ADEL
BACH:
…Abstract Title Company and Mr. Bach ran that. We had four girls working
for us (and) one boy. And then he got tired of it so he sold it to the
Western Title Company. They bought us out and they’re still in
business. We only had it two years. We were the only title company
in town. Now I think there’s about four or five of them.
TINA BROWN: How many children did you
have? You already said one, that’s right.
BACH: One. One
girl. She has one daughter.
BROWN: When you were raising your
girl, you husband lived in Sonora and you lived in Jamestown?
BACH: No, when I was raising my
girl we lived in Sonora. She was born in Sonora.
BROWN: She was. Was that a big change
to move to Sonora?
BACH: Well, not very much of a
change. No. And we didn’t have a car, and the family down there had
a car and we didn’t have a car. We walked to Jamestown.
BROWN: how long did that take?
BACH: Oh, it didn’t take too
long. We walked on the rail road track and then we’d catch the train
coming home. I costs us a quarter—each of us. We’d go down to visit
my mother and then take the train home. And we live right close to the
rail road out there on Stewart Street. So…no it wasn’t bad. It was just a
nice walk. We were used to walking.
BROWN: Not like today.
BACH: No. No.
BROWN: Okay. I’m just going to
ask you a little bit about the fires. Do you remember…?
BACH: The hotel fire? I wasn’t
here. I was in San Francisco at the world fair with my mother.
BROWN: Do you remember any fires at
all happening?
BACH: Yes. This picture here about an office burning and I have
one inside there—the picture in this book. And I have one inside the
office. The first office that I worked in burned to the ground. And we
went over into the baggage room in the hotel. And we worked there until
they built another office which was one near as nice as our old office.
BROWN: What kinds of fire
trucks did they have?
BACH: We didn’t have any fire
trucks. We put them out with hoses and that one just burned right down to
the ground.
BROWN: Did you ever hear about
arson? Was there any people that started fires?
BACH: In Jamestown? No, I never
heard of anybody caught in a fire in Jamestown.
BROWN: The fire trucks. Did
they use the kind that they pumped in?
BACH: We didn’t have any fire
trucks when I was real young, they might have had them later on, but I don’t
remember ever seeing a fire truck in Jamestown.
BROWN: How did they out the fires
out?
BACH: Use garden hoses. Down
in town we did have a big fire down there and I think they had big faucets like
there’s down here in the corner and they attach a hose to that. But I don’t
ever remember seeing a fire truck in Jamestown. They have them now, I never saw any of them.
When the hotel was burning, as I say, I was at the fair in 1915 and when I came
home…it must have been an awful big fire and I asked my sister, “did you…did
you see it?” We were too busy trying to keep the fire from our own
house. There was no houses in between at all. We
came the track…just a
short distance from the hotel. And they were too busy trying to keep our house
from burning down.
BROWN: What was the weather like back
then? Did you have really hard winters or…?
BACH: Oh yes, we did. We had
some…we never had too much snow in Jamestown, but we had cold, real cold,
weather. Lots of rain. All of us had a rain
barrel by our house where these come down.
BROWN: What’s that?
BACH: The rain barrel? Well, you
save water in it. Nice soft water the rain water was. We only had ditch
water.
BROWN: What did you use the rain
water for? Bathing and stuff?
BACH: No, we used it for pretty
much everything until it gave out. Everybody had a rain barrel where the easy could down the pipe took
it. I remember one night I was making happy candy and I sat out on the
back porch to cook it cold and I spilt it going out. And I went over to
the rain barrel to stick my hand in the rain barrel, which is the worst thing I
could have done because I hardened it right on my hand. My father sat up
all night long grading potatoes—that was the thing for burns in that day. Grading potatoes over my hand.
BROWN: Do you remember…did anybody
ski? Did anybody ever ski?
BACH: No, there was no
skiing. Nobody skied. We did have a skating rink.
BROWN: You did?
BACH: We had a skating rink, yes.
BROWN: what was that like?
BACH: It was like roller skating
and it was a nice big hall and it was in an apple orchard—big hall in an apple
orchard not too far from where we lived.
BROWN: What were the skates made out
of?
BACH: Roller skates made out of
wood.
BROWN: The floor was made out of
wood, were the wheel made out of wood?
BACH: (___)
wood. Yeah.
BROWN: What, did you tie them onto
your shoes?
BACH: On your shoes, yes. Two in the front and two in the back.
BROWN: What about gambling. Was
there alto of gambling?
BACH: I imagine, but I didn’t get
anywhere near those places. So there was gambling, yeah, some, but not heavy I
don’t think.
BROWN: Were there any town fights or
anything?
BACH: Well, there were a lot of
drunks occasionally. I imagine they… We weren’t
allowed downtown at night at all. We were home. I didn’t know
what was going on. You never did know. Unless we had a town paper
and then it would come out sometimes. Nothing bad, though. When I worked
in the post office, why, I had to go back and forth to supper and go back to
the post office at night so that the post master could go. Well, I never had
any trouble. Nobody ever bothered me. Right now I wouldn’t walk
downtown alone at night here.
BROWN: What did you do at the post
office?
BACH: I
was, oh, handed out I was an assistant…. If anybody wanted
to send any money away or anything like that or wanted to order something I’d
write that out for them.
BROWN: How did the mail get up here? By the train?
BACH: I don’t know. It didn’t
come on the train. I don’t think it did. I don’t remember. How it
got up here, Mr. President took care of that. And I think it must have come
up…I think it might have come up with the stage driver, I don’t know. We
had a stage that came from Stanton and he was the one that, in those days, a
lot of the times you couldn’t get to Sonora. The trip would be so running
over that you couldn’t drive your horse and buggies through it. Try to turn
around and go home.
BROWN: What about the Indians?
BACH: We had a reservation in
Jamestown, an they were very
nice. Polite. Never had any
trouble with the Indians at all.
BROWN: Was there any blacks?
BACH: No. We had no Negros.
At least I never saw one. I live in what you call New Town—that’s up
where the rail road is. When we move there there were very few houses…very few. Now it’s
just built up (_____).
BROWN: What about bootlegging?
BACH: What?
BROWN: Bootlegging?
BACH: Bootleggers? I never knew nay
bootleggers. I knew the ladies that ran the, what we call,
backstreet. I knew them because they came to the post office to get their
mail and they were perfect ladies. Perfect.
BROWN: How did the people feel about
bootlegging? Did they ever say anything about it?
BACH: No. Never
heard of any bootlegging. People I think were more honest that they are
today to tell you the truth of it.
BROWN: What about the newspapers? Did
you have a lot of newspapers?
BACH: No, we had one newspaper in
Jamestown called the Magnet at that time—just a small paper—and I think we…I really think we got a paper. I don’t think we had
one. I don’t think we had enough money to have it, but we had…I think there was
a (_______) I’m pretty sure. One of those
early papers that came into town; and I think they came in on the train when
they came in.
BROWN: Like from Sacramento or San
Francisco or something.
BACH: I don’t know how they came.
BROWN: Um, do you remember any
strikes?
BACH: Yes, one. The Rawhide
mine—they went on strike there. And Mr. Nevils,
brought in a lot of what we call scabs. They were foreigners really and
they came in on the train. And he had his men
there and all to take him out where they were kept at the Rawhide Mine.
And everybody was yelling “scabs! Scabs!” It was quite
exciting but that was…and I was working at the railroad office and our office
was right down where the train pulled in. There were no fights though;
they had it under control.
BROWN: what happened during the
strike? Did they finally get to go back to work or…?
BACH: Well, after awhile they
settled and the miners went back and that’s the only…there may have been
another strike, but that was the only…
BROWN: what years was that? Was it
during the depression?
BACH: I can’t tell you when it
was. It was way …quite long long years
ago. I have been married sixty-six years and that was long before I was
ever married.
BROWN: what about welfare. Did
they have welfare?
BACH: No. If you didn’t work,
you didn’t eat. Nothing. We had and old, what we
call the poor house. We named it the poor house. It is like out the
sierra Hospital now, but it’s just…you get too old and can’t work and you can’t
take care of yourself, why, you could go to, what we call, the poor house.
Now they have a place out here you can get for people that...they call it
something else now. Of course it’s a nicer name than that, but we didn’t send
our people to the poor house. We took care of our own people. I
don’t remember any but one friend, and that was long after I was married, that
her daughters and sons sent her to the, what we call, the poor house. I used to
go out and see her. She was a great friend of my mothers and I’d go out,
and they took very nice care of them. My father knew the men’s pace.
They had them separate. And then the women’s place were
separate. And then Andy Shine ran the men and I don’t know who the lady was
that ran the women’s. But those people who were out there were as clean
as could be and they were well taken care of.
BROWN: What would happen if you were
married and had kids and your husband died? Who would take care of the
family?
BACH: Nobody. You took care
of them yourself. Nobody gave you anything in those… That’s the trouble in
this…what they’re doing now. No responsibility for the families at all; I
think it’s terrible. We took care of our own. It should be the
thing now. Now people don’t work. They say, “what’s
the use of working? The government will take care of me.” Well, I think
that’s a bad attitude—a very bad attitude.
BROWN: So, what about the gold…the
gold dust?
BACH: Oh they had…Jumper Mine—my
father worked there and he worked at the aptue and he…the gold in that mine was just scats of it. It was
a very rich mine. In fact, people were stealing and the miners were…my
father never took a speck of gold from the mines. But what they
did…they’d go down in the mines and they had to use
drills to drill it out and my father said it was just the best site he ever
saw—I never went down in the mine. But what the people did, some of them
weren’t very honest and they’d bring it up and at last they had to make them go
down stark naked, leave their clothes down in the mine—that was a jumper—go
down the mine stark naked, go down there clothes then, come up stark naked,
leave their clothes down there so that they couldn’t carry the gold out.
They said that some of the people in Stant years ago
had bottles full of gold that they had stolen. So some people can’t keep
these temptation—they just can’t leave it alone. But that’s what they made the
miners do, which was a tear to the rest of the
men that weren’t taking anything. But there were a lot of old mine here
that were rich—very rich. Harvard Mine was a very rich mine.
BROWN: What did they do with the gold
when they got it?
BACH: Hm?
BROWN: What did they do with the gold
once they got it?
BACH: Well, I don’t know just what
they did with it. The truth of it, I think they sell it down bellow and
made bricks and sent the money back to them.
BROWN: Right. Did you have
coins or…
BACH: We had gold coins—a lot of
them. In fact, my granddaughter now is wearing a twenty dollar necklace that
she had that was a gold coin. And my daughter in law, which my husband
gave her, why, has tens, fives, twenties, of solid gold. I’ve been wanting her to sell it because gold is worth an awful
lot now, but she’d hanging on to it. Kind of a
sentimental value. And Ricky doesn’t wear the gold around her neck
anymore when she goes out. It’s too much of a temptation for the people
who we have now running around the country, because she lives down in Los
Angeles.
BROWN: What about diseases? Was
there any ever epidemics? Flu epidemics?
BACH: Oh, we had a bad one. That
first flu, there was several here in Sonora died. My husband had it very
bad and my daughter, who was a baby, and myself, we
didn’t take it. And I’ve never…I had the flu once—years and years after
that, but we didn’t get it then at all and he was awful sick. We didn’t
know whether he was going to fall through or not, but he did. But we had
three of his friends actually died from the flu and it was during the war—my
brother was here—and when he came home he was wearing a flu mask. One
time my father died—not from the flu—but he died and Jimmy came home and he didn’t
come home and he was wearing a flu mask and that was when it was bad.
That’s a long time ago too because my daughter who is sixty-three, why, she was
just a baby. So that’s an awful long. We’ve never had
a bad flu since then. And I don’t know…
BROWN: How did they take care of it?
How did they take care of you in the hospitals?
BACH: We didn’t go to
hospital. We stayed home.
BROWN: They didn’t have any
vaccination or anything that they could give you?
BACH: The only time I was veer
vaccinated was when we had gone on a trip to Australia and I had to be
vaccinated then.
BROWN: On a trip to Australia?
BACH: Oh, that was not so many
terribly years ago because my husband and myself and Judge Ward and Mrs. Ward,
we went to Australia. That was wonderful trip. We went on a
ship.
BROWN: What about robbery and murder?
BACH: Well, I guess there was some,
but we never locked our doors like I do now. I don’t
remember any bad robberies or murders.
BROWN: What were the banks like?
BACH: Well, we never got into a
bank. We never had anything to put in them. When you make such
small wages, it took all you had made to live on.
BROWN: Did they have banks through,
do you remember?
BACH: We did. We had one bank
for just a short while in Jamestown. That was all; it was only there a very
short time. Now, they did have banks up here in Sonora, but we didn’t get
up here very much. You had to either come by horse-and-buggy or wait
until a stage came along; and that was in the early days of course.
BROWN: What about the law?
BACH: I don’t know too much about
the law because we didn’t have any dealing with the law.
BROWN: Who was the sheriff back then?
BACH: I only knew one sheriff and
that was Mr. Sweeny. That was recent. I don’t know. I don’t
know about the first sheriffs when I came here. I don’t know anything
about them at all. We did have a couple of constables in Jamestown.
BROWN: did you elect them?
BACH: Hm?
BROWN: Did you elect them?
BACH: Did I what?
BROWN: Did you elect all of…?
BACH: I guess they did. I
don’t know how they got it, maybe they appointed them, I don’t know. That
was too early for me; you see, I was seven years old and wasn’t paying
attention to…I wasn’t even seven. I didn’t pay much attention. I know
never was afraid to go any place.
BROWN: Did they have voting?
BACH: Yes they voted at voting. My
father voted, but my mother never voted.
BROWN: They weren’t allowed to vote?
BACH: I guess she could have voted,
I don’t know, but my father voted.
TAPE BLANK FROM 21:44 to 22:02
BACH: …neighbors. If the
family was sick, you helped them in any way you could. You cooked for
them. A mother got down and maybe you’d
bring the children into your own home. My mother did it
hundreds of time…and bring them home over and take care of them.
And we children had to, when we were older, why, we’d
have to take care of the children while my mother did the cooking and
all. But sometimes she didn’t like it too well. We had to take care
of somebody else’s youngsters. But they were kind, good people that were
willing to help with anything. If a place burnt down, they found them a
place so they can live. People, were, they’re entirely different.
We got a lot of awfully good people now living—it’s wonderful, but we’ve got
some awful poor ones too. And I know I wouldn’t dare touch a thing in anybody’s
yard or do anything destructive at all. But, well, I’ve had it happen
right here at my place. They’re high school youngsters.
BROWN: What kind of punishments would
happen if you did something wrong.
BACH: Well, we never got punished.
None of us ever got a whipping. We were either not allowed to do a
certain thing, or we’d have to go and sit on the chair. We never…none of
the six of us never got a whipping in our life. My father didn’t believe
in whippin you. We chastised, but we minded our
parents. If they told us to do something, we did it. You didn’t sass back
at all. But one thing about parents to day I
think…if we didn’t want to eat a thing, we didn’t have to eat it. I was a
meat and a potato eater; I hated vegetables as a child; and even as a grown
woman I don’t like vegetables right now except tomatoes. And we never had to
eat. We could eat what we wanted at the table. We was never told, well, you eat this and you eat that. Never. We all turned out to be pretty good citizens.
BROWN: did you ever know any
ranchers?
BACH: Any ranchers? Well, my
grandfather was quite a rancher. He came here, oh, years and years
ago. He came around horn and he owned a
big ranch that goes form, well, from where the Lane—I don’t know whether you
know in Jamestown where the Lane is—all that came down to where the...where you
come into the Oakdale, and he grew all kinds of things—all kinds of
vegetables, all kinds of fruits. And he hauled some vegetables and fruits to Bodie. Now, that’s a long way. With a horse and team. They didn’t have any cars or
trucks then, and he hauled it clear over to Bodie and
sold it.
BROWN: Did he have any cattle or
anything…?
BACH: He only had cows. He
had milk cows, and they peddled milk. And they peddled it in a funny
way. They came with a can—a good sized can—of milk and they poured it out
to the quart measure so you can take a pint or a quart or whatever you wanted
that didn’t cost I think it was something like ten or fifteen cents, and that’s
the way they peddled it. My brother peddled milk his own self—two of
them. It wasn’t very sanitary. In school we all drank out of the
same dipper. Carry a bucket of water and input it on the..so we could get at it. And we all drank out of the
same dipper and it didn’t hurt us at all.
BROWN: What about the Chinese people?
BACH: We had some Chinese, but not
very many. We had a Chinese fellow that worked for a family in Jamestown
and he got the cow in at night and the milk, and we didn’t have…we had a couple
of Chinese restaurants, but we didn’t have very many Chinese. We had
quite few Indians.
BROWN: Did you any go to any type of
sports? Baseball games or..?
BACH: Yes, we had a baseball
diamond down there and a grand stand in James town. And they had,
sometimes they’d play Sonora, or sometimes we’d get to gaze between fellows in
town there. There was a senior and a junior baseball team.
BROWN: So they were pretty
competitive between Sonora and Jamestown, huh? There was a lot of competition?
BACH: I never went to any of those, I was (____) back
then. They had a nice field, but right now where you go to Oakdale, where it’s
all built up now…the last of what we call “the red-light district” and that’s
where the tail was down there and the (__) Grand
Stand and the Backstreet Women as we call them. They had their quarters
down in there. Now it’s all built up where I get my hair done now.
I was right where the Backstreet Women lived.
BROWN: Did they all live in one big
house?
BACH: Yes. Where they stayed
was in a big crowded, good sized –nothing fancy t all. We didn’t get
didn’t get down there…very little. Only just when we were
going to Oakdale maybe. But they are nice people. They came,
evidentially, very polite. They came into the post office and they were
very nice. Nicely dressed, not flashy or anything. Nicely dressed and very polite.
BROWN: How did they go about it? Did
they go into the bars and meet the men?
BACH: No, the men went down there
as near as I can remember. They went there. No, the girl didn’t solicit on the
street, I know that. They didn’t solicit on the street. And you’d
never know to look at them that they ever came out of a place, in fact, El Seacherzolo, who was one
herself, but she said that had a little girl living in San Francisco. Something
went wrong like you hear. There probably have a lot of them around here for all
I know.
BROWN: I don’t know. I’m sure
there is, but now-a- days…
BACH: There used to be a big
red-light district in Sonora. Big Blue, her name was Big Blue and my husband’s
talked about her. He was out over there where the post office—where the
old post office is—around in there.
BROWN: What did your husband used to
say?
BACH: But all the kids, I guess,
they talked about hem naturally. But I didn’t live in Sonora, so I didn’t
know anything about Big Blue. Only from what he…
BROWN: Was she the head lady?
BACH: He said that she was a
marvelous person; that she was kind and that she would do anything for anybody.
I know Elsie Gevono,
one madden in Jamestown, she was a very nice woman to
talk to. That is, she was living in a very shabby way I’ll admit. I guess
they’re doing it right now, a lot of them.
BROWN: Especially in the city.
BACH: I don’t think we have any
red-light district here now that I know of. But years ago, pretty much
every town had one of those districts in there. Now it’s different.
BROWN: What about…when did TV…do you
remember when TV came?
BACH: TV? That hasn’t been here too
awfully long for a child. Not in Sonora anyway. We didn’t get on
it. There was no line. They had aerials, you know, antennas? I couldn’t
get anything on Main Street here with an antenna, so we…they did put a line in
downtown some places, so I called up and asked them if we couldn’t have a line
here. And he said, “Well, if I can get enough people to make it worthwhile, I
will.” So he said, “See if you could round up any.” Well, I called all of
the neighbors and people that I knew up in this district: “Genevieve Resasque, who lives up above me, and Uncle Brooks, and
quite a few of those people. They said they would take it. So then they
put the line in, and that’s not too awfully many years ago.
BROWN: What, did you listen to the
radio before that?
BACH: I had that. That’s a
radio there. I had a radio.
BROWN: what kind of shows do they
play on the radio, do you remember?
BACH: No, I never listened much to
the radio. It was mostly music that we listened to. Amous
and Andy was on it, to my sister was still when she came up to be with me and
Doctor here in Sonora. And she loved Amous and Andy,
so every night I’d put Amous and Andy on for her.
BROWN: what’s that about?
BACH: Oh, it’s just a funny, silly
thing that had lots of good music—very lovely music on there. But I
didn’t listen to it very much. My husband, he didn’t care for television
at all. He’d rather read a book. And I would look at television all
evening because I read all afternoon. By night I’m tired of reading so I
looked at television and he worked all day and he loved to read and he’d go in
the den, close the door, and he’d read. He (____) television. He liked… believed
there was going to be a boxing match or something like that, he liked it, or a
tennis, I mean, a golf match he’d look at that.
BROWN: At a golf
match?
BACH: I looked at all the golf
matches. And that’s about 3atching them play golf. I like baseball, but
the rest of them I never look at.
BROWN: Do they ever have football
games here?
BACH: Football? No, I don’t ever
remember seeing any footballs. Might have had it out at the high school,
you see, I didn’t get to high school. There was no high school when I graduated
from grammar school at all. I think there was a makeshift one up in the
courthouse. Mu husband went there for
awhile. See, we had to pay…I live in Jamestown—you had to pay your own
transportation and everything else to get here, so not too many went to high
school. My sister was the only one in my family that went to high school
and she had to ride horseback. My father had to
furnish all of the food—the hay. And it was hard. She had to come up and
take the bridle and saddle off of her horse, feed it and water it, and the go over and put on her dress. It was only
one big building, in fact, I saw the just the picture. It was in
here. And that’s all—just one big picture.
BROWN: Did you have any friends that
you remember that you did things with?
BACH: what?
BROWN: Any friends, companions?
BACH: Friends? We had a lot of
friends.
BROWN: Do you remember any distinctly
that you did things with? Do you remember any distinctly that you did things
with?
BACH: I don’t get you dear.
BROWN: Do you remember any friends
that you did things with? Distinctly? Close
Friends?
BACH: Once, I remember a lot of
real nice good friends. You see, I had a friend in those days. They were
really a friend. I don’t know whether you can count on them now or not, but I
can count on all that I have. They look after me pretty good, and I’m an
old lady. I got one, especially wonderful friend—that’s Margie Coth—the Coth’s.
BROWN: Did she live here while you
were growing up?
BACH: No, I didn’t know her until
after I got married. I knew her mother after I got married because my
husband worked for him—for her father. And she was only a baby—born right above
me from where I lived. And her mother and I could be friends, and Margie and I
have been friends for quite some time. She’s a very very
wonderful person. She’s about my daughter’s age. Because
I has a little baby, when Margie was a little baby. No, the friends that
we had in the old days, they seemed, I don’t know, closer together. Now
they maybe have too many friend; I don’t know. I
don’t have many. I have some very dear friends, but not an awful lot.
BROWN: It’s hard to find friends
these days that are…trust.
BACH: I have…I can count on my
hands of friends that I call real friends that I had, and Margie Coth was the very
closest. People are different in a way. They don’t seem to, I don’t
know, they don’t seem to take the interest in what you’re doing like the old
timers. And when we were children, we weren’t running out at night at
all. There wasn’t any of that allowed. You stayed home and got your book
work done. First thing you did after you got to help mother with the dishes is
sit around the dining room table and do our homework to go to school the next
day. Now, we had to do that and…
BROWN: did they check your homework
every day?
BACH: Every night after supper we
did our n=homework, and then when we got through with it, if it wasn’t awful
late, we had to be in bed at a certain hour.
BROWN: What time?
BACH: Oh, we had to be in bed at half-past-nine
anyway. Now the kids are running around at eleven o’clock at night. I seen young kids running around. Their mothers don’t
even know where they are.
BROWN: It’s because the people had to
get together back then and cooperate.
BACH: I don’t know. To the
old people it seems strange. Really it does, because we weren’t allowed
any of that at all, and that was in practically every home when I was, you
know, a young girl going to school. And I know some of my friends walk
two miles to school to get to school. I walked about a mile. We carried a
lunch in a paper bag or a little tin box. The kids have it too,
they just have it swell now: they pick them up and carry them here, they feed
them a breakfast. I don’t understand giving them breakfast if their
mothers can’t get up and get them breakfast and send their children off to
school like she should be sent, why, I think they’re pretty poor mothers
myself. We had out breakfast before we went to school; we took out lunch with
us. We didn’t have any hot lunches. We didn’t…nothing happened to us.
BROWN: What kind of things did you
take for lunch?
BACH: huh?
BROWN: What kinds of food did you
take for lunch?
BACH: We took a sandwich and maybe
a piece of cookie or a piece of cake if it was the right kind of cake that you
could carry. And sometimes and apple or an orange.
We didn’t have fancy lunches, and we lived fine. We had one good sandwich
and Mama, at that time, she was sending five, no, six of us to school.
BROWN: What time did school start?
BACH: Eight. And the teacher, and
why, we had three rooms in the school. The teacher that
taught first, second, and third and another taught fourth, fifth, and
sixth. And in the other room they taught
sixth, seventh, and eighth. And you could go back and go to ninth grade
and get your certificate to teach school which my sister did. I got my
diploma, but I didn’t go back to be a teacher. I didn’t want to be a
teacher.
BROWN: What were your teacher’s
names, do you remember?
BACH: My first teacher was Anita Ritz. She was in the first, second, and
third she taught. The next teacher that I had in the fourth, fifth, and sixth
was Annie Bockus, and then the last one was Mr.
Ryan. Those were the three teachers I had. And you came before the board
of education to get you diploma. You never seen
them in your life before. We knew one—Mr. Morgan. He was the
superintendant of the schools. We knew him because he used to come down
to visit the schools and go all around. And he was nice. He never
questioned us or anything, he sang very fine and he played the piano and he
would sing and play for us and we liked him very much, but the rest of the
Board of Education I’ve never seen any of them. And we were here a whole
week taking the examination. And you had to make a certain percent or you
didn’t get your diploma and you could go back and try it over again the next
year. Well, we were a pretty good class and most all of us passed.
I got mine in 1906. I got the certificate up there in the drawer.
BROWN: What do you think about Malonies?
BACH: Hm?
BROWN:What do you think about them
damning Malonies?
BACH: Malonies?
I voted “no” on it.
BROWN: Why?
BACH: For some reason I don’t think
that it should be just for pleasure. The rafters making a lot of money
and we get nothing out of it.
BROWN: So you thought that it was
good that they damned it then?
BACH: I think it would be good if
we could out a powerhouse out there and get some electricity to help us
materially. But I don’t know what they plan to do with it. I really
don’t, but I did vote no.
BROWN: They’re making a recreational (_____).
BACH:… I had
voted already. I got mine the same deal—the
whole (_____) vote no on it. He’s pretty good. I
don’t know what…I don’t know how people can afford raft. It cost a
tremendous amount of money. They’re own business, of course; none of my
business what they do with their money. But I think if San Francisco or
Los Angeles need more water, let them get it someplace
else. Don’t take it away from us.
BROWN: So you’re going to vote no on
the peripheral canal?
BACH: I voted “no” on that because
I read the piece in the paper and also heard a talk—they probably won’t ever
need that canal it said. We’ll have plenty of water. So I voted “no”.
Maybe I voted wrong, I don’t know. Half the time, you know, when you’re
voting you are so confused you don’t know what you’re voting. But I had
mine. I vote absentee; I can’t climb the stairs up there anymore so I
belong to the Republican Women’s Club and I have a friend and she belongs and
she’s pretty darn smart, so she takes in all the meetings and she goes to all
these people that come and make the talks—I don’t go to any of them, I only
listen on TV or read it in the paper and I make up my mind what I want to vote
for.
BROWN: It’s hard these days to even
know. They trick you sometimes. Sometimes they trick you and you
don’t know what to vote for.
BACH: Well, that’s true.
They’re sometimes very confusing…very confusing. Sometimes you don’t know
whether you’re doing the right thing or not. But I can’t understand
that. It’s alright rafting, It must be very pleasureful. But they wouldn’t be doing it. It
seems to me it costs an awful lot; and I had never seen anything so wonderful
down there that I thought it was worth anything for rafting, but I do think
that if we could put a plant—an electric plant
on there—it would be fine. It would help us a lot.
BROWN: So what do you think of
Jamestown now?
BACH: Jamestown? They’re doing
pretty good down there. It’s looking very nice.
I was through it awhile back and the places that are empty are being fixed up
real nice and it looks real nice I thought. They’re trying…they have a
park—which we never had any parks or anything else. But I think Jamestown
is going to come out perfectly all right. There’s not a lot to keep James
town or…well, Sonora has more. Jamestown—there’s nothing much to keep it
going real good. We don’t have any mines running or anything else, so…but the
place looks pretty nice.
BROWN: That’s good.
BACH: And all of my family is
buried up in the Catholic cemetery there, so I got quite a bit of interest in
Jamestown.
END OF TAPE
General Information:
Interviewer: Brown, Tina
Interviewee: Bach, Adel
Name of Tape: Adel Bach (bach_a_1)
When: 1982
Transcriber: Ariella
Transcribed: 11/7/08