Orva Williams Smith Oral History

Dublin Core

Title

Orva Williams Smith Oral History

Description

Orva Williams Smith Oral History

Creator

Churchill County Museum Association

Publisher

Churchill County Museum Association

Date

November 18, 1991

Format

Analog Cassette Tape, .Doc File, MP3 Audio

Language

English

Oral History Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Audio Cassette

Duration

59:29

Transcription

CHURCHILL COUNTY MUSEUM & ARCHIVES

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

an interview with

ORVA WILLIAMS SMITH

November 18, 1991

This interview was conducted by Eleanor Ahern; transcribed by Glenda Price; edited by Norma Morgan; final typed by Glenda Price; index by Gracie Viera; supervised by Myrl Nygren, Director of Oral History Project/Assistant Curator Churchill County Museum.

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

PREFACE

Orva Williams Smith is a widow who now lives alone surrounded by some of the furniture and paintings created by her multi-talented late husband, Edgar Smith, Jr. She was quite active in several organizations as well as being a mother and a homemaker in her early years of marriage. Today, at the age of 88, Orva Williams Smith is still active by donating her time and talent knitting items for a church bazaar. She was also making plans for her forthcoming trip to Chicago and California to visit family during the holiday season.

Interview with Orva Williams Smith

AHERN: This is Eleanor Ahern of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project interviewing Orva Williams Smith at her home at 79 East Fairview, Fallon, Nevada. The date is Monday, November 18, 1991. It's 9:30 in the morning and we are sitting in Mrs. Smith's dining room. This is tape 1 side 1. Good morning, Mrs. Smith. How are you?

SMITH: Fine.

AHERN: Would you please give me your full name?

SMITH: Orva Williams Smith.

AHERN: And where were you born?

SMITH: In Fallon at the Home Ranch.

AHERN: Where is the Home Ranch?

SMITH: On the Austin Highway and it was called East Grove. Now it's the Buhlig Ranch.

AHERN: Do you remember anything about your grandparents? Where they had first come from?

SMITH: My father's father came from Kansas.

AHERN: And what was his name?

SMITH: Andrew Smith Williams and my grandmother was Sarah Lucy Yale. She was born in Goshen, Ohio.

AHERN: Do you recall what made them come out west from Kansas?

SMITH: My great-grandfather had a brother who was sheriff of Genoa [Nevada] and they were gradually working their way west. They went to Missouri and they went to Texas and then went back to Kansas and then they came west and came to Genoa to join his brother and they farmed in Carson Valley for several years and my father and his younger brother went to school there.

AHERN: In the Carson Valley?

SMITH: Yes.

AHERN: Do you recall the name of the school?

SMITH: I think it was that Genoa School. Now I'm not sure about that.

AHERN: Did your grandparents then move to Fallon or did they stay?

SMITH: No, after the boys left they went to Reno. My grandmother took typhoid and she died in Reno in 1895. Then my grandfather moved to Fallon to be with the boys.

AHERN: There were just two sons?

SMITH: Oh, no. There was Frank, Bud, Del, Will, Otto, and one sister, Minnie.

AHERN: Then were they all in Fallon or were they scattered?

SMITH: No, Frank was here for awhile and he ranched down in the Old River.

AHERN: Where is the Old River today?

SMITH: It's north of town, follows the old river channel way down into the desert. I don't know just which ranch it was. I have a suspicion it was the Sagouspi ranch and my father and Uncle Bud bought out the Fred Small [ranch] and they bought the ranch in 1895.

AHERN: Where was the Fred Small ranch?

SMITH: It was what is now the Buhlig ranch. Then while they lived there they took my aunt who was widow with five children and took care of them. Then Uncle Bud married so Uncle Frank took Aunt Minnie and the children with him. Grandfather Williams came from Reno to be with the boys and they looked after him. He was getting pretty elderly and not too well. So he lived with them until his death in December, 1902.

AHERN: Do you recall anything about your parents--how they had met each other?

SMITH: My mother was teaching school here in the St. Clair District and my father met her. She was being courted by another man but my father cut him out (laughing) and they were married May 14, 1903. [Ed- Original transcript said 1902, unclear if this was a later correction] She lived there on the ranch all the years that they were married.

AHERN: This would be the Buhlig ranch?

SMITH: Yes. That was called the Home Ranch.

AHERN: It is called by your family the Home Ranch?

SMITH: Yes. Uncle Bud and his wife and family, after my father married, decided that the two brothers would split up the partnership and Uncle Bud took the Sifford ranch in Stillwater. Fallon was being started in 1903, and he had a home built. It's still standing on the corner of Carson and West Center Street. Next to it where the Elks Hall is now, Uncle Bud had a livery stable and a drayage business there. He hauled lumber and food supplies and beer. Beer was a big item up in the mining towns of Rawhide and Wonder.

AHERN: He hauled these supplies from Fallon to the mines?

SMITH: From Hazen to the mine. Later, he sold that business and bought a little ranch out on Harrigan Road. His wife was also a teacher.

AHERN: How many brothers and sisters, if any, were in your family?

SMITH: I had one sister and one brother.

AHERN: What were their names?

SMITH: My sister was Thelma Williams; my brother was Merle Williams, Colonel Merle Williams.

AHERN: Colonel in the Army?

SMITH: Air Force.

AHERN: Tell me about your father's background. Did he start out as a rancher?

SMITH: Yes, he did. Well, no, for a year or two he had a small grocery store in Reno. But then he came down to the valley here and joined Uncle Bud and for two years they worked down in the Island District for a man by the name of Bailey.

AHERN: When you mentioned the Island District, where is that?

SMITH: It's south of town. I think you go down either the Harrigan Road or the Schurz road [Highway] to get to the Island District. It was just a big swamp with a lot of cattails and this big ranch down there. They worked for him for two years and then he went broke. He didn't have any money to pay them and he owed them quite a lot of money. He got the word that the sheriff was coming to put a lien on everything. My father and Uncle Bud had just come back from Hazen with a big load of lumber for him and he said, "Boys, I can't pay you, but you go out and you each pick out two of my best teams. You put the best harnesses that I have on them, hitch them up to wagons and take them down in the tules and hide them." And that gave them the start. Then they bought out Fred Small. Fred Small had homesteaded the Home Ranch. Then in 1898 my father was elected sheriff of Churchill County. There was no Fallon at that time and Stillwater was the county seat. It had been moved from La Plata.

AHERN: When your father was elected sheriff, what was his age? How old was he?

SMITH: He was about twenty eight. While he was sheriff they had a funny little experience there. He used to tell about it and laugh. There was a man that was arrested for cattle rustling and they had a trial with a jury and everything. He hired an attorney from Reno to defend him. So the man was tried, convicted, and sentenced and after it was all over everybody went across the street to the old Stillwater Hotel. All the men lined up at the bar and the attorney came in and he was so angry and he said, "The next time I come to Churchill County I want the man to have killed someone. I can get him off then but if he steals a cow in Churchill County nothing on earth can save him."

AHERN: (laughing) Do you recall the accused's name?

SMITH: No, I have no idea. I don't think as I ever heard it

AHERN: Why do you think the lawyer made that statement?

SMITH: Well, it seemed that you could get away with almost anything in Churchill County except stealing a cow.

AHERN: That was considered a very high offense. Were your parents married while your father was still a sheriff?

SMITH: They were married May 1902, and I think his term ended about in 1902. Then in 1916 he was elected County Commissioner, and I think he was County Commissioner for two terms.

AHERN: Tell me about his term as a county commissioner.

SMITH: Well, we used to go out and survey different things that were going on in the county and one was when the Army sent a whole convoy of trucks across the continent called the Liberty Highway [Lincoln Highway]. My father was kind of leery about the salt flats. So we went out there and waited for them and when they came across--the salt flat had a very thin surface and with those heavy trucks and so many of them, it finally broke and the trucks went down in that black gooey mud and they were stuck. The boys just literally lifted those big trucks across that salt flat. It was the worst mess you ever saw. I came across the same thing and I think Eisenhower must have been there. He would be a new second lieutenant right out of West Point because in one of his books he wrote about it. It's in the book, Stories I Tell My Friends, and he told about how the boys just literally lifted those trucks across the desert, across that flat.

AHERN: Where would this Liberty [Lincoln] Highway have been?

SMITH: It was right straight across the salt flats east of Fallon out there toward Salt Wells and Sand Mountain.

AHERN: So, that would be currently today it's known as Highway 50 East.

SMITH: Yes.

AHERN: And at that time it was just a salt flat. Why was the Army coming in with a convoy?

SMITH: They were making a trek across the continent to prove to people that it could be driven. (laughing) But they got into very difficult situations. I don't think they got into anything more difficult than that salt flat.

AHERN: What was your father's duty at that time when he went out to survey or to watch the convoy coming in? Was there any specific duty assigned to him?

SMITH: No, he was just seeing how things were across the county and then he could report back to the commissioners when they had their meetings.

AHERN: Was he ever involved with the building of the Lahontan Dam?

SMITH: No, all he did was sign over his water rights to the government. But we went up there one time on a big picnic with a lot of people. My father rented a surrey, a conveyance of some kind that Mr. Heady, who had the Grand Hotel, used when he went to meet the train and take the people off the train. So we had all those people and we went up there and we saw the dam being built. Had a picnic up there and a lot of the dam was just wooden structures at that time. The cement hadn't been poured.

AHERN: This Grand Hotel, was it here in Fallon?

SMITH: Yes, it's still standing. It's on Maine Street. There's a [Texaco] service station and the Mill End store [36 North Maine Street] and then the Grand Hotel building [40 North Maine Street].

AHERN: That's where the chiropractor is. Tell me about the fire.

SMITH: Oh, the night the town went dry (laughing). A neighbor down below us on the Stillwater Road ran out of gas and came to the ranch asking for gas to get them into town. They wanted to see the town go dry. The milk boy ran out to get them some gas and the tank was in a brand new garage that my father had built. A 1914 Hupmobile was sitting in the garage. The Hudson was sitting out in the yard so it didn't get caught. The boy dropped the head of a match into a pitcher of gasoline that he had just drawn and the whole thing went up in flames. Oh, it was a terrific fire and so hot and we fought and fought sparks going into the corrals and into the hay corral. My father had tons of hay stacked up there. There were a lot of people that left the town going dry and came out to watch the fire at the ranch. He had two fifty gallon drums of diesel oil sitting outside the garage and they were getting very, very hot and they were afraid they were going to go up. He came in and phoned a garage man, Mr. Benadum I believe it was, and he told him to roll those tanks and keep them rolling them until they were cool. So some of the men took those drums of diesel and rolled them up and down the road until they were cool enough to let stand.

AHERN: What was the milk boy doing with a match?

SMITH: He wanted to see if he had the pitcher full. (laughing)

AHERN: When you mentioned the people watching the town go dry, what did you mean by that?

SMITH: That was when the Volstead Act went in more liquor. So people went into town to (laughing) help drink up all the liquor there was left and to watch the people that weren't doing it (laughing). I guess it caused quite a commotion. We had our own commotion on the ranch. (laughing)

AHERN: Were you still a youngster while your dad was in office as a sheriff?

SMITH: Oh, no, I wasn't born yet.

AHERN: That's right, your parents weren't married till after.

SMITH: (laughing)

AHERN: As a child growing up in Churchill County, did you enjoy it?

SMITH: I had a wonderful time. I had my own horse and saddle and rode horseback a lot. My sister and I were known as demon riders. I drove a horse and cart to school my second year and then I rode a little horse that- my father had an Indian man that was working for us by the name of Sam Dick, capture a little Mustang and tame it, break it. He was a little black horse with a white face. Ornery? Oh, he was ornery! And I rode him until I wore him completely out. My dad rented a little saddle horse from Mr. Cutler. Mr. Cutler was in the office of the sugar beet factory. This little Kitty was a wonderful little horse. I just fell in love with her, but you couldn't carry anything on her. Mr. Cutler decided he'd take some papers home one night and she scattered him and papers all over the road out there, down there by the office. Kitty had a funny habit. She didn't want to let you on her. So my uncle at that time was there at the ranch helping, and he would stand at Kitty's head and hold the bridle. My dad would pick me up and toss me into the saddle and my uncle would let go of the bridle and she would rear back, come up on her hind feet, and when she came down she was on a dead run and that's the way we went to school. School was at the West End School. Of course we had a hitching rack to tie the horses and Kitty never stopped until she skidded up against the hitching rack. Then she'd stand perfectly quietly and let me tie her up. To get on I asked one of the boys, Ira Clark--he was in the grade ahead of me, I believe--I asked him to stay after school and help me with Kitty and he was delighted. He was a great lover of horses. He would stand at Kitty's head and he wouldn't untie her until I was in the saddle. Then he would untie her, toss the rope to me and duck under the hitching rack and Kitty'd come back on her hind legs and up in the air and down she'd come and we'd go home. (laughing)

AHERN: You always went home at a gallop?

SMITH: Oh, yes, a dead run. (laughing)

AHERN: You mentioned the sugar beet factory. Where was that? Where would that have been today?

SMITH: Out there at the foot of Rattlesnake Hill. Part of the property would be where the eastern part of the cemetery is now.

AHERN: And the West End School--where would that be today?

SMITH: It's still the West End School down on [West] Center Street.

AHERN: Did most of the children ride their horses to school?

SMITH: Nearly all of them. All the children in the country rode to school. The year that I was a senior in high school, oh, we had a terrific winter! And the roads just became impassable. Well, we went to the school in the car until the road was so impassable we couldn't get through anymore. So then we drove a team of pacers hitched to a spring wagon. That was fine for a while and pretty soon the bottom of the road just dropped completely out. So we split the team and I rode Dan, my sister rode Buster, and we rode in the barrow pit or in the bottom of the ditch where there was a lot of weeds that held the horses up. Maine Street from Center to Williams Avenue was a sea of mud. Just a watery mud. We used to have lots of fun riding the pacers down Maine Street and back. We'd go to the drinking fountain. There was a drinking fountain for the horses at the intersection of Maine and Williams Avenue and the horses just scattered mud. That was a mean trick but we had a lot of fun.

AHERN: Were these pacers any special breed?

SMITH: Not exactly a special breed, but they had to have a special gait. That special gait was that both feet on one side came forward at the same time, this way, and it made a swinging gait. They were a lovely team to ride and a lovely team to drive. Oh, and I'll tell you about the runaway. I was driving Dan and I had stayed after school because I was in a school play. We were at the Oats Park School at that time and I had to go downtown and get some groceries for my mother and Dan wanted to go home. We were going down Center Street to what would now be East E Street and I was holding Dan just as hard as I could, the reins wrapped around my hands, my feet braced, and Andy Drumm came around the corner on his motorcycle and headed straight for Dan. Now Dan wan't afraid of a machine. He'd been raised around the thrashing machine but he hated the pop of a motorcycle. So Andy came straight for his head and then he dodged just as he got to him and Dan struck out with his hind foot and he hit the wheel. He thought he had hit him and he went to kick him with both feet and he just kicked things all to smithereens. When he started running he was fastened to the buggy by one tug and I still had the reins wrapped around my hands and he pulled us kind of sideways into a group of trees there at the corner of Center and what would be Broadway. That impact, pulling the buggy into those trees, broke the tug and pulled me out of the buggy, pulled me along the road on my face. I had a very skinned face after that. And I let go of Dan and Whitney Harmon was a neighbor boy and he knew Dan. He saw him standing on the old high school grounds just only one of the reins and just running in a circle. He was frightened to death and Whitney coaxed him to let him get to him and he tied him to the back of his buggy and came and picked up us girls and took us all home. He explained to father what had happened. After that, we never could drive Dan alone. We could drive him with Buster but never alone. It scared him to death to put him in shafts.

AHERN: After you graduated from high school what did you do then?

SMITH: I went to the University of Nevada for one year and then I stopped and I taught school. I took the teacher's exam and I went out to Paradise Valley. It's forty-five miles off a railroad and I taught first, second and third grade out there.

AHERN: Where is Paradise Valley?

SMITH: North of Winnemucca.

AHERN: And you lived up there?

SMITH: I lived in a big, big hotel there.   It has since burned

down.

AHERN: Do you recall the name of it?

SMITH: No, I don't.

AHERN: How old were you then?

SMITH: Maybe twenty.

AHERN: And you were teaching the first and second graders?

SMITH: First, second and third.

AHERN: Do you recall what your salary was?

SMITH: I think it was about ninety, maybe a hundred dollars a month for nine months.

AHERN: Were you able to come home on holidays--come back to Fallon?

SMITH: Yes, I came home Christmas, Thanksgiving. Then my sister's birthday was in March and I got homesick. I just couldn't stand it another minute and so I got two of the girls with their brother to take me into Winnemucca to catch the train and I came home for just the weekend but it was wonderful. (laughing)

AHERN: What were you doing with your money?

SMITH: Paying off debts. (laughing)

AHERN: What kind of debts?

SMITH: I had borrowed money from the student loan. Then the next year I came into Fallon and I taught at the West End School. I taught in the same room that I started first grade in and I taught there for two years. There are a lot of people here in this town that I have taught. (laughing) Then in between the school year I would go to San Jose State and go to summer school. When I had accumulated enough credits. . . [End of side A]

AHERN: You had mentioned something about getting credits?

SMTH: Yes, I had to have a certain amount of credits before I could stay long enough to get my degree and I had done that. It took me about five years. And then I went down and my sister was attending San Jose State and so I joined her and we stayed and graduated in August of 1927. I stayed in California then, and taught for three years, different places in California. My sister came back and she had graduated as a kindergarten teacher. She was able to get a place in Genoa and she taught in Genoa all eight grades. It was quite an experience she had that year.

AHERN: Would you like to tell me about it?

SMITH: There are some of the people living there now that she taught when she was over there. The school was in the old county courthouse and the coal was kept in one of the cells. The jail was in the back of the courthouse and the coal was kept in one of the cells and the children were always trying to get her into the cell and then they could lock her in. She never would go in. (laughing) She lived with Mr. and Mrs. Campbell. They were very old and well-to-do family. Mrs. Campbell was a member of the Raycraft family which was a very old family there. Mrs. Campbell was a very funny character and just a lot of fun and one time she said to my sister, "I married Campbell for his money and he married me for my looks and we both got stung!" (laughing) My sister used to walk from Genoa out to the hot springs. It's quite a fancy place now. She would go in swimming in the hot springs and walk back again. It was about a mile or two each way.

AHERN: Going back to your college days--why did you not continue at UNR? Why did you go to San Jose State?

SMITH: Because it would take longer than I had. There were two younger children coming up to be educated and I felt that I had to get out and help. So I did that.

AHERN: You were saying that it would have taken you longer to get your degree from the University of Nevada?

SMITH: Yes.

AHERN: Do you know why it was?

SMITH: Well, you could go the same length of time down at San Jose State or you could go a shorter time. You could go what would be three years or you could go four or five. There was a Fallon girl went five years there. But I thought I didn't have the time to do that so I took the three years.

AHERN: Whereas at the University of Nevada it was just one class at a time?

SMITH: Unless I took the normal course which was two years. I had started out on the arts course so I could switch some of my credits to San.Jose.

AHERN: It seems like most of the girls had taken the course of the teachers' education. Do you know of anyone who took a different course other than being a teacher?

SMITH: Offhand I can't think of any right now. Nearly all of them. My cousin graduated in the four-year course and became a high school teacher. Another cousin graduated in the four-year course and she became a junior high teacher. But from my class a number of them took the teachers' exam and went on from there. Then they would go back and work summertimes until they got their degree.

AHERN: Why is it that all the girls chose a teaching profession?

SMITH: Well, it seemed to be the one that was most open to them. Some of them did take business courses in high school and went right into places like the courthouse or the bank here in town.

AHERN: It seems like the only profession really open to women at that time were the teaching professions.

SMITH: It was the best one at that time, considered the best one. I don't know whether it was or not.

AHERN: Best in what way?

SMITH: Well, in money and education and in social contacts.

AHERN: Speaking of social contacts, what sort of social life did you have?

SMITH: We had a lot of fun. More fun than young people have today, I think. There were parties, lots of parties, and dances. Of course, I went to dances from the time I was five years old.

AHERN: Where were these dances held?

SMITH: They were held in the school houses around the valley and some were held in the lodge halls. On Center Street a man by the name of Mr. Clarke built a great big pavilion called Clarke's Pavilion and he had a wonderful dance floor and we had lots and lots and lots of dances in there.

AHERN: Is the building still standing today?

SMITH: Well, if it is, they have rebuilt it. I'm not sure about that building because everything has been refaced, but it was over there very close to the Overland Hotel. There was a blacksmith shop, Mr. Spreyer's blacksmith shop on the corner and then the pavilion and then there was another building which had various businesses in it and then there was the Overland Hotel.

AHERN: And that's all on Center Street?

SMITH: Across the street from the Chevrolet garage.

AHERN: You enjoyed the socials of the dancing?

SMITH: Yes, we danced our heads off and had a wonderful time. And then there were picnics. We went to Pyramid Lake and had picnics. We went to Lahontan and had picnics and to Stillwater. Then we just had picnics at home. There was a grove across from the ranch called the Moore Grove. A lot of trees there, and there were picnics in the grove

AHERN: Were these family picnics or community picnics?

SMITH: Some were community. A great many of them were community and some were family. I remember when I was in high school why it'd be class picnics or just our gang picnics. You know how kids are. (laughing) Then, oh, back in 1920, 1921, they were drilling for oil here in the valley and they drilled in Stillwater and they didn't hit oil but they hit a geyser of hot water and it went up, well, it was something like Old Faithful in Yellowstone. It went up every so many minutes and took the top out of the derrick. Did quite a bit of damage to the derrick. Edgar, who would become my husband later on, was working for J. C. Jones and they hired him to cap that geyser. He had just so many minutes between each eruption to work on it but he finally accomplished it.

AHERN: Who was doing the drilling?

SMITH: I don't know who was drilling. They had different outfits in here. There was one outfit drilling over in the Moore Grove. They didn't hit a geyser and they didn't oil but they hit an underground river and, oh, it was flowing so hard and so fast they lost all their tools, their drills, down in there. They put straw down there trying to stop it and the water took that away. Then they put bales of hay down there and it took that away and then they put sacks of cement down and it took that away and finally they just gave it up.

AHERN: How did you meet your husband, Edgar?

SMITH: He sat in back of me in eighth grade. (laughing)

AHERN: Were you considered childhood sweethearts?

SMITH: No--no, I didn't really start going with him until I was teaching here in Fallon. But our families had known one another and his mother and my mother had worked together in the Artemesia Club and in the PTA.

AHERN: And how did you really get to know each other?

SMITH: I guess we met really at the dances, especially the ones at the Clarke's Pavilion.

AHERN: Was there a ritual of courting at that time?

SMITH: No, not particularly. You just started going together and that was it. You just didn't go with anyone else. (laughing)

AHERN: Were you married here in Fallon?

SMITH: Yes, I was married on the ranch. We were married December 28, 1930.

AHERN: When you were married, were you still teaching?

SMITH: Well, I had taught for a semester but I stopped then and all the teaching that I did after that was substitute teaching.

AHERN: You devoted your time as mother and housewife? Did you enjoy that?

SMITH: Yes, and I was busy in different organizations. I was in the Rebekahs and I was in the Pythian Sisters and I helped with the schools and I was in the sorority and I don't know. I just kept very busy. (laughing)

AHERN: How many children did you have?

SMITH: Two.

AHERN: What was your husband's occupation?

SMITH: He was a mechanic, machinist, tinsmith, inventor. He invented a lot of machines. While he had the shop in Fallon he invented a flanging machine. It was a seven ton flanging machine. Andy Drumm was very, very interested in that machine and my husband was kind of working out in his mind the oiling system on it and Andy was working on it, too. Finally they got together and the two of them worked out the oiling system on the flanging machine. He made a lot of oil drums using that flanging machine. He bought a great big roller to roll the iron and it had a huge big cogged wheel on it. My brother was visiting us at the time that it arrived and he stood and looked at that great big wheel and he said to the boy who was our bookkeeper, "That wheel makes so many turns a minute," and he said, "How do you know?" and my brother said, "Well, because of the number of cogs that should be just about right." So after he had left the boy counted all the cogs and he was right.

AHERN: Why did your husband originally invent this flanging machine?

SMITH: He wanted to cut out the heads of the oil drums and have them perfect and then the flanging machine would turn up a little flange that they could slip the sides into and weld.

AHERN: You mentioned a mine. Was it a gold mine? You said your husband had a mine?

SMITH: No.

AHERN: What was the name of the shop?

SMITH: Smith Brothers. At first when he bought it was Jones and McCall and then he and his father changed it to E.C. Smith and Son. Then he bought his father out and took his brother in and it was known as Smith Brothers. Later on, oh, several years later he bought his brother out but he kept the name just the same.

AHERN: Did your husband ever go to trade school to learn his occupation?

SMITH: No, it all came naturally. He could do anything. He could work in iron. He could paint. He did beautiful paintings. He could work in wood. He made a lot of different things and he was just multi-talented.

AHERN: What kind of painting did he do?

SMITH: Scenes.

AHERN: A regular artistic painter.

SMITH: Yes, in oils.

AHERN: When your husband first started out in business, was he involved with his father?

SMITH: Not necessarily. His father was somewhat of a mechanic. He had built a little steam engine of brass. But in his younger years he had been a marine engineer and he had sailed to China. I had a camphor wood chest that he brought back from China and my son has it now. His older brother was a marine engineer, too. During the World War II Edgar's father went back into being a marine engineer and he sailed to South America and he sailed to Okhotsk up on the Russian coast by China. Every time that they were in dangerous waters why his pay was doubled.

AHERN: Hazard pay. Do you recall what he did as a marine engineer?

SMITH: Well, they take care of engines and his brother was down in the engine room in the City of Rio de Janeiro. Coming back from China they had a load of bullion and silks and coming through the Golden Gate they struck an underwater shelf of some kind and tore the bottom out of the ship and the ship sank immediately. Many on board were lost, I guess, and he was lost. It was supposed to be his last trip.

AHERN: What year was this?

SMITH: February 22, 1901. The ship went down at 5:25 A.M. and hit a shelf and broke in half. Half of it is still on the shelf and half of it went on down. But such a terrific current goes in and out of the Golden Gate that they can't get down there. They were trying to see if they could get down there and get some of the bullion out but they can't get down there. By the time they get down part way the tide changes and they can't make it.

AHERN: Your husband was never in business with his father?

SMITH: Yes, he was in business for three, four years, maybe more, from 1929, I guess, until about 1933, 1934, somewhere along there.

AHERN: Is there anything more that you can tell me about your husband?

SMITH: No, he was very ill his last years and so he was retired.

AHERN: Do you recall anything else from your childhood that you'd like to tell me about?

SMITH: Well, the circus tent blowing down. The circus came to Fallon in 1912 and they set up down on Maine Street about where either the junior high school or the museum is. Somewhere down in that area. It was kind of a funny day, overcast at times, and the animals were very very restless. They weren't acting very well. The lion tamer was in the cage with the lions and a huge gust of wind came in and dirt was just rolling. It lifted the tent up, pulled the poles out of the ground and swung them around. The place was packed with people and everybody was screaming and trying to get out and the man with the tigers was begging to be let out. A pole had fallen across the door and they couldn't get him out and he was just begging for them to do something, get him out of there. A lot of people went down through the seats and then some men took their pocket knives and sliced the tent, made openings. My cousin, Claire, was with us and she and I just looked at one another and down through the seats we went and out. We didn't bother with anybody. My sister wouldn't do anything but stand holding onto my mother and screaming. My brother was two years old and my father had him and he looked at my mother and nodded his head and down through the seats he went and took my brother and went outside. Then he came back to try and get my mother and I guess he met her coming out. He had turned my brother over to some woman. He had no idea who she was but he asked her to hold the baby and (laughing) so he went back, got the baby and came and collected my mother and my sister. In the meantime my cousin and I never said a word to one another. We just looked at one another, took hold of hands and trotted off downtown to my aunt's.

AHERN: How old were you?

SMITH: Nine. She and I were nine. Then after the wind had hit so hard and destroyed everything then it started to rain and it just poured for about ten, maybe fifteen minutes. But it settled the dust and right away the circus people loaded up and we watched from the window at my aunt's. Here came a man riding an ostrich down the street. He went right down Maine Street to the depot and another man came with an ostrich hitched to a little cart. He was riding in the cart and the ostrich was just prancing. Then came the elephants all in a row holding onto one another and the cage with the lions and the tigers and one thing and another. They left town immediately. (laughing)

AHERN: Sounded like there was no casualties.

SMITH: No. Some people had gotten hit with the poles but most of them got out safely and there were no casualties. (laughing)

AHERN: Do you find a difference in the children today versus

when you were a school teacher then and now?

SMITH: Oh, very, very much.

AHERN: What are the differences?

SMITH: For one thing, the children listen and they obey.

AHERN: This is when you were teaching?

SMITH: Um huh, and your word was law. You could tell them what you expected of them and they came through with it. I feel sorry for the young people in school today because they're not learning as they should because they're too intent on getting their own way and what it is I don't know. One funny little experience while I was teaching here. We had an art teacher by the name of Ada Gerjets. She was a big tall, thin woman and she came to the different rooms each different day of the week. I had one day and somebody else had another day. So this time around Easter time she came with all her papers and she passed out a piece of gray paper, oh, about five by seven. Then she passed out a stenciled picture of a white rabbit, told them to cut it out. She gave them some green paper and told them to cut part way down the strip and paste it to the bottom of the paper. So that was the green grass. Then she gave them different colors of papers. This was all construction paper and told them to cut out eggs and paste them in the grass. So each child cut out their different eggs and pasted them in the grass and then she said, "Take the rabbit and paste him at the top of the paper." All the children did it but one and one little boy pasted his rabbit down over the eggs. She came along and she said, [whacking table] "What did you do that for? Didn't I tell you to tell you to put him at the top of the paper? Why'd you put it down there?" And he reared back in his seat and with his great big blue eyes he looked up at her so severely and he said, "He's laying those eggs." (laughing) While I was teaching in Paradise Valley, I had first, second, and third grades and I had a number of Basque children. Cute children and very sharp. In those days you taught Palmer penmanship, so we were having Palmer penmanship and everybody had to do arm movements and circles and up and down. One little girl was just doing hers beautifully but I came along and a little boy by the name of Gussie was not doing Palmer penmanship and so I scolded him for it and I said, "Now turn around and look at Ruby. See how beautifully she's doing hers?" and he just gave a little glance over his shoulder and he said, "Looks like hell to me." (laughing)

AHERN: Now, Palmer penmanship, was it a form of the script flourish? How would you describe Palmer penmanship?

SMITH: You did arm movement which was writing with the big muscle of your forearm and you weren't supposed to wiggle your fingers. You made your arm and you formed your letters very regularly and made your arm do the work.

AHERN: Would it be similar to Spencerian script? It was just a flourish.

SMITH: Somewhat, but, no, it was more regular than that. The way the writing is today I'm sorry they did away with Palmer penmanship but they certainly needed it. (laughing)

AHERN: Well, Mrs. Smith, is there anything else you could tell me that I may have forgotten to ask you about?

SMITH: I think we've covered it pretty well.

AHERN: On behalf of the Churchill County Museum Oral History Project I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

SMITH: You're welcome. I hope that it will be all right for you.

Interviewer

Eleanor Ahern

Interviewee

Orva Williams Smith

Location

79 East Fairview, Fallon, Nevada

Comments

Files

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Orva Williams Smith Oral History Transcript.docx
Smith, Orva Williams recording 1 of 1.mp3

Citation

Churchill County Museum Association, “Orva Williams Smith Oral History,” Churchill County Museum Digital Archive: Fallon, Nevada, accessed March 28, 2024, https://ccmuseum.omeka.net/items/show/683.