Nadine Hursh Domonoske 1982 Oral History
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Nadine Hursh Domonoske 1982 Interview
Conducted by unnamed students
Transcribed by Raeburn Sottile
This interview was done in 1982 as part of a school project. It was not initially included in the Churchill County Oral History Project, but has been added to Nadine Hursh Domonoske's file as it contains some information about her life and growing up in Fallon in the early 20th century
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.
DOMONOSKE: What do you want with it? I mean, all that stuff.
KIDS: Just like, your grandparents and then down to your mother and father.
DOMONOSKE: Well, let's see, on my father's side I had a grandfather and grandmother, and all kinds of aunts and uncles. They were great people, and… what else can I say about them? Come on, I need your help! On my mother's side I had a grandmother, grandmother [Addie Mattison] Williams. My mother and father's names were Ernest and Cora Hursh.
KIDS: What stores did you like when you were… What stores did you like that are gone now that were in Fallon?
DOMONOSKE: Ooh, I loved the ice cream parlor. It was great. All kinds of ice cream, at least 12 different… types of ice cream, like vanilla and strawberry. And it was a wonderful place. It had a piano in it. People either played the piano, or else they had a… those rolls. They used their feet and away they went [ed- she is describing a type of player piano where a person pumped pedals to get the music to go forward] and everybody sang. It was a lot of fun! There was really more kids than there was adults.
KIDS: Was it just called an ice cream parlor?
DOMONOSKE: No, it was called – and don't ask me how to spell it – Laveaga's Ice Cream Parlor [somewhere between 31 and 45 S. Maine St] I don't know how to spell Laveaga…
KIDS: [laughing awkwardly]
DOMONOSKE: But I would just call it an ice cream parlor because it was the only one here. Anyway…
KIDS: What kind of fashions did you wear?
DOMONOSKE: Well, when I rode horseback I had Levi's. When I played tennis I had shorts. When I swam I had a bathing suit. When I went to school, I had skirts and blouses. That's about your age we're talking about, Allie. Skirts, sweaters, and blouses.
KIDS: What luxuries did you have?
DOMONOSKE: In high school? Enough to eat, enough to wear. And lots of happiness, lots of laughs, I guess you can call that a luxury, couldn't you?
KIDS: Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: I think my horse was my biggest luxury.
KIDS: What was your horse's name?
DOMONOSKE: Laddie. I had two horses. I had one called shamrock, and he was a Shetland pony, and then my… the other was a cattle horse, and that was Laddie.
KIDS: Okay, what was your most memorable moment?
DOMONOSKE: [long pause] I guess probably when I got Laddie.
KIDS: What type of houses did you have?
DOMONOSKE: House?
KIDS: Houses, Yeah.
DOMONOSKE: To live in?
KIDS: Mm-hmm
DOMONOSKE: Yes. Two story brick house. I still live in it, which is odd, isn't it?
KIDS: [Awkward laugh]
DOMONOSKE: I moved away, came back, my family died, we live in it now.
KIDS: Okay. How has Fallon changed from what it is today?
DOMONOSKE: Well, more stores, more people… Bigger than it was, you know that. I suppose it was around eighteen hundred people, maybe, when I was your age. Now it's about 5000.
KIDS: What type of bullies did you have at your school? What did they do?
DOMONOSKE: The normal bully, we had them, only would scare you into giving them something they wanted until you got a backbone and said you wouldn't do it. And then usually, bullies, when you say no, maybe you have to fight a little bit, but they'll leave you alone when they can't take advantage of you, you know. I don't think our bullies… maybe our bullies weren't as mean as yours. I think any bully is… he's scared of you. If you say "oh no. I will not." But if he can push you around, he'll push you around.
KIDS: When you got an illness as a kid, how was it treated?
DOMONOSKE: If I needed a doctor, like you two, we had a doctor. If we didn't need a doctor, my mother was awfully good at treating things.
KIDS: Describe how difficult your chores were.
DOMONOSKE: They weren't so bad, I just helped my mother whenever she needed the help.
KIDS: What kind of chores did you have?
DOMONOSKE: I washed dishes and dried them after dinner, and I helped her wash windows… took out the garbage… and I helped them water the lawn and the flower beds… Any other little odd job that you could do at your age, you know.
KIDS: Could you tell us a little more about your family?
DOMONOSKE: You know, when you love your family, a great deal, it's hard to explain them. [? Long pause] We'll let's see… My mother was a beautiful horseback rider. My mother was a beautiful dancer, both my mother and father were beautiful dancers, and they were very, very good-looking people. They were wise, they were kind, and they were great. I'm sorry to tell very much, except that my dad was in the insurance business, just like we are, because he started this business, and he was also mayor of Fallon at one time. What else could I say, I wonder? Do you have any ideas? I don't know whether I've answered your question or I haven't really. Do you think it's fair, or do you?
KIDS: Um, what kind of cars did you have?
DOMONOSKE: [long pause] I remember… two Buick sedans, at different times, heh. When I was your age, I would say we had a Buick sedan. It was kind of a gold color, kind of a tanish gold color.
KIDS: What kind of other cars did you see?
DOMONOSKE: Oh, there were Chevrolets, there were Oldsmobiles, and there were Fords… They were not the kind of cars you know about, they were a different style, you know.
KIDS: Were there any other stores that were here in Fallon that are gone now, besides the ice cream parlor?
DOMONOSKE: About in the middle of the Nugget down here [70 S. Maine, but takes up the entire first block south of Williams] there was a store called Eldredge and Hursh and it was a clothing store. Oh, they sold shoes, dresses, shirts, and everything. It's E-L-D-R-E-D-G-E That was my aunt and uncle that owned that one. Let me see… Can't think of anything else. There were several other stores. There was a meat market here not too far, maybe 3… about where Jeff's is [178 S. Maine], there was a meat market. And if I really got my will together, there were quite a few others, but most everything's here and more have been added to it.
KIDS: Did you have any pets?
DOMONOSKE: I had a collie dog.
KIDS: What was his name.
DOMONOSKE: Collie, isn't that terrible? [laughter] we just called him Collie!
KIDS: What were the people like that lived by you?
DOMONOSKE: Great. [laughter] Really great, I don't know of any of the people that lived around us that weren't just awfully good neighbors and awfully good friends.
KIDS: Did you have a library?
DOMONOSKE: Well, I don't know whether you'd call it that, but we had lots of books, so I suppose you would say we had… we didn't have a room for it, but we had shelves and shelves of books, so yes, I'd say we had a bit of a library.
KIDS: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
DOMONOSKE: One brother.
KIDS: What did you have for snacks?
DOMONOSKE: I wasn't allowed to snack, that was a no-no in our family. You had breakfast, you had lunch, and you had dinner, and if there were any snacks it was very, very special. Somehow my mother didn't think it was too healthy.
KIDS: What kinds of… things did they have in stores that are different from today?
DOMONOSKE: Firecrackers. [Laughter] They did! They sold firecrackers when I was your age, must have got them [inaudible due to tape damage] They didn't have any frozen foods in those days. We had canned foods, fresh vegetables, all those things.
KIDS: What sports did you… were there?
DOMONOSKE: I rode horseback. I swam. I played tennis.
KIDS: Were there others that you didn't do that… the different… like… some of them that they do today, that we have today?
DOMONOSKE: What do you have today that I didn't have?
KIDS: Uh… [awkward laughing]
DOMONOSKE: Alright, what do you do today, tell me.
KIDS: Football, baseball, softball.
DOMONOSKE: We had all those.
KIDS: Golf, bowling.
DOMONOSKE: No, we didn't have a bowling alley, we didn't have a golf course.
KIDS: Did you have a skating rink or anything?
DOMONOSKE: We skated on the sidewalk [laughter] we skated. We roller skated and we ice skated in the ponds out here, you know. Let's see, how old are you two?
KIDS: Thirteen years old. Did you have carpet in houses or just…?
DOMONOSKE: Some people did, some people didn't, but we did.
KIDS: What age did you start to date?
DOMONOSKE: Mmm?
KIDS: What age did you start to date boys?
DOMONOSKE: I would think about fifteen. [Murmurs to self]
KIDS: Did you go fishing?
DOMONOSKE: Mmm-hmm. Yeah, we went fishing.
KIDS: Where did you go?
DOMONOSKE: Oh, we went to Pyramid [Lake] and uh… to Elko County, went to Lahontan, I guess that's about all because I wasn't a very big fisher. I did fairly well, but not too hot.
KIDS: Lahontan wasn't as murky as it is.
DOMONOSKE: It was much clearer, we didn't have all that upstream bit.
KIDS: What was your favorite subject in school?
DOMONOSKE: History. [Long pause] Oh, I did story writing [?] if… Do you have that?
KIDS: Yes.
DOMONOSKE: Composition, I suppose, is what you still call it, is it?
KIDS: Mm-hmm. Who was your favorite teacher? And what grade was it?
DOMONOSKE: You'd be in what grade?
KIDS: Seventh.
DOMONOSKE: Probably Miss Toft, that was sixth. You know, that's hard to say because you had a favorite as you went along, didn't you? Sometimes you might get a whole… about a half grade when you liked the teacher but she wasn't your favorite and the next one became your favorite.
KIDS: [laughing] how many schools did you have?
DOMONOSKE: We had West End, and we had where the Cottage Schools are, that used to be called Old High, I think, is what we called it.
KIDS: Did you have the Oats Park School?
DOMONOSKE: Yep, we had the Oats Park School and we had the high school.
KIDS: What kind of homework did you have?
DOMONOSKE: Very remedial, frankly [?] Tell me what you have.
KIDS: Math. Composition. Reading. Spelling. History, Geography, science. [Laughing]
DOMONOSKE: We had everything. What type of science do you have?
KIDS: We study all kinds of stuff. All kinds of things.
DOMONOSKE: We had everything… I don't know if we had science, but we had awfully good geography and history and English and we had debating and… that was fun. [laughter] I liked that.
KIDS: Did you have a lot of homework?
DOMONOSKE: Yes. Quite a bit. At least I always thought we did.
KIDS: Did you watch films? And did you have to take notes off of them and have tests?
DOMONOSKE: No. I don't think so. [long pause]
KIDS: How many grades were left in a school?
DOMONOSKE: At Oats Park there was the 5th, the 6th, the 7th, and the 8th. Could be right in what we're talking about really [?] You didn't have a junior high. We went from Oats Park after the eighth into high school. That was freshman year then.
KIDS: Did you have a dance?
DOMONOSKE: [Presumably gives an answer, drowned out by background noise]
KIDS: Did you go to the movies?
DOMONOSKE: Yes, we went to the movies.
KIDS: Was that a luxury?
DOMONOSKE: Yes, I think you could say it was a luxury.
KIDS: Did you have bars?
DOMONOSKE: Lots of them
KIDS: [laughing]
DOMONOSKE: I think we had more bars on this side of the street than we had stores, but now it's the other way around. That's the answer to your question a little while ago, you know, I had forgotten that.
KIDS: In school did they have like P.E. and art and…
DOMONOSKE: We had art. We had music. We… had a period where you would go out and do some P.E., yeah, because we played Tennis and we did calisthenics.
KIDS: What's that?
DOMONOSKE: Well, exercise.
KIDS: Did you play any kind of instrument?
DOMONOSKE: I took some, but I didn't play any [laughter] No, I didn't. I didn't stick with it long enough to play any instruments.
KIDS: Did you drink soft drinks?
DOMONOSKE: Once in a while.
KIDS: What were they called?
DOMONOSKE: Ginger ale, for one. Cream sodas, lemony sodas. Milkshakes, that's not a… I guess it is a soft drink. Ice cream sodas. By the way, those are luxuries.
KIDS: Did you go on fieldtrips at school?
DOMONOSKE: No fieldtrips.
KIDS: Did the teachers rough on you with the grades and their tempers?
DOMONOSKE: Well, the grades… you had to work in order to get a good grade, and if they lost their tempers, which they didn't do very often… there was a reason, and they kept good discipline in a class.
KIDS: Did you have a principal?
DOMONOSKE: Yes, we had a principal.
KIDS: Did you have a hot lunch program at your school, or did you have to bring a lunch?
DOMONOSKE: We brought our lunch from home.
KIDS: What did they do to you if you got in trouble at school?
DOMONOSKE: Well, never having been sent to the office at your age, I would say from what some of my friends said, they gave you a very good talking to. It shook you up and made you a much nicer person when you went back to class, and/or they'd send you home.
KIDS: Would they put you on suspension or anything?
DOMONOSKE: I don’t think at your age they had to do that. A little later [laughter]
KIDS: Like in high school did you have track and… like sports where you'd have to go out of town to compete?
DOMONOSKE: Football and basketball we went out of town… And track. Wait a minute, I don't know anybody went out of town for track or not in those days. Nope, scratch that, I don't think they did. I'm not sure, but I don't think so.
KIDS: [starts and stops a few times, awkward laughing]
DOMONOSKE: It'll come back.
KIDS: How did you wear your hair?
DOMONOSKE: Well, I really don't know, I think parted on the side with curls, you know?
KIDS: Mm-hmm. Did you have long hair?
DOMONOSKE: Medium. [long pause]
KIDS: What was the most… fashion that most girls wore in those days, you know, fashion that was popular?
DOMONOSKE: I… I don't know, I really don't. I think most of them really wanted pleated skirts and crisp blouses with little ties, you know, little bow ties.
KIDS: Okay, up, that's all. Thank you very much [End of interview]
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