RICHARD DYER: you mentioned that your father had a variety of vocations.  That he was a stone mason and that he was involved with road construction and you were talking about Hetch Hetchy.

CARLO DEFERRARI: And then before Hetch Hetchy when he worked for W. Ham and Hall, you see, we call it Ham Hall who was a man who took up all of the water rights which all of the money that required for the city and county of San Francisco for the Hetch Hetchy project.  So he worked for him with a (____) system and also as a hunter.  He would go up in the mountains and they went back into the park, of course, and his job was to kill deer so that he could provide the crew with fresh meat.  He did that when he was young and then later on he went to work for the city and county of San Francisco and he was a fireman on locomotives and he couldn’t (_____) so he became a…he went to work as a boiler maker.

DYER: I think that that was  on the Hetch Hetchy project because he still lived in the Grovland area.

DEFERRARI: yeah, he live right there in town.

DYER: and the children; can you give us a breakdown of the children in the family. In your family.

DEFERRARI: In my immediate family? Yes.  I had a brother Byron—B-Y-R-O-N—Byron Francis and s sister Donia—D-O-N-I-A.  They are both older then I am.  My brother is the oldest.  And the name Donia is not Italians, it sounds like it might be, but it’s Scotch. There is a tradition in my family that one girl is always named Donia because ny family came from Caledonia, Scottland—my mother’s side, see.  So there is always hope that the next generation  pretty quickly; but there has always been a Donia wich is short for Caledonia.  Most people think it’s Italian or something other, but it isn’t it’s actually short for Caledonia.

DYER: and you were the third one?

DEFERRARI: Yes, there are only three.

DYER: The three of you: sister and two boys.  And your mother, we really didn’t have a cnace to identify your mother.  Was she born in this area?

DEFERRARI: Well, when she was born it was called Piru {pronounced: Peeroo], but now it is called Pyroo [Pronounced: Pie roo] in Southern California in Ventura County. And she was born on the ranch that the book (___) made famous. Have you ever (___) that book. She was born on that ranch, in that big ranch house—that Spanish ranch house—that was so famous in that book.  My great-grandfather wrote all of the mining tails and he also did rock work and he did all of that for them on that ranch until they had that famous Moore v. Mooter case down there and he had to leave.  They ran him out of there because he worked for Moore and they murdered Moore and one night he found a sign on his door telling him to leave and he just picked up his family and left because they were shooting people right and left and he said, “I wasn’t going to stay there and get killed over something that doesn’t really concern me.”  So he went to Bodie of all places.

DYER: he went from Ventura County to Bodie…

DEFERRARI: and then he went to the Canvil area and then he went to Bodie.

DYER: and that would be at a time when the mines were still in operation.

DEFERRARI: 1880s—early 1880s.  This occurred in 1878-79 and around then he was a wine maker at (___) for several years.  And then later on, my grandfather went back down to her because she was in Ventura County (_______), so when he got married he went back down to Ventura County.  And that’ where my mother was born down there. Him and his wife stayed in Vanture County.  He was working on the ranch and he owned land and everything there, but he finally sold out because things were so great in Tuolumne County to come here.  The mines were bogeying then so he moved back up here.

DYER: Well, maybe because of his experience in Bodie that he assumed that he could make it as a miner in Tuolumne County.

DEFERRARI: He’d been over in Bodie and all of the camps and everything, but in those days, Tuolumne County at that time, the Mother Lodewas booming.  Deep mines were going and if everybody had to get up here where the bog money was. So that was kind of interesting because back where he was at that time  the (___) …I took my mother down there—she wanted to go where she was born—and there were oil wells all over.  She got a kick out of that because she was down here where all the oil is.

DYER: Oh, she probably saved herself an ulcer or two by not having to worry about the oil.

DEFERRARI: Oh yeah, because it wasn’t that important anyway.  Don’t you think that we have a deer hide at home.  The day she was born a man came out called Ron Tapetera –he was a saddle-maker, but he had another name—but they call him Ron Saddle Maker.  He’s a great friend of my grandfather.  So the day my mother was born he went out and shot a deer and then he brought it in and he had one of the Indians (___) down there to can it.  And then he did all of this bead work, and I still have it from the day she was born.  And it still has a bullet in the side from where he shot it. So I still have that for keepsake.

DYER: Where he shot the deer.

DEFERRARI: M-hm.  The day y mother was born.

DYER: It’s a priceless family heirloom.

DEFERRARI: It’s a beautiful yellow leather, you know… This was almost 80 years ago—1892.

DYER: when did your mother move to Tuolumne County with your grandfather?

DEFERRARI: Well, they came fist to San Jose and then from San Jose they came up here to Chinese Camp.  And that was about 1895-6.  My grandfather for a while was the deputy sheriff down in Santa Clara County and coming up here because my grandmother—his wife’s family—were all old timers down in the Gilroy down in San Jose.  So, you see, he stayed there.  And my grandfather and his father-in-law were chief

6:40 Had to stop: Unclear—Words and ideas are blurring together.

General Information:

Interviewer: Dyer, Richard L.

Interviewee: Deferrari, Carlo

Name of Tape: County Clerk and Historian (deferrari_c_1_1)

When: 8/29/19??

Where: Student room in Columbia Junior College

Transcriber: Ariella

Transcriber’s Note: Stopped after 6 minutes and 40 seconds because I experienced difficulties transcribing.