Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
In an oral history interview conducted by the Nevada County Historical Society, siblings Marion Murphy Jewett and Darrell Murphy shared their family's deep-rooted connection to Grass Valley, California. Their grandparents and father emigrated from Canada in the early 20th century, drawn by the region's mining industry. Darrell recounted his father's experiences working as a relief hoistman at the Empire and Pennsylvania mines, emphasizing the close-knit community of miners and their families. Marion shared her memories of growing up in the area, attending Union Hill School, and participating in community activities. She spoke fondly of her time as a nurse at Weimar Medical Center, a former tuberculosis sanatorium that later became a general hospital. Both siblings highlighted the importance of community service, with Darrell discussing his involvement in disaster relief efforts and the Hospitality House, a local homeless shelter. Marion shared the history of the Grass Valley Ladies Relief Society, a charitable organization founded in 1873 to support struggling families in the community. The interview concluded with a reflection on the changes Grass Valley has undergone over the years, as the once-thriving mining town transitioned into a popular destination for newcomers seeking a quieter lifestyle. Despite these changes, the Murphy siblings expressed their enduring love for the community and their commitment to preserving its rich history.
Full Transcript of the Video:
Hello and welcome to the Nevada County Historical Society's collection of oral histories. This is a fairly new program offered by the Historical Society, but it's important in that we talk to people and try to evoke their recollections and memories of days gone by here in Nevada County. On my right is Marion Murphy Jewett and on my left is her brother Darrell Murphy and Darrell I'm going to start with you and I'd like to talk to a little bit about how the Murphy family ended up in Grass Valley. How did that happen? Well, my grandmother and my father and his brother came down when they were in high school from Canada. They were Canadians and their stepfather at the time, Oliver Camosi, was a mining engineer and he came down to run a zebraite mine which is up in Bear Valley, but at the bottom of the grade you turn back to the right and go back in and anyway then he graduated. They graduated you know from school and then later my mother and my father got married and I was born in 1941 at the Jones's Hospital. We're all Grass Valley, my sister and I and basically that's how we came the family came to Grass Valley. And where was the Jones Hospital? It's up on North School Street on South School Street excuse me. It's up, well the front of it was on Church Street, Grass Valley. Does it still exist? The building's still there. Well actually it's a it's actually a bed and breakfast, the Swan Levine House and they still have some of the rooms with the floors and the sinks and everything for the surgeries and where we were born and where our mother stayed for seven days after each of us was born. Seven days in the hospital that has changed a little bit. At a cost of $25 I think a lot. $25 a head. Well Darryl as a young man as I understand it your father worked at the Idaho Maryland? No he was a relief horseman so he ran he worked at the empire in the Pennsylvania and I'm not sure how many other ones but we were mainly remembered taking his lunch to him over when he ran the horse at the empire and we used to cut across jump defense in my grandmother's house that they built when they came from Canada and walk over to the empire horse house. And where was your house and where was your grandmother's house in relation to the mine? Well I live on Nancy Lane which is right behind where the Calvary Bible Church is now and my grandmother's house is Kitty Corner from that and we used to walk across jump over and there was a well-beaten path that all the miners there used to be cabins down where the Calvary Bible Church was and a lot of the miners lived there and they walked to work and so there was trails everywhere that you know people walked to work. You say your daddy was on that hoist how did he get that position? Well he first started out underground and he found out he didn't like it under there so he told the guy I guess he knew him fairly well he told him he got to get me out of here so he asked him if he could run hoist and I said my dad said yeah I can run it so he hadn't run him before but he went up and got trained and that's how he got to the job. Okay that's very interesting and who would pack your lunch and what was in that lunch for your dad? I really can't remember what was in it but they had the old metal lunchboxes and mom had she never worked she was always home with us and she would make it and we would carry it over to the hoist not every day but on days we weren't in school and you know things that we would do it so but I don't really remember what was in it but I can remember you know I was young enough to sit on his lap when he worked the hoists you know and the cables and the bells and everything. Well we talked about the size of that equipment that your dad was working on for a young feller sitting on his daddy's knee the noise must have been pretty impressive also. You could hear the noise of the hoist you know the wheels and the cables turning and then the bells that's how they stopped and started at what levels you know certain bell meant this and a certain bell meant that so there was no communications like a walkie talkie or anything it was all done by bells and so it was it was amazing it was interesting. When you talk about being a relief hoist operator does that mean that the mine crews were on shift work? Yeah they had I'm not sure if they ran three shifts but I think they ran two that I know of and then being a relief hoistman is someone else needed a day off he would go run the hoist at that time or if somebody got sick or everything but pretty much he worked most of the time. Did he tell you what went on underground do you know I think you once alluded to that he was a mucker can you tell me more about that? Well the muckers were the guys that came in after the blast they would have guys drilling and blasting and then and then they would shoot it and then they would have the muckers come in load the cars to get them up out of the you know so they could drill and blast some more and that's how they you know they would drill where the goal was and then if they ran out of the vein they would hit just waste rock and then they would send that out on the waste dump but then you know it all went up to the top so it could go through the stamp mill or wherever it was going to go. And did your daddy work with the mules down there I hear stories about mules being underground do you recollect that? I don't think he ever worked with the mules but the mules were down there to pull the ore cars and a lot of them never came never saw daylight you know they were they lived down there all time they took hay down and you know they were just almost blind you know the mules were but they worked pretty much in you know down in the underground but he never worked with no but you know they brought all the mules up when they closed the mine down and then they had a lot of rats which was the miner's best friend. What do you mean by that? Well when the rats left the air was bad so they would watch the rats if the lungs of rats were there there was no problem with the air. I've never heard that story before in my life good story though. Some other information about the mine when we would take our dad's lunch over we would knock on the window and he would have to wait until he could step back just a little bit to lift it up and those hoist wheels are still there the head frame isn't anymore but they're talking about rebuilding it I understand or read in the paper and the other thing is that we spent a lot of time on that mine property around shafts open shafts and everything else and our favorite game was to throw rocks in and see how long it took to hit bottom. We were very careful though around the edges but the whole community of kids you know in those days you came home for dinner but on your days from school you know you were gone all day pretty much and we built forts out there and everything else and we played in the cyanide sand dunes frequently it was fun and as far as I know I'm still normal so am I to gather that they built the empire mine for you Murphy kids at as your playground is that what I'm hearing the whole Union Hill neighborhood it was their playground in many ways and the and the NID ditch up above Union Hill school at the end of Pine Hill Drive and Bartlett Drive and I think Darryl that you also spent some time in the woods we spent all our time in the woods playing like my sister said we just lived out there there wasn't any computers and there wasn't a lot of the stuff for kids you know that kids do today and that's how we occupied our time we would go into tunnels that were you know horizontal tunnels and go way back in and you know it's a wonder we ever came out of some of you know if anything would have happened our folks would have never known where we were at I mean they kept track of us but still when you're out there you know you can't tell them every foot you take but we have a lot of fun out there and as I understand it this kind of developed into a oh a love for the being out in the woods and you developed some hunting skills yes I started hunting with my dad when I was eight or nine years old bird hunting and then I couldn't hunt deer until I was 12 but when we turned 12 then we went deer hunt and I've hunted all my life here Wyoming Colorado Oregon all over so you had a fridge full of venison and some quail and you could probably live on what you gathered out of the woods yeah if you could get enough of yeah but the hunting today is nothing like it was back then you could go we used to hunt up around Jackson Meadows and if you didn't see a hundred deer a day you didn't see anything now if you go up there you see five you're lucky you know it's just they don't migrate like they used to because of Lake Wildwood Alta Sierra Lake of the pines those were all places we hunted when we were kids you know peacock ranch at Lake Wildwood Cunningham ranch in Alta Sierra and I can't remember who had Lake of the pines so who dressed out your meat was that done in the field and then you cut your own butchered your own animals or did somebody do that at home I can't remember what we did when when my dad had get a deer but when I went to Wyoming I learned to cut my own meat and I do all my own now if I have the time and you know the space to do it but at the time my mom used to when I was in high school go duck hunting we used to skip football practice sometimes if it was raining because our grades were up so we then she'd write you know we'd go down duck hunting and I'd come home if I had something to do I'd put them in the sink and she'd pick them and clean them I think that's called hooky I don't know maybe maybe they got a different name for it I I also went dove hunting with them one time down on Spenceville property which was Beale Air Force Base property and I couldn't wait to go hunting with them well my job was picking the warm doves after they were I never went again that was it that took care of that I had enough of hunting uh rather short career so as I understand it Darrell you did some traveling about you went spent time in Wyoming fell in love with Wyoming went over here to Oregon went over there and then you ended up where do you live now here in grass valley I left well the first time I left grass valley was when I went in a service in 61 and then when I got out of the army I came back to grass valley and I went into construction put the cable television up in grass valley in 64 and then we traveled all over in that construction and then I got into dirt construction and went to the bay area and then I eventually went to Wyoming for a job in an open pit uranium mine and I worked back there ten and a half years and loved it this country and the hunting and the fishing and if you don't want to see anybody you can in about 30 minutes you go well you won't see nobody at the time I think there was only 300,000 people in the whole state so then when the mine shut down after the three mile island nuclear problem they quit mining uranium and I came back here worked in a mine in Nevada and then came back into construction here and then went back into construction and retired from the operating engineer running heavy equipment but there's no place like home it's nice area I can't blame anybody for wanting to live up here it's nice climate beautiful weather when that freeway went in how did that affect you and how'd you feel about that I was in the army when it went through most of it you know I can remember a lot of the things that were there that aren't there now because the freeway went through but the Brockington Manor down where Safeway is now across the street they had to there was a hotel with a car shop underneath it and the old gold nugget in used to be right across from where save Martin that is now back in there and there was just a lot of things all the junkyards there on the old batter city highway where a burger king and all of that is now the state owns a lot of contaminated property there did they know that I think so they took the junk yards out so yeah sure well excellent and to this day you're very active in the community you do a lot of public service you and your sister whom we're going to speak to momentarily but could you tell us a little bit about your community activities now well mainly at stew my church first Baptist church and we do our fellowship dinners on Wednesday night and then I was trained for disaster relief and we do the spaghetti dinner out at relay for life for the cancer and things like that I help up the church on the maintenance on the grounds crew and what I can I'm not really in into any organization like the elks and the moose or anything like that but if somebody needs help I'm more than willing to help you said you have something a regularly scheduled dinner on Wednesday nights was it Wednesday nights is that what yeah yeah up at the church we have a fellowship dinner anybody's welcome and it's five dollars a person normally I think you know and it starts at 430 or 445 runs to 545 and we have a big fellowship hall and people congregate and fellowship and everything through the meal you know that's the substance of a community and there's a lot of community activism in both grass valley in Nevada city and that's what makes a community Darrell your sister just mentioned that you've had some knowledge of the hospitality house could you tell me what that's all about well the hospitality house here in grass in Nevada counties for the homeless and a lot of different churches right now they're in a process of building a you know a hospitality house back up on Sutton Way but a lot of the churches on different nights so they have a place to sleep in the winter time and we have it at our church the first Baptist on the second Wednesday of every month and the fifth if there's a fifth Wednesday we supply the meals we cook them and we also have our fellowship dinner first and then there's a there's a break and then hospitality house comes in at 630 and they eat until about 630 to 8 and then they sleep there in the fellowship hall and they get them breakfast and get them out in the morning do you have any idea the numbers well we have a big kitchen so we everybody eats the same thing and a lot of the churches do potlucks so we probably get more up there where we are than they do in a lot of places because they can eat as much as they want and you know there's everybody eats the same thing so we average 40 to 45 maybe 47 48 people at night when they open up the hospitality house on Sutton Way will that keep you from doing the cooking or is that scheduled to remain the same are they going to be doing the cooking on site I think I'm not really sure I've heard rumors that they're going to want the the churches to supply the foods I'm not sure if they're going to have a kitchen or if they do have a kitchen they want people to come in and do the cooking rather than hire and keep a full-time chef I'm not really sure but our fellowship dinners will continue but we may not have the the hospitality house at the church so I'm not really sure what's up in the air on that well I don't know what you could do better with your life and help somebody out I think that's what we're here for and I'd like to kind of refocus on Marion Jewett's life and times growing up in grass valley so you were a young lady living with two brothers no a sister and a brother and did you have household chores that each was dedicated or did you have little jobs in the community when you were a young one no I never worked in the community for that type of thing but we all had chores of course I think that we always said no it's his turn to do that or it's her turn to do that but anyway we we helped with dishes and the garbage and miscellaneous things like that we had to keep our rooms clean and of course that was my sister I'm kind of a neat freak maybe OCD and my sister just loved to leave the room in a mess because we shared a room and just to bug me you know because she knew she could get my goat for that reason anyway so we had our little defugulties along those lines was your mother a gardener no not really I mean the how the she kind of just kept care of us and keeping care of us was enough I think she did want to go to work at one time and she was a very intelligent woman and had studied accounting and whatnot but dad felt it was real important for her to be at home and of course the first thing the minute we hit the door is mom are you home mom where are you you know so he felt that was important so she was always home for us she also helped take care of my daughter who when I had her and had come back after nursing school and so she had plenty to do you know there was no lack of that she was also very active in the over hill volunteer fire department auxiliary dad and about four others in the cedar ridge and union hill area decided they needed a volunteer fire department so they built the original over hill volunteer fire department which is right next to it's an hour private home but it was right next to calvary bible church and um after they got it built I was living in my grandmother's house and the back fence was near the calvary bible and the fire department so when a fence went in there had to be a pedestrian gate so dad could run through that gate and beat ed hamilton who lived on pine hill drive to the fire truck so he because whoever got there first drove the truck and ed hamilton was the father of my best friend that I've had since second grade and she still has her home there my brother lives in the home we grew up in and I have my grandmother our grandmother's house but I don't live there presently but that is my eventual return to you briefly alluded to schools now you went through the public school system in grass valley actually we all went all eight grades to union hill school we walked one block down the hill across the highway highway 174 to the school which was smaller than it is now um so all of us graduated from there and then went into high school and went to grow well to the nevada union high school you went to nevada union you were probably one of the first graduating classes you know not the first but we were very early on when they joined nevada city in grass valley um I think there was one class ahead of us that graduated first the first for the joint we but we were very instrumental our class the class of 1956 when they were trying to get the school bond passed for the new high school where it is now um we all paraded from grass valley school up to nevada city in protest or in support of the school bond so we just left classes that day and marched up here and I remember one of the girls my classmates the gals uh and one fellow joins us periodically we get together about once a month for lunch and we were talking the other day about that and she said and of all days to wear a brand new pair of shoes she said I had such blisters on my feet anyway so we were very active in school and once you graduated from high school you carried on yes I went to nursing school at santa rosa junior college um fortunately it was uh economical mom and dad had to buy my uniforms which was 75 dollars and basically provide my personal needs um I lived in a dormitory and it was kind of like family for three years our class was all together and we still have reunions after all these years um and we ate at the hospital it was a county hospital basically our schooling provided them help and so we were doing patient care um we had to pay for our books at junior college but all nursing books or anything related to that were paid for through our school so it was it was something mom and dad could afford you know so that worked out nicely and once you had your nursing certificate what happened well I came home and I applied over at wemar medical center at the time now wemar medical center used to be wemer joint sanatorium it was started in 1919 by 19 counties in the state of nevada and it was strictly for care of tuberculosis at that time they had no treatment except fresh air and sunshine and the building still exists but it's now called wemar institute I haven't been over there for quite a while but it is a health facility um run as far as I know by the seventh day advantage uh at my last knowledge and it actually at one time had four colleges associated with it too one of which was automotive because I did donate a car to them um but I you know I don't know what else they had and construction was another one but whether they still have those or not I don't know but so the patients would come from not only california but parts of nevada and they all had one thing in common they all had tuberculosis which was a affliction of the lungs and so there was a lot of coughing were you ever concerned about your own well-being in a situation like that no and um because we wore gowns and masks when we were with active tuberculosis patients well even the inactive ones because you never knew if it might activate again and actually tuberculosis can affect all parts of the body I mean they can have it at the spine and so on and um there were a lot of children there they had it was over 440 acres it had its own water system um it had uh its own cemetery and it was very sad to go out there because there were a lot of babies out there and you know young young people who had died of it um and supposedly you know we're uh below the snow and above the fog well one of the houses one of the buildings what they called the glass house when I got there it was completely open on both sides the heads of the beds were into the middle with the radiators in the middle and they they had tarps on the end of the bed covering them because snow would blow in and you know I mean it was a real treatment with fresh air not necessarily below the snow sometimes not exactly not exactly but by the time I had gotten there it had become a general hospital we had um elderly patients that were there like a convalescent hospital for care we still had tuberculosis patients in separate buildings um we did a lot of private patient surgery a lot of lung surgery um not only for tuberculosis but for cancer took care of a lot of cancer patients and then in 1972 they decided that all county hospitals should be closed and um that patient should be able to go to private hospitals um there was some talk that the county hospitals didn't give as good a care and so on well the patients actually got excellent care and I think they did at most county hospitals um but it was a change and so the buildings and everything were put up for um auction and a private party bought them and um then it was empty for quite a few years before the Weimar Institute took over and I don't remember exactly what year but when it closed it was in 1972 or changed hands I should say did you meet a doctor up there yes my husband um and I both worked there um at Weimar Medical Center and then when the hospital closed he opened a practice here um in 19 in October of 1972 and actually the facility changed hands December 1st 1972 when you say he opened an office here where do you mean well he was on Catherine Lane um Dr. George Jewett and he was an internist here for 24 and a half years before internist here for 24 and a half years before he retired um July 1st 1996 um he since has died and I have to say that one of the other helpful things my brother does is he's my ace man now he helps me a lot every time I turn around Daryl I have a favored ask and he always says well he grumbles a little bit okay what a brother yeah no he's great and I would like you to talk about a group of grass valley women and what they do for this community that you're a part of okay I've probably been a part of the grass valley ladies relief society for gosh I'm thinking over 30 years now um the grass valley ladies relief society um actually started as the grass valley ladies benevolent society um in uh 1773 two wives and their husbands owner managers of the mines mrs. Dibble and mrs. Coleman and their husbands were feeling that really there were several mining families widows orphans injured miners that really were on tough times and they needed some help so they started the grass valley ladies benevolent society and their churches the congregational church which used to be where uh west america bank is on the corner of neal and uh church street um they um that church and immanuel episcopal also helped out um with donating items and so on um there was kind of a severe money panic kind of like um the 1929 crash you know and stuff that we kind of went through in those days of depression um and so um they went to the state and asked for um a grant and they got a thousand dollars that was in uh 1776 1776 um and no it wasn't 19 it was 1883 i'm sorry i'm 100 years off sorry about that yeah and so um and then in um 1878 they asked again and got another thousand dollars when they first asked um they were told that they could have the money but they had to change the name from the benevolent society to the grass valley ladies relief society we never did understand why um that happened uh what the deal was there so basically what you're doing is helping out people that are in trouble in the community or when this society started you were like you said you had people that were injured at the mine had families had no income or little income and so you kind of helped them out yeah in our focus over the years has been many things um we have a mission statement basically that says that we want to provide for basic needs to alleviate suffering improve the health and well-being of western nevada county residents and we have an emphasis on children and the aged now over the years um the ladies relief society um it began um they were the only really charitable kind of organization for a long time we've never gotten money from the state after those two grants in 1876 and 78 um but um they it's a lot of it is by contributions donations and so on but the police department the welfare department everybody knew the grass valley ladies relief society and so when they had a need they would call one of the members and that's how it always worked um and then martin's grocery up at the top of race and henderson street which is now chapel of the angels we used to deal with them and we'd call and say please provide so and so with food and they would do that and then we would later pay them we have bought bus tickets for the police department for people to leave town and go to family um we have repaired cars over the years and so on nowadays we are not so well known for anything other than the donation day so we support a lot of the organizations that already take care of people such as interfaith food ministry emergency assistance coalition um hospitality house i mean you know we and not only as an organization but personally you mentioned donation day right and that is the one big activity that most people are aware of what we do um and that started in 1883 um after they were having this money problem um you know the money panic in 83 and because i've gotten some of my dates mixed up but caroline mead hanson um opposite the colman house was sitting in her window watching the children go to school and she um thought well gee it's times are really hard and if we each gave a little bit it should amass into a fair amount and we could all help other people out so she wrote a letter to the union and i'd like to read it and she actually was the the emphasis and what started this um on reading the report of the ladies relief society i saw with regret that they are much in need of assistance i cannot aid them as i should like to do but like many other people i am willing to give them the benefit of someone else's ideas about a year ago i read of a children's party which was successfully given in aid of a charitable organization in one of our eastern cities and which i think we might get up in aid of our own society the plan is this on a day to be named by our city school superintendent all of the public school teachers would be required to ask the children in their charge to bring to the schoolhouse each one one potato and one stick of stove wood the potatoes to be put in a sack by the janitor the wood to be piled in the yard the donations to be brought into all the schools on the same day of the week on the next day they would be removed by the ladies relief society to any place they might judge to be in need the donation from each child is so small there is hardly a family who could not afford to give it but as there are several hundred children attending our schools the aggregate might be of some value carol and mead hansen forward to give it but as there are several hundred children attending our schools the aggregate might be of some value carol and mead hansen and that is where it started and so the kids did bring and if you watch the parade nowadays you'll see that the ladies relief society members many will be carrying a stick of wood and a potato as tradition nowadays of course it's just non perishable food items could you tell us a bit about the parade itself who participates i'm not usually i'm usually always in the auditorium packing boxes and things like that but one of our biggest helpers is the future farmers of america who come from nevada union high school they collect a lot of food bring it down and they help us pack boxes sometimes they usually are not in able to get out in the parade because they're busy helping us the hennessey school goes and this year it'll be the grass valley charter school i don't know how things will go this year but mount st mary's usually joins us sometimes um schools from nevada city will bus in children to participate in the parade there are some private charter schools that join us um and um it may change some this year i don't know does that parade occur on a particular day yes it's the last day of school which is a minimum day and the parade is at 10 o'clock and this year in 2012 it'll be december 21st and the children march from hennessey school and we also have the lineman gilmore band and and occasionally some of their students will come down one class or so and the marine color guard starts it out and then we have also the pipers which is the tradition that has gone on for many years pipers and drummer and it's i wish i could remember the family's name and i i'm sorry i'm there's so the school kids in the middle of december just before christmas holiday get out and parade through the streets of grass valley and the idea is to make people aware that they're trying to solicit donations for people in our community that need some help no actually the kids have already had it explained to them what donation day is about and they've brought the food to the school the parade itself is just for them they carry a can or whatever they brought and they march through they leave hennessey they go up kneel down mill then down main um and then down south obron street and back to hennessey school and we like to encourage parents and people on the street because the kids just love it and they're so excited um to do the parade and of course it's always weather permitting if the weather is bad then they parade through the halls at hennessey school and a lot of the outside schools wouldn't come it would just be hennessey school parading uh but the pipers still come and and um do that you know that must be exciting for these little kids to get out like that exactly they just love it can you tell the people if someone were to get involved in the community this would be a good way to do it and how would they go about doing that how would they somebody that wasn't aware get a hold of the ladies a society well um there isn't specifically other than our post office box which is 1132 in cedar ridge california 95924 and um we do contact the businesses downtown they usually put posters in their window and they collect food and that's one of the biggest ways that people can help is either food or cash donations to help pay for this because a lot of it you know um our dues have been 25 cents a month ever since the organization started we do have we do have a mandatory uh five dollar donation day uh contribution but all the ladies give more than that um and then um a lot of the fraternal organizations have been supporting us for years um and just individuals will come um and um this has been going on you know for generations i mean we're now um great-grandchildren of members are carrying the banner and so forth well you figure it's been going on you know since uh 18 well 1883 donation day but uh the ladies relief society uh since 1873 and i said i believe i said 1783 originally um so anyway um and i do have the name the ingersal family is the one that have been coming and doing the bagpipes and the drums ever since we were able to contact them and they're now in college and they weren't at the time but they even come back and do it from college it's just amazing they're wonderful people you know i'm going to ask you to slowly go over that address that cedar ridge address once again if somebody sees this i think it's an incredible way to get involved with their community and to me uh community is like what you guys are doing people in the community helping somebody else in the community so could you give that address slowly right it's the grass valley ladies relief society post office box 1132 cedar ridge california 95924 and donation day has gone through a lot of changes i even had pictures have pictures of nevada city having their own donation day parade and and for a long time the nevada city elks did the nevada city families and don wasley was extremely instrumental in that as was k and john ingram i mean graham and um after a period of time that kind of got phased out so we also take care of the nevada city families as well daryl you mentioned that you lived in a town of about 5 000 people when you were a young man and you knew everybody in town now you've seen some drastic changes in the population of western nevada county and grass valley in particular how do you feel about that do you feel like uh you're losing your community or is it gaining strength well i don't feel we're losing our community it's a nice place to live you can't blame anybody for wanting to come here but people leave other places for particular reasons government or whatever but a lot of them want to bring all that back up here and then change this community so i mean a lot of a lot of the people that are born here would like to just keep things the way they are and uh you know you can't shut the gate behind you when you get here you know it's just so we have to but i think the biggest change uh when we were going to school my class in high school was there was 200 and some odd kids now there's like 2500 at a graduation class uh and when i mentioned 5 000 that was in the whole county i think in the whole community not just grass valley because grass valley now i think only has 11 000 so it's just a dramatic change and you know since the mining was so prevalent when we were younger that a lot of the miners knew everybody and when you'd go down you'd you know you know families you know and uh i think the big changes i left here in 1977 to go to Wyoming and the big change came probably in the mid 70s you know that's when the boom really took off you know there were so many contractors so much building and everything going on uh Alta Sierra was formed in the 60s and they couldn't hardly sell a lots three thousand dollars a lot you could buy any lot in there when it first started but you know and and then all of a sudden boom lake wildwood and you know lake of the pines and that's when the real big boom and then you know the economy has slowed it down otherwise it would probably still be going pretty good i want to thank you two people for doing what you do in our community that's what community is all about and i want to thank you for taking some time and sharing your recollections and your memories of days gone by and this is all brought to you by the nevada county historical society and i encourage anyone who is interested in the history of nevada county to check out that organization they're doing wonderful things in this community they're keeping the history alive and that is very important and we had a wonderful time out here in uh little courtyard in nevada city today is june 28th 2012 and i thank you you
Hello and welcome to the Nevada County Historical Society's collection of oral histories. This is a fairly new program offered by the Historical Society, but it's important in that we talk to people and try to evoke their recollections and memories of days gone by here in Nevada County. On my right is Marion Murphy Jewett and on my left is her brother Darrell Murphy and Darrell I'm going to start with you and I'd like to talk to a little bit about how the Murphy family ended up in Grass Valley. How did that happen? Well, my grandmother and my father and his brother came down when they were in high school from Canada. They were Canadians and their stepfather at the time, Oliver Camosi, was a mining engineer and he came down to run a zebraite mine which is up in Bear Valley, but at the bottom of the grade you turn back to the right and go back in and anyway then he graduated. They graduated you know from school and then later my mother and my father got married and I was born in 1941 at the Jones's Hospital. We're all Grass Valley, my sister and I and basically that's how we came the family came to Grass Valley. And where was the Jones Hospital? It's up on North School Street on South School Street excuse me. It's up, well the front of it was on Church Street, Grass Valley. Does it still exist? The building's still there. Well actually it's a it's actually a bed and breakfast, the Swan Levine House and they still have some of the rooms with the floors and the sinks and everything for the surgeries and where we were born and where our mother stayed for seven days after each of us was born. Seven days in the hospital that has changed a little bit. At a cost of $25 I think a lot. $25 a head. Well Darryl as a young man as I understand it your father worked at the Idaho Maryland? No he was a relief horseman so he ran he worked at the empire in the Pennsylvania and I'm not sure how many other ones but we were mainly remembered taking his lunch to him over when he ran the horse at the empire and we used to cut across jump defense in my grandmother's house that they built when they came from Canada and walk over to the empire horse house. And where was your house and where was your grandmother's house in relation to the mine? Well I live on Nancy Lane which is right behind where the Calvary Bible Church is now and my grandmother's house is Kitty Corner from that and we used to walk across jump over and there was a well-beaten path that all the miners there used to be cabins down where the Calvary Bible Church was and a lot of the miners lived there and they walked to work and so there was trails everywhere that you know people walked to work. You say your daddy was on that hoist how did he get that position? Well he first started out underground and he found out he didn't like it under there so he told the guy I guess he knew him fairly well he told him he got to get me out of here so he asked him if he could run hoist and I said my dad said yeah I can run it so he hadn't run him before but he went up and got trained and that's how he got to the job. Okay that's very interesting and who would pack your lunch and what was in that lunch for your dad? I really can't remember what was in it but they had the old metal lunchboxes and mom had she never worked she was always home with us and she would make it and we would carry it over to the hoist not every day but on days we weren't in school and you know things that we would do it so but I don't really remember what was in it but I can remember you know I was young enough to sit on his lap when he worked the hoists you know and the cables and the bells and everything. Well we talked about the size of that equipment that your dad was working on for a young feller sitting on his daddy's knee the noise must have been pretty impressive also. You could hear the noise of the hoist you know the wheels and the cables turning and then the bells that's how they stopped and started at what levels you know certain bell meant this and a certain bell meant that so there was no communications like a walkie talkie or anything it was all done by bells and so it was it was amazing it was interesting. When you talk about being a relief hoist operator does that mean that the mine crews were on shift work? Yeah they had I'm not sure if they ran three shifts but I think they ran two that I know of and then being a relief hoistman is someone else needed a day off he would go run the hoist at that time or if somebody got sick or everything but pretty much he worked most of the time. Did he tell you what went on underground do you know I think you once alluded to that he was a mucker can you tell me more about that? Well the muckers were the guys that came in after the blast they would have guys drilling and blasting and then and then they would shoot it and then they would have the muckers come in load the cars to get them up out of the you know so they could drill and blast some more and that's how they you know they would drill where the goal was and then if they ran out of the vein they would hit just waste rock and then they would send that out on the waste dump but then you know it all went up to the top so it could go through the stamp mill or wherever it was going to go. And did your daddy work with the mules down there I hear stories about mules being underground do you recollect that? I don't think he ever worked with the mules but the mules were down there to pull the ore cars and a lot of them never came never saw daylight you know they were they lived down there all time they took hay down and you know they were just almost blind you know the mules were but they worked pretty much in you know down in the underground but he never worked with no but you know they brought all the mules up when they closed the mine down and then they had a lot of rats which was the miner's best friend. What do you mean by that? Well when the rats left the air was bad so they would watch the rats if the lungs of rats were there there was no problem with the air. I've never heard that story before in my life good story though. Some other information about the mine when we would take our dad's lunch over we would knock on the window and he would have to wait until he could step back just a little bit to lift it up and those hoist wheels are still there the head frame isn't anymore but they're talking about rebuilding it I understand or read in the paper and the other thing is that we spent a lot of time on that mine property around shafts open shafts and everything else and our favorite game was to throw rocks in and see how long it took to hit bottom. We were very careful though around the edges but the whole community of kids you know in those days you came home for dinner but on your days from school you know you were gone all day pretty much and we built forts out there and everything else and we played in the cyanide sand dunes frequently it was fun and as far as I know I'm still normal so am I to gather that they built the empire mine for you Murphy kids at as your playground is that what I'm hearing the whole Union Hill neighborhood it was their playground in many ways and the and the NID ditch up above Union Hill school at the end of Pine Hill Drive and Bartlett Drive and I think Darryl that you also spent some time in the woods we spent all our time in the woods playing like my sister said we just lived out there there wasn't any computers and there wasn't a lot of the stuff for kids you know that kids do today and that's how we occupied our time we would go into tunnels that were you know horizontal tunnels and go way back in and you know it's a wonder we ever came out of some of you know if anything would have happened our folks would have never known where we were at I mean they kept track of us but still when you're out there you know you can't tell them every foot you take but we have a lot of fun out there and as I understand it this kind of developed into a oh a love for the being out in the woods and you developed some hunting skills yes I started hunting with my dad when I was eight or nine years old bird hunting and then I couldn't hunt deer until I was 12 but when we turned 12 then we went deer hunt and I've hunted all my life here Wyoming Colorado Oregon all over so you had a fridge full of venison and some quail and you could probably live on what you gathered out of the woods yeah if you could get enough of yeah but the hunting today is nothing like it was back then you could go we used to hunt up around Jackson Meadows and if you didn't see a hundred deer a day you didn't see anything now if you go up there you see five you're lucky you know it's just they don't migrate like they used to because of Lake Wildwood Alta Sierra Lake of the pines those were all places we hunted when we were kids you know peacock ranch at Lake Wildwood Cunningham ranch in Alta Sierra and I can't remember who had Lake of the pines so who dressed out your meat was that done in the field and then you cut your own butchered your own animals or did somebody do that at home I can't remember what we did when when my dad had get a deer but when I went to Wyoming I learned to cut my own meat and I do all my own now if I have the time and you know the space to do it but at the time my mom used to when I was in high school go duck hunting we used to skip football practice sometimes if it was raining because our grades were up so we then she'd write you know we'd go down duck hunting and I'd come home if I had something to do I'd put them in the sink and she'd pick them and clean them I think that's called hooky I don't know maybe maybe they got a different name for it I I also went dove hunting with them one time down on Spenceville property which was Beale Air Force Base property and I couldn't wait to go hunting with them well my job was picking the warm doves after they were I never went again that was it that took care of that I had enough of hunting uh rather short career so as I understand it Darrell you did some traveling about you went spent time in Wyoming fell in love with Wyoming went over here to Oregon went over there and then you ended up where do you live now here in grass valley I left well the first time I left grass valley was when I went in a service in 61 and then when I got out of the army I came back to grass valley and I went into construction put the cable television up in grass valley in 64 and then we traveled all over in that construction and then I got into dirt construction and went to the bay area and then I eventually went to Wyoming for a job in an open pit uranium mine and I worked back there ten and a half years and loved it this country and the hunting and the fishing and if you don't want to see anybody you can in about 30 minutes you go well you won't see nobody at the time I think there was only 300,000 people in the whole state so then when the mine shut down after the three mile island nuclear problem they quit mining uranium and I came back here worked in a mine in Nevada and then came back into construction here and then went back into construction and retired from the operating engineer running heavy equipment but there's no place like home it's nice area I can't blame anybody for wanting to live up here it's nice climate beautiful weather when that freeway went in how did that affect you and how'd you feel about that I was in the army when it went through most of it you know I can remember a lot of the things that were there that aren't there now because the freeway went through but the Brockington Manor down where Safeway is now across the street they had to there was a hotel with a car shop underneath it and the old gold nugget in used to be right across from where save Martin that is now back in there and there was just a lot of things all the junkyards there on the old batter city highway where a burger king and all of that is now the state owns a lot of contaminated property there did they know that I think so they took the junk yards out so yeah sure well excellent and to this day you're very active in the community you do a lot of public service you and your sister whom we're going to speak to momentarily but could you tell us a little bit about your community activities now well mainly at stew my church first Baptist church and we do our fellowship dinners on Wednesday night and then I was trained for disaster relief and we do the spaghetti dinner out at relay for life for the cancer and things like that I help up the church on the maintenance on the grounds crew and what I can I'm not really in into any organization like the elks and the moose or anything like that but if somebody needs help I'm more than willing to help you said you have something a regularly scheduled dinner on Wednesday nights was it Wednesday nights is that what yeah yeah up at the church we have a fellowship dinner anybody's welcome and it's five dollars a person normally I think you know and it starts at 430 or 445 runs to 545 and we have a big fellowship hall and people congregate and fellowship and everything through the meal you know that's the substance of a community and there's a lot of community activism in both grass valley in Nevada city and that's what makes a community Darrell your sister just mentioned that you've had some knowledge of the hospitality house could you tell me what that's all about well the hospitality house here in grass in Nevada counties for the homeless and a lot of different churches right now they're in a process of building a you know a hospitality house back up on Sutton Way but a lot of the churches on different nights so they have a place to sleep in the winter time and we have it at our church the first Baptist on the second Wednesday of every month and the fifth if there's a fifth Wednesday we supply the meals we cook them and we also have our fellowship dinner first and then there's a there's a break and then hospitality house comes in at 630 and they eat until about 630 to 8 and then they sleep there in the fellowship hall and they get them breakfast and get them out in the morning do you have any idea the numbers well we have a big kitchen so we everybody eats the same thing and a lot of the churches do potlucks so we probably get more up there where we are than they do in a lot of places because they can eat as much as they want and you know there's everybody eats the same thing so we average 40 to 45 maybe 47 48 people at night when they open up the hospitality house on Sutton Way will that keep you from doing the cooking or is that scheduled to remain the same are they going to be doing the cooking on site I think I'm not really sure I've heard rumors that they're going to want the the churches to supply the foods I'm not sure if they're going to have a kitchen or if they do have a kitchen they want people to come in and do the cooking rather than hire and keep a full-time chef I'm not really sure but our fellowship dinners will continue but we may not have the the hospitality house at the church so I'm not really sure what's up in the air on that well I don't know what you could do better with your life and help somebody out I think that's what we're here for and I'd like to kind of refocus on Marion Jewett's life and times growing up in grass valley so you were a young lady living with two brothers no a sister and a brother and did you have household chores that each was dedicated or did you have little jobs in the community when you were a young one no I never worked in the community for that type of thing but we all had chores of course I think that we always said no it's his turn to do that or it's her turn to do that but anyway we we helped with dishes and the garbage and miscellaneous things like that we had to keep our rooms clean and of course that was my sister I'm kind of a neat freak maybe OCD and my sister just loved to leave the room in a mess because we shared a room and just to bug me you know because she knew she could get my goat for that reason anyway so we had our little defugulties along those lines was your mother a gardener no not really I mean the how the she kind of just kept care of us and keeping care of us was enough I think she did want to go to work at one time and she was a very intelligent woman and had studied accounting and whatnot but dad felt it was real important for her to be at home and of course the first thing the minute we hit the door is mom are you home mom where are you you know so he felt that was important so she was always home for us she also helped take care of my daughter who when I had her and had come back after nursing school and so she had plenty to do you know there was no lack of that she was also very active in the over hill volunteer fire department auxiliary dad and about four others in the cedar ridge and union hill area decided they needed a volunteer fire department so they built the original over hill volunteer fire department which is right next to it's an hour private home but it was right next to calvary bible church and um after they got it built I was living in my grandmother's house and the back fence was near the calvary bible and the fire department so when a fence went in there had to be a pedestrian gate so dad could run through that gate and beat ed hamilton who lived on pine hill drive to the fire truck so he because whoever got there first drove the truck and ed hamilton was the father of my best friend that I've had since second grade and she still has her home there my brother lives in the home we grew up in and I have my grandmother our grandmother's house but I don't live there presently but that is my eventual return to you briefly alluded to schools now you went through the public school system in grass valley actually we all went all eight grades to union hill school we walked one block down the hill across the highway highway 174 to the school which was smaller than it is now um so all of us graduated from there and then went into high school and went to grow well to the nevada union high school you went to nevada union you were probably one of the first graduating classes you know not the first but we were very early on when they joined nevada city in grass valley um I think there was one class ahead of us that graduated first the first for the joint we but we were very instrumental our class the class of 1956 when they were trying to get the school bond passed for the new high school where it is now um we all paraded from grass valley school up to nevada city in protest or in support of the school bond so we just left classes that day and marched up here and I remember one of the girls my classmates the gals uh and one fellow joins us periodically we get together about once a month for lunch and we were talking the other day about that and she said and of all days to wear a brand new pair of shoes she said I had such blisters on my feet anyway so we were very active in school and once you graduated from high school you carried on yes I went to nursing school at santa rosa junior college um fortunately it was uh economical mom and dad had to buy my uniforms which was 75 dollars and basically provide my personal needs um I lived in a dormitory and it was kind of like family for three years our class was all together and we still have reunions after all these years um and we ate at the hospital it was a county hospital basically our schooling provided them help and so we were doing patient care um we had to pay for our books at junior college but all nursing books or anything related to that were paid for through our school so it was it was something mom and dad could afford you know so that worked out nicely and once you had your nursing certificate what happened well I came home and I applied over at wemar medical center at the time now wemar medical center used to be wemer joint sanatorium it was started in 1919 by 19 counties in the state of nevada and it was strictly for care of tuberculosis at that time they had no treatment except fresh air and sunshine and the building still exists but it's now called wemar institute I haven't been over there for quite a while but it is a health facility um run as far as I know by the seventh day advantage uh at my last knowledge and it actually at one time had four colleges associated with it too one of which was automotive because I did donate a car to them um but I you know I don't know what else they had and construction was another one but whether they still have those or not I don't know but so the patients would come from not only california but parts of nevada and they all had one thing in common they all had tuberculosis which was a affliction of the lungs and so there was a lot of coughing were you ever concerned about your own well-being in a situation like that no and um because we wore gowns and masks when we were with active tuberculosis patients well even the inactive ones because you never knew if it might activate again and actually tuberculosis can affect all parts of the body I mean they can have it at the spine and so on and um there were a lot of children there they had it was over 440 acres it had its own water system um it had uh its own cemetery and it was very sad to go out there because there were a lot of babies out there and you know young young people who had died of it um and supposedly you know we're uh below the snow and above the fog well one of the houses one of the buildings what they called the glass house when I got there it was completely open on both sides the heads of the beds were into the middle with the radiators in the middle and they they had tarps on the end of the bed covering them because snow would blow in and you know I mean it was a real treatment with fresh air not necessarily below the snow sometimes not exactly not exactly but by the time I had gotten there it had become a general hospital we had um elderly patients that were there like a convalescent hospital for care we still had tuberculosis patients in separate buildings um we did a lot of private patient surgery a lot of lung surgery um not only for tuberculosis but for cancer took care of a lot of cancer patients and then in 1972 they decided that all county hospitals should be closed and um that patient should be able to go to private hospitals um there was some talk that the county hospitals didn't give as good a care and so on well the patients actually got excellent care and I think they did at most county hospitals um but it was a change and so the buildings and everything were put up for um auction and a private party bought them and um then it was empty for quite a few years before the Weimar Institute took over and I don't remember exactly what year but when it closed it was in 1972 or changed hands I should say did you meet a doctor up there yes my husband um and I both worked there um at Weimar Medical Center and then when the hospital closed he opened a practice here um in 19 in October of 1972 and actually the facility changed hands December 1st 1972 when you say he opened an office here where do you mean well he was on Catherine Lane um Dr. George Jewett and he was an internist here for 24 and a half years before internist here for 24 and a half years before he retired um July 1st 1996 um he since has died and I have to say that one of the other helpful things my brother does is he's my ace man now he helps me a lot every time I turn around Daryl I have a favored ask and he always says well he grumbles a little bit okay what a brother yeah no he's great and I would like you to talk about a group of grass valley women and what they do for this community that you're a part of okay I've probably been a part of the grass valley ladies relief society for gosh I'm thinking over 30 years now um the grass valley ladies relief society um actually started as the grass valley ladies benevolent society um in uh 1773 two wives and their husbands owner managers of the mines mrs. Dibble and mrs. Coleman and their husbands were feeling that really there were several mining families widows orphans injured miners that really were on tough times and they needed some help so they started the grass valley ladies benevolent society and their churches the congregational church which used to be where uh west america bank is on the corner of neal and uh church street um they um that church and immanuel episcopal also helped out um with donating items and so on um there was kind of a severe money panic kind of like um the 1929 crash you know and stuff that we kind of went through in those days of depression um and so um they went to the state and asked for um a grant and they got a thousand dollars that was in uh 1776 1776 um and no it wasn't 19 it was 1883 i'm sorry i'm 100 years off sorry about that yeah and so um and then in um 1878 they asked again and got another thousand dollars when they first asked um they were told that they could have the money but they had to change the name from the benevolent society to the grass valley ladies relief society we never did understand why um that happened uh what the deal was there so basically what you're doing is helping out people that are in trouble in the community or when this society started you were like you said you had people that were injured at the mine had families had no income or little income and so you kind of helped them out yeah in our focus over the years has been many things um we have a mission statement basically that says that we want to provide for basic needs to alleviate suffering improve the health and well-being of western nevada county residents and we have an emphasis on children and the aged now over the years um the ladies relief society um it began um they were the only really charitable kind of organization for a long time we've never gotten money from the state after those two grants in 1876 and 78 um but um they it's a lot of it is by contributions donations and so on but the police department the welfare department everybody knew the grass valley ladies relief society and so when they had a need they would call one of the members and that's how it always worked um and then martin's grocery up at the top of race and henderson street which is now chapel of the angels we used to deal with them and we'd call and say please provide so and so with food and they would do that and then we would later pay them we have bought bus tickets for the police department for people to leave town and go to family um we have repaired cars over the years and so on nowadays we are not so well known for anything other than the donation day so we support a lot of the organizations that already take care of people such as interfaith food ministry emergency assistance coalition um hospitality house i mean you know we and not only as an organization but personally you mentioned donation day right and that is the one big activity that most people are aware of what we do um and that started in 1883 um after they were having this money problem um you know the money panic in 83 and because i've gotten some of my dates mixed up but caroline mead hanson um opposite the colman house was sitting in her window watching the children go to school and she um thought well gee it's times are really hard and if we each gave a little bit it should amass into a fair amount and we could all help other people out so she wrote a letter to the union and i'd like to read it and she actually was the the emphasis and what started this um on reading the report of the ladies relief society i saw with regret that they are much in need of assistance i cannot aid them as i should like to do but like many other people i am willing to give them the benefit of someone else's ideas about a year ago i read of a children's party which was successfully given in aid of a charitable organization in one of our eastern cities and which i think we might get up in aid of our own society the plan is this on a day to be named by our city school superintendent all of the public school teachers would be required to ask the children in their charge to bring to the schoolhouse each one one potato and one stick of stove wood the potatoes to be put in a sack by the janitor the wood to be piled in the yard the donations to be brought into all the schools on the same day of the week on the next day they would be removed by the ladies relief society to any place they might judge to be in need the donation from each child is so small there is hardly a family who could not afford to give it but as there are several hundred children attending our schools the aggregate might be of some value carol and mead hansen forward to give it but as there are several hundred children attending our schools the aggregate might be of some value carol and mead hansen and that is where it started and so the kids did bring and if you watch the parade nowadays you'll see that the ladies relief society members many will be carrying a stick of wood and a potato as tradition nowadays of course it's just non perishable food items could you tell us a bit about the parade itself who participates i'm not usually i'm usually always in the auditorium packing boxes and things like that but one of our biggest helpers is the future farmers of america who come from nevada union high school they collect a lot of food bring it down and they help us pack boxes sometimes they usually are not in able to get out in the parade because they're busy helping us the hennessey school goes and this year it'll be the grass valley charter school i don't know how things will go this year but mount st mary's usually joins us sometimes um schools from nevada city will bus in children to participate in the parade there are some private charter schools that join us um and um it may change some this year i don't know does that parade occur on a particular day yes it's the last day of school which is a minimum day and the parade is at 10 o'clock and this year in 2012 it'll be december 21st and the children march from hennessey school and we also have the lineman gilmore band and and occasionally some of their students will come down one class or so and the marine color guard starts it out and then we have also the pipers which is the tradition that has gone on for many years pipers and drummer and it's i wish i could remember the family's name and i i'm sorry i'm there's so the school kids in the middle of december just before christmas holiday get out and parade through the streets of grass valley and the idea is to make people aware that they're trying to solicit donations for people in our community that need some help no actually the kids have already had it explained to them what donation day is about and they've brought the food to the school the parade itself is just for them they carry a can or whatever they brought and they march through they leave hennessey they go up kneel down mill then down main um and then down south obron street and back to hennessey school and we like to encourage parents and people on the street because the kids just love it and they're so excited um to do the parade and of course it's always weather permitting if the weather is bad then they parade through the halls at hennessey school and a lot of the outside schools wouldn't come it would just be hennessey school parading uh but the pipers still come and and um do that you know that must be exciting for these little kids to get out like that exactly they just love it can you tell the people if someone were to get involved in the community this would be a good way to do it and how would they go about doing that how would they somebody that wasn't aware get a hold of the ladies a society well um there isn't specifically other than our post office box which is 1132 in cedar ridge california 95924 and um we do contact the businesses downtown they usually put posters in their window and they collect food and that's one of the biggest ways that people can help is either food or cash donations to help pay for this because a lot of it you know um our dues have been 25 cents a month ever since the organization started we do have we do have a mandatory uh five dollar donation day uh contribution but all the ladies give more than that um and then um a lot of the fraternal organizations have been supporting us for years um and just individuals will come um and um this has been going on you know for generations i mean we're now um great-grandchildren of members are carrying the banner and so forth well you figure it's been going on you know since uh 18 well 1883 donation day but uh the ladies relief society uh since 1873 and i said i believe i said 1783 originally um so anyway um and i do have the name the ingersal family is the one that have been coming and doing the bagpipes and the drums ever since we were able to contact them and they're now in college and they weren't at the time but they even come back and do it from college it's just amazing they're wonderful people you know i'm going to ask you to slowly go over that address that cedar ridge address once again if somebody sees this i think it's an incredible way to get involved with their community and to me uh community is like what you guys are doing people in the community helping somebody else in the community so could you give that address slowly right it's the grass valley ladies relief society post office box 1132 cedar ridge california 95924 and donation day has gone through a lot of changes i even had pictures have pictures of nevada city having their own donation day parade and and for a long time the nevada city elks did the nevada city families and don wasley was extremely instrumental in that as was k and john ingram i mean graham and um after a period of time that kind of got phased out so we also take care of the nevada city families as well daryl you mentioned that you lived in a town of about 5 000 people when you were a young man and you knew everybody in town now you've seen some drastic changes in the population of western nevada county and grass valley in particular how do you feel about that do you feel like uh you're losing your community or is it gaining strength well i don't feel we're losing our community it's a nice place to live you can't blame anybody for wanting to come here but people leave other places for particular reasons government or whatever but a lot of them want to bring all that back up here and then change this community so i mean a lot of a lot of the people that are born here would like to just keep things the way they are and uh you know you can't shut the gate behind you when you get here you know it's just so we have to but i think the biggest change uh when we were going to school my class in high school was there was 200 and some odd kids now there's like 2500 at a graduation class uh and when i mentioned 5 000 that was in the whole county i think in the whole community not just grass valley because grass valley now i think only has 11 000 so it's just a dramatic change and you know since the mining was so prevalent when we were younger that a lot of the miners knew everybody and when you'd go down you'd you know you know families you know and uh i think the big changes i left here in 1977 to go to Wyoming and the big change came probably in the mid 70s you know that's when the boom really took off you know there were so many contractors so much building and everything going on uh Alta Sierra was formed in the 60s and they couldn't hardly sell a lots three thousand dollars a lot you could buy any lot in there when it first started but you know and and then all of a sudden boom lake wildwood and you know lake of the pines and that's when the real big boom and then you know the economy has slowed it down otherwise it would probably still be going pretty good i want to thank you two people for doing what you do in our community that's what community is all about and i want to thank you for taking some time and sharing your recollections and your memories of days gone by and this is all brought to you by the nevada county historical society and i encourage anyone who is interested in the history of nevada county to check out that organization they're doing wonderful things in this community they're keeping the history alive and that is very important and we had a wonderful time out here in uh little courtyard in nevada city today is june 28th 2012 and i thank you you