I asked you about your father, I want to know a little bit about your mother. She had a wonderful education, she must have been a little sophisticated, going to all these places as a young child. Describe your mother as a person. I want to get a feel for the kind of woman she was.

WN:       She was a very positive person.

SA:         Of course she would have been domestic in a sense, but did she have a fun side to her, a sense of humor, a light side?

WN:       Oh yeah! She was quite a gal.

SA:         What were some of her interests, outside of taking care of you and the house?

WN:       She was a great reader.

SA:         Do you know what she liked to read, the kinds of things?

WN:       She read everything, but she studied very much as far as the Bible was concerned.

SA:         Was she a religious person?

WN:       Yes and no. She didn't belong to any church. She studied everything from Christian Science to Buddha, and everything in between, I guess.

SA:         So kind of like an intellectual, studying all the time?

WN:       No, it just interested her.

SA:         Did she do any sewing or music, or join clubs?

WN:       (laughs) No.

SA:         None of that. Was she more an introvert? I'm trying to get a feel for her.

WN:       No, you couldn't call her an introvert, 'cause she had a great many friends. She spent a lot of time with the Daughters of the American Revolution, which she was a member of in Reno. She was a strong Republican—let's put it that way. The whole family are...

SA:         Your father too, so there was a peaceful home?

WN:       Oh yeah, there was no conflict. (laughter)

SA:         She was interested in politics?

WN:       Yeah, very much.

SA:         Was she active in it? An activist?

  1. Yes, she was. Not an activist--she was active in it. And she always, oh, belonged to the Central Committee and different groups in the Republican Party.

SA:         Did she and your dad do any traveling together?

WN:       Well, every time we went someplace, they went together.

SA:         But I meant travel as you were older and away--make more extensive travel, out of the country, or other parts of the country?

WN:       No.

SA:         That wasn't an interest?

WN:       No. Oh, they'd go to San Francisco and Carmel.

SA:         When did the family get their first automobile? (Nichols laughs) Did you have an automobile?

WN:       Always had an automobile.

SA:         Always had one. Did you ever get your own automobile?

WN:       You bet I did!

SA:         How old were you?

WN:       Well, the first one I guess I owned, I was probably fifteen.

SA:         Oh my gosh, so young! What was the car?

WN:       Well, the first one I got, I wanted a Model A Ford, and my dad and an uncle talked me into buying a Lincoln convertible sedan that had nine seats in it!

SA:         Oh my gosh! Who paid for this?

WN:       I paid for the car, and the only reason I bought it is, I made a deal with them, if I bought the car, that they paid for the gas. (laughter)

SA:         Where did you earn so much money at only fifteen?!

WN:       Well, it wasn't a new car. It just so happened it was turned in by a madame of one of the houses in Reno. I think I paid two hundred dollars for it.

SA:         You're kidding!

WN:       It was a good looking car.

SA:         Oh my! And you could brag about that car!

WN:       Oh, it was a convertible sedan!

SA:         Oh my goodness. Did you save that from odd jobs that you had and the summers you worked?

WN:       Well, I went to work for sort of an uncle of mine.

SA:         What was his name?

WN:       Vern Penrose. It was my cousin's husband.

SA:         What did you do?

WN:       I was running the elevator at the medical-dental building in Reno and he was manager of it. So I had a good job, probably the best job in town, twenty-seven cents an hour! (Arden laughs)

SA:         You didn't come back then to Churchill County for good until 1962. So let's see, did you go into the military?

WN:       Right.

SA:         And we don't want a whole lot of that, but give me just a few sentences of what that military period consisted of. Where were you, and what branch of the service?

WN:       Well, I went in in 1942, into the Marine Corps, and they let me stay in school until they needed me. So I was in the service from 1942 'til 1946. I was in three years, eleven months, eighteen days.

SA:         Were you in this country the whole time?

WN:       No.

SA:         Where were you? Where did you have to go?

WN:       I started out in the Marine Corps and transferred to the Navy Air Corps.

SA:         You were able to do that?

WN:       They needed Marine pilots at that time, and the only people that taught pilots was the Navy. And the Marine Corps is part of the Navy, so I transferred to the Navy air force, got washed out of the Navy air force because I cracked a plane up in Susanville.

SA:         Were you hurt?

WN:       No, I wasn't--the plane was, though.

SA:         Anyone else in the plane?

WN,       No. I asked to be washed out, went from there to San Diego, and spent the rest of my time in the Navy.

SA:         How long were you in San Diego? Because I'm a San Diegan.

WN:       I was in San Diego through boot camp, was there about four months.

SA:         Just four months. Okay, then after the service, what did you do?

WN:       I came back and went back to school.

SA:         In Reno?

WN:       In Reno.

SA:         Okay, let's move along then. Did you get married during that period?

WN:       Yes, I got married in.... I think it was 1947. Yeah, 1947.

SA:         I don't want to go into a lot of it, unless she was a Fallon or Churchill County girl.

WN:       No, a Reno girl.

SA:         And did you have children?

WN:       One boy.

SA:         What's his name?

WN:       Ward. He goes by Ward.

SA:         Was that his given name?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         And when was he born?

WN:       May 27, 1951. I think it was 1951.

SA:         What did you do about work? What work did you go into when you got out of the military? And you went back to school. Then what did you do?

WN:       I went into business with my dad in the accounting business. And then I got out of that and I was in the bread business. I bought into an Orowheat bread route. This other fellow and I were partners in that.

SA:         This is still in Reno?

WN:       This was still in Reno, and we serviced Lake Tahoe and Carson City, Truckee, Reno.

SA:         And how long did you do that?

WN:       I did that for about a year, and it wasn't working out--the partnership wasn't working out.

SA:         What did you do then?

WN:       Let's see, I guess I went to work for Nevada Scheelite Mining Company.

SA:         Where was that?

WN:       That's fifty miles from downtown Fallon.

SA:         Going north?

WN:       Going east. It's probably thirty miles east and twenty miles south of here. And I worked there for several years.

SA:         Doing what?

WN:       Well, I was everything from working underground, to a mechanic, to an accountant--did just about everything.

SA:         Well it shows you had a lot of different talents, and that's good, because you get into more jobs.

WN:       And in 1956 the mine shut down. The subsidy on tungsten was taken off by the government. And I went to Ely and went to work for Kennicott Copper Corporation, which I worked for for five years, and I returned to Fallon in 1962.

SA:         What brought you back to Fallon?

WN:       I just got tired of the eastern part of the state--it's too cold for me.

SA:         Did you have something to come to in Fallon?

WN:       Yeah, I went to work at Nevada Scheelite Mine as office manager when I came back,

SA:         In other words, they had an office here?

WN:       They had an office out at the mine, and just radio contact in town.

SA:         But you lived in Fallon?

WN:       No, I lived at the mine at that point in time.

SA:         Now, the mine where you worked previously?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         When you worked at the mine. Now that's not Churchill County, right? Or is it?

WN:       It's Mineral County. It's just over the line.

SA:         So you said you came back to Fallon.

WN:       Right.

SA:         What brought you back to Fallon?

WN:       I guess I got married.

SA:         But you married in. . . .

WN:       I married in 1947, I divorced in 1951. I remarried in 1963. My wife died in 1983.

SA:         Any children in that marriage?

WN:       No. And Kay and I got married in 1985.

SA:         Now, give me the name of your second wife.

WN:       Elizabeth Granlee Nichols.

SA:         And the name of your current bride?

WN:       Kathryn Elizabeth Nichols.

SA:         You married your second wife and came back to Fallon with her? Is that it?

WN:       No, she was city clerk here.

SA:         When you married?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         She was city clerk of Churchill County?

WN:       Fallon.

SA:         And did you come back, did you have something? Or did you commute to your mining job?

WN:       I commuted every day.

SA:         Okay, but you then established a home in Fallon?

WN:       Right.

SA:         And where was that home?

WN:       On Wildes Street.

SA:         And tell me then, when you came in 1962--and I know you may have been here a few times--but what did Fallon look like compared to when you left much earlier? How had it changed by then?

WN:       Well, by then all the streets were paved, they'd cut down all the beautiful trees down Williams Avenue and put in elm trees.

SA:         Had the main street grown a whole lot? Were there a lot of new buildings or stores?

WN:       No, they had torn some down. Well, at that time, the Nugget had just started, and they were expanding.

SA:         Were there more hotels? With the paving of the streets, were there more people coming through?

WN:       Oh yeah, there were a lot more people coming through, and at that time they had built several, oh, three or four good-sized motels.

SA:         Did you observe, when you came back, the growth of the ranches? In other words, on the ranches that started much, much earlier, the growth of the trees and the crops and more dairies and more agriculture over those years with the irrigation?

WN:       I was never out and around the farming district that much, outside of our own place, the Fallon Ranch. But naturally, during that period of time you're gonna get growth in trees and homes and such as that. I mean, Fallon was starting to grow a little bit about then.

SA:         But nothing that you could observe?

WN:       When I was a kid, everybody had a few cows and they milked a few cows. By that time, the laws had changed and to sell milk for public consumption you had to have a Grade A farm and have a Grade A dairy or barn.

SA:         Were the small farms consolidating with big companies starting to come in to buy them out, to start the bigger creameries?

WN:       I don't think so. I think most of the farmers that could afford it, upgraded to Grade A barns. The ones that couldn't still sell their milk as Grade B milk.

SA:         For their own use?

WN:       No, they made butter out of it, and such as that. But these little farms didn't get together and consolidate with any big dairies.

SA:         Well I know in later years there's been a lot of buying-out of those little ranches for these bigger dairies. I learned that in some of the interviews of some of the ranchers.

WN:       I don't know anything about that.

SA:         When you came back, the air field was well established, because that was starting.

WN:       Oh yeah, right.

SA:         Did you observe much or know much about that? Did you observe changes because of the airfield? In the population, in the growth of it and the effect on the town?

WN:       Oh, a lot of naval personnel have retired in Fallon. They've gone someplace and retired and come back. And actually, the air base is probably Fallon's biggest contributor of the economy.

SA:         I know that a lot of them moved here. Also, I understand, and have observed the contractors who were hired to come in and do a lot of things on the base, buy homes, when they have five-year contracts. That brings in a lot of people too, who aren't military. Have you had any personal experience with that?

WN:       Well, I think more than that, I think you'll find that a lot of people have come to Fallon to retire because it's a nice quiet little town. A lot of people have retired here from Oregon and California, especially.

SA:         I want to stay a while with the air base. Then we'll go into the other kinds of retirement. We were talking about the biggest contributor to the economy from the air base. And so I want to follow that through a little bit.

WN:       Well, I don't know what contractors have been here that have. . . .

SA:         Well, they run the computer training equipment, and the engineers, I've worked with some through the museum, some of the wives, where they have five-year contracts to do the computerized battles that they do.

WN:       Oh, okay.

SA:         And other things: building new buildings, and engineers, and upkeeping and things like that. . . . I know several wives were in the oral history program who've been here on five-year contracts.

WN:       Yeah, they buy homes here, but some of 'em stay, some of 'em don't.

SA:         Do the military people buy in the stores in town? Or do they just buy at their PX on the base? Or do they come in and take part in the community?

WN:       Oh, I think they buy a certain amount of things in town, but I think most of their groceries they buy on the base. In fact, a lot of retired people that live in Fallon, buy at the commissary on the base.

SA:         What are some other ways. . . . Is the base taxed? Is there a tax base where they contribute because of the growth of the schools? Do you have any information on. . . .

WN:       Well, they say they do. Now we had a program at Navy League last week that the superintendent of schools explained to the group exactly how much the Navy input is to the schools. And it's not as a set tax. The Navy puts so much into an area. What the formula is, I don't know, and I think it's a pretty complicated type of thing.

SA:         Because all of those children increase the school population.

WN:       Right.

SA:         Tell me about your son, Ward. Was he living with you or with his mother?

WN:       With his mother.

SA:         Did he spend time with you too?

WN:       No, he didn't. He lived with me in Reno for a period of about two years after I divorced. I was living with my mom and dad at the time. And then I didn't see him again until he was sixteen years old.

SA:         I want to get a little bit to your life here in Fallon with your wife and you were working at the mine. What were some of the things--you just mentioned Navy League--as you began to settle-in, in Fallon and have been here ever since. What are some of the things that you started to get involved with that you can tell us about? What was your life like after you moved back?

WN:       Well, I guess I joined the Elks Club, I joined the Rotary Club.

SA:         You didn't take after your mother? You liked organizations?

WN:       Oh, not too much. I'm not a big joiner, but I still have a lot of friends in Fallon that I went to school with when I was in grade school.

SA:         And you kept up with them. That's amazing. What were some of the projects--let's stick to the Elks a little bit--what are some of the things the Elks did to contribute, and what was your participation? I know these organizations do so much good for the community.

WN:       Well, they have several children's economic type groups. I was trustee of the Elks Club here in Fallon several different times.

SA:         What do you mean by economic. . . .

WN:       Well, such as homes for children and that type of thing.

SA:         What do you mean? You mean homes where children who weren't with families. . . .

WN:       Abused children go, and such as that.

SA:         Oh, okay. Does this community have any drug problems?

WN:       Yeah, they have.

SA:         And did Elks help with anything with that?

WN:       The Elks have always put on a big high school track meet every year for some twenty or thirty schools in the state and northern California. (sigh)

SA:         Did you take any office?

WN:       No, I said I was a trustee two different times. Going through the chairs, I didn't care to do.

SA:         How often did the Elks meet?

WN:       They meet every Thursday, every second, third, and fourth Thursday of the month.

SA:         Where do they meet?

WN:       At the Elks Club in Fallon.

SA:         Do you still go, still active?

WN:       Oh yeah.

SA:         About how many men are there active in it?

WN:       Total members? There are about two hundred seventy total members.

SA:         And how many participate in these meetings?

WN:       Probably twenty-five.

SA:         What are some of the activities now? Do you have projects that are constant? Or do you start new projects? What do the meetings consist of, besides sociability?

WN:       Oh, the Elks Club is always probably--we probably give more money towards different things every year than most organizations.

SA:         How do you raise all that money?

WN:       We have a bar that we take to different functions.

SA:         What do you mean you "take a bar"?

WN:       Well, if somebody has a wedding, say, at the community center out there, the Elks will handle the bar end of it.

SA:         Oh, serve the drinks.

WN:       And everything we make off of that goes into our projects.

SA:         What a good idea--I never heard of that from anyone. And you act as the one serving the drinks?

WN:       The Elks, yeah.

SA:         So that way you save a lot of money.

WN:       Oh yeah.

SA:         That's wonderful. And what was the other organization? Oh, the Navy League.

WN:       Yeah, I belong to the Navy League, and I belong to Rotary.

SA:         That keeps you busy! Now, I want to go back. You were working for the Scheelite Mine when you came. Did you continue working for them, or did you go into other things? What was the rest of your work life?

WN:       Well, Nevada Scheelite was a subsidiary of Kennametal Incorporated. And they are processors of tungsten carbide powders. Very interesting operation. I worked for them. I retired after twenty-five years.

SA:         So you had a long career with them. Did your role, your job, change? What did you mostly work at? Or did you just help wherever needed?

WN:       Well (laughs) I've been an office manager, purchasing agent, employee relations director, payroll supervisor.

SA:         A lot of talents! I'll bet it felt good to have something just kind of permanent and steady.

WN:       I don't know what you mean by "good," but I was always busy.

SA:         Yeah, but I mean your early years you moved around, and here was a place you stayed the rest of your working years.

WN:       Oh yeah.

SA:         I mean, the security of it.

WN:       When I was younger, I didn't think of security. (laughter)

SA:         No, the years go so fast. Now, did you live in the same house through your second marriage? Did you live the rest of the years in that house until your wife died?

WN:       Right.

SA:         In that period, anything else before we move to the more recent time? Anything more to tell in that period that I don't know to ask you? Were any more of the Williams family--did you still connect with them? Or did you kind of drift away from that part of the family?

WN: There are only a few of us left.

SA:         Anything more in those years before your second wife died? Anything unusual about Fallon? Did you connect at all, or did you have any experience at all with the Stillwater Indian Reservation, any of the Indians from the reservation? Mainly the ranchers do.

WN:       I had several friends down there that I went to school with, but as far as having anything to do with the running, or anything to do with the reservation, no.

SA:         When you were all through that period, and even in the Elks and the Navy League, were there any members who were of different ethnic groups, other than Caucasians?

WN:       There are some places. It just so happens not in this particular area.

SA:         Not in the Fallon area? What about when you were working in the mine company? Any workers that were from different ethnic groups working in any capacity?

WN:       Oh yes. As miners as such, no, because mostly ethnic groups wouldn't know anything about underground mining. But as far as our lab, the head laboratory man was a fellah from India by the name of Balli Reddy, who is now in San Francisco and made himself a small fortune down there. And one of our metallurgists at the Nevada Scheelite mine, and in the Fallon plant, was Mozaf Erdehghan, and he's an Iranian. Roy Nojimma was one of our head metallurgists in the Fallon plant here. He's Japanese.

SA:         Where did they get their employees from? Where did they recruit them from? Did they advertise in professional journals, or advertising?

WN:       We advertised in mining journals for whatever we needed: mining engineers, chemists, metallurgists, whatever.

SA:         Did they ever have trouble getting the kind of help they needed?

WN:       No.

SA:         I know you didn't have a whole bunch of kids, so maybe this doesn't apply, but you did have a wife who probably was ill before she died?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         What were the medical conditions here in Fallon?

WN:       We didn't go to Fallon for medical conditions.

SA:         Oh, she wasn't here in Fallon?

WN:       Yes, she was here.

SA:         How did you handle medical care?

WN:       Okay, she had emphysema. The only medical care we needed was Dr. Dingacci.

SA:         Was he a Fallon physician?

WN:       Yes, he was--the best that ever came down the pike.

SA:         Is he still here?

WN:       Yeah, he's here now. But he has had a stroke and he no longer can speak.

SA:         So you never had a problem with health issues?

WN:       No.

SA:         Is the care good here? I think people come here from other places, don't they, from Lander County?

WN:       Oh, the care is comparatively good here. If you've got anything serious, you'd better get to Reno or San Francisco.

SA:         But better than it was earlier? Because you said your. . .

WN:       Well, Dr. Dingacci and Dr. Caffaratti at one time were the only two doctors in town, and they were good ones.

SA:         That was fortunate, because I know some areas it's very hard to get doctors. Now I want to come to more recent times. How did you meet your lovely current wife?

WN:       She invited me to dinner! (laughs)

SA:         Is she a Fallon woman?

WN:       No, Whittier, California.

SA:         How long after you met did you get married?

WN:       A year-and-a-half.

SA:         Where did you live? Did you stay in your house after your wife died?

WN:       Yeah.

SA:         Did you bring your new bride to your house?

WN:       No.

SA:         What did you do?

WN:       Moved to her house.

SA:         Is this the house?

WN:       No.

SA:         Where did you get this gorgeous home?

WN:       We bought it.

SA:         It's a beautiful, beautiful home. How long have you lived in this home?

WN:       About five years.

SA:         A couple of things on current Fallon, and I want to ask you a little bit about the future. Of course, coming from California, I know that Miramar's Top Gun is moving here.

WN:       Right.

SA:         How do you think that's going to affect the base and Fallon?

WN:       Well, Top Gun is going to bring a few more people in. I don't think it's going to make that much difference in the base. They might have to have a little more housing out there and maybe expand their facilities a little bit, and it'll crowd the schools a little more. But I don't think it's going to make that much difference, having Top Gun, because there aren't that many people involved.

SA:         Because I know they're already building new buildings and new homes and the increase looks kind of like they expect a whole lot. I guess it's mixed emotions in town? Is it with mixed emotions that this happens? Do they talk about it at your Elks or at your Navy League? Especially Navy League, do they talk about it?

WN:       Well, Navy League, naturally, is going to be all for it.

SA:         What about the ones who are moving here--we're going to talk in a minute about the others who retire--what about the ones looking for a quiet little town?

WN:       Well, Fallon is going to eventually get out of the realm of a quiet little town, the way any other quiet little town is in the United States.

SA:         Well one of the things I notice here in Fallon—and I know part of it's because of the huge haying here, and trucks coming in--there's so many trucks coming through town. Do they talk about alleviating that in some way with streets they can't come? Because they come right through town.

WN:       They've been talking about having bypasses around Fallon for forty years, and I haven't seen it happen yet, and I don't really expect to see it happen in the next thirty years.

SA:         Because I've been interviewing ranchers who sell their hay, and I ask "do they ship it?" and they say, "no, the trucks come and get it." And that gave me a little bit of understanding of just a little bit of why more trucks come into town, instead of just staying on the freeway. Is that something people are pretty used to now?

WN:       Well, all the hay trucks are just a little part of the trucking that goes through Fallon.

SA:         Sure. But what's the rest of why they come into town instead of staying on the freeway, besides getting gas?

WN:       Number one, we don't have a freeway anywhere near Fallon.

SA:         So they have to go right through, unlike….

WN:       Well, they won't let them go up Maine Street. Taylor Street, next to Safeway, is probably the big. . . . They come down Williams Avenue to Taylor and they turn and they go down to Vegas that way.

SA:         Yes. So there's no plans on that. In other words, it's just still talking and none of the plans.

WN:       Right.

SA:         You've lived here now a long time. I mean, your last time from 1962 to 1994 is a good period of time, so you know the city. What do you see as the future of Fallon? Is there plenty of work for everyone? Or is it mainly going to be military and retired? What do you see as the future of Fallon?

WN:       Well, I think the future of Fallon is somewhat at a status quo because of the water situation. The farmers are going to be forced to sell, I think, whether they believe it or not, either sooner or later.

SA:         Tell me about the water situation from your observations and information.

WN:       Well, the water that we get here comes from the Sierras. Most of it that's coming down the Truckee River is coming out of Lake Tahoe when it's full. They're getting runoff from the Sierras that comes right down the Truckee River. Fallon gets probably 90 percent of their water right now from the Carson River. As Carson grows and as Reno grows, they're gonna consume more water, and the bigger they get, the less water is going to come down here, and the less water is going to go into Pyramid Lake--whether they believe this or not.

SA:         And isn't there also some water rights problems with the Paiute Indians? Isn't that another water problem?

WN:       Well, I don't know.

SA:         Where they want to divert the water to Pyramid Lake to save the fish?

WN:       Well, they've already diverted it. They've already taken that. The thing they're going to do, they'll eventually squeeze the farmers out down here, because the farmers aren't going to have the water to grow crops. And it's that simple. Some of these farmers get pretty bullheaded on what you can do with their water and what you can't do, but it still just stands to reason when people are using it upstream from you, there's just nothing to come down.

SA:         Does the growth of the military base use any--I don't know--any vast amounts of the water?

WN:       Oh sure, they use a lot of water.

SA:         So everything combined, and then more and more people moving in, of course. More and more people, more businesses, more hotels.

WN:       That's right.

SA:         Is there anything that I haven't asked, that you can add, pertaining mainly to Churchill County, that you've observed or that you want to add to the tape before we close the interview?

WN:       Oh, the only thing that I can say is that when I was a kid, the whole county was probably, oh, I would say in the area of 5,000- 6,000 people, and today it's probably 30,000 or 35,000.

SA:         I'll bet your great-grandfather who came in 1870 or 1871, and of course it was so isolated, would be totally shocked to see the huge growth.

WN:       Oh yeah.

SA:         He was one of the real early pioneers and a man who contributed so much to the development of Churchill County. Anything else before we close?

WN:       No, I can't think of anything. I probably will think of all sorts of things when you leave! (laughs)

SA:         Well, I'll be back in September. You can make little notes. And if you come across any other pictures. . . I do now want to thank you on behalf of the Churchill County Oral History Project for taking the time to share your information with us to add to the history of this region. Thank you so much. This is the end of the interview.

 

Addendum

The following information came from the book Turn This Water Into Gold by Townley:

Warren Willard Williams was born March 19, 1839 in Kennebac, Maine. He came to California before his twentieth birthday. The big silver strike in 1859 brought him to Virginia City. He and his brother Abram operated a mercantile store at Divide, between Gold Hill and Virginia City. Williams' made his first trip to Churchill County in 1860. He passed through Lahontan Valley after taking part in the second battle of Pyramid Lake. He made a small fortune in Virginia City, but lost it in another merchandising venture in Monoville. He spent the late 1860s in freighting and lumbering during the boom years on Comstock.

In 1871 Williams arrived in Stillwater. He and Charles Kaiser, who came to Stillwater the year before, initiated a partnership, importing sheep into Central Nevada to market wool and mutton. This was an unpopular occupation at that time. Williams managed property in Clan Alpine and Kaiser operated lands later known as Freeman Ranch north of Stillwater. The partnership prospered until 1878. Kaiser took Stillwater and Williams kept Clan Alpine. Williams' sheep operation became the largest in the state and he was Churchill County's largest individual taxpayer. He became State Senator and in 1901 bought the Fallon Ranch. He attracted over two hundred new residents to Fallon Townsite and was eager to move the county seat to Fallon. He was returned to the Senate in 1903 and successfully sponsored a statute transferring the county seat to Fallon. Stillwater residents refused to allow the removal of official records. During the early morning hours, Fallon citizens with wagons surrounded the courthouse and emptied the vault of records. Stillwater men pursued the fleeing Fallonites. The records were locked in the new courthouse before outraged Stillwater residents arrived. Many records were lost from the speeding wagons. Remaining records were removed and burned by Stillwater residents.

The following information comes from the Churchill County Museum and Archives:

Warren Williams married Abbie Madison ( born April 10, 1866, Buckham County, Iowa) August 1880, Austin, Nevada. Died March 3, 1940, Fallon.

Story about Warren Willard Williams in Thursday, March 14, 1907 newspaper lists children: John, Rose, Ada, Elizabeth, Abbie and Cora.

  1. A. Keddie, William's son-in-law, killed in airplane wreck in Elko. (Fallon Standard, July 23, 1921)

Ada M. Keddie, daughter, died January 9, 1934 (Fallon Eagle, January 113, 1934)

Elizabeth Williams, daughter, married Ernest John Freeman, son of Stillwater ranchers, Saturday, January 23, 1909. He was from Woodland, California at the time.

Abbie Williams, daughter, married John Earl Danielson. Mother of Abbie Betsy Nichols, she died shortly after her daughter's birth. Abbie Betsy was raised in the Williams' home like another daughter. She was the mother of Ward Nichols.

Fallon - Williams Ranch -- first belonged to Frank Austin, then purchased by Joshua Bond. He built the large white house that is on the Venturacci property, then sold one part of his farm to Fred Harmon, who later sold the property to Williams, who by further purchases added to it. Ranch house was located on lot where the Hursh house is now located. The stone building in back is part of original buildings.

Deaths of siblings of Warren Williams:

Had six full brothers, five of whom died by 1913

  1. February 14, 1906, 53 years old - sister, Mary E. Young of Pomeroy, Washington. Had five children.
  2. October 24, 1911, Hon. Abram Pease Williams, ex U. S. Senator, died at Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. He was born in New Portland, Maine. Came to California in 1857. Abram's wife died on March 14, 1912.
  3. Orin William, died June 19, 1913, in New Richmond, Wisconsin, at age 69. Was in Wisconsin legislature, Mayor of Richmond, was in mercantile business.

Warren Williams' two half-brothers:

  1. George B. Williams who owned Eastgate Ranch and a number of mining clams. Born December 3, 1854 in Portland, Maine. Died March 1938 in Reno. He came to Nevada 1876. Obituary in Fallon Eagle, April 2, 1938. 1:4.

Children:

George B. Williams, Jr. died Reno March 20, 1907, spinal meningitis

Stanley Williams, born 1903, Elko, Nevada, died July 1935, age 32, Reno (The Fallon Eagle, July 27, 1935 3:5)

Marie Genevieve Williams Mayo Hill, born October 19, 1908, died July 31, 1990

  1. Eugene L. Williams, Reno attorney

Interviewer

Sylvia Arden

Interviewee

Ward Nichols

Location

541 Rachel Court, Fallon, Nevada

Comments

Files

Ward Nichols.PNG
Ward Nichols Oral History Transcript.docx
Nichols, Ward.mp3

Citation

Churchill County Museum Association, “Ward Nichols Oral History,” Churchill County Museum Digital Archive: Fallon, Nevada, accessed March 28, 2024, https://ccmuseum.omeka.net/items/show/633.