Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

About This Item:

Title: Volume 055-4 - October 2001 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-12 07:12:14 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:01 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:01

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 8  

NCHS Bulletin October 2001 Afternoon of Life by Karen Rosenberg (This interview was published in April 1977 by the Western Slopes Connection, a Nevada City weekly newspaper) I TIS FITTING THAT THE PERSON WHO HELPED START the county’s historical society, and served as county historian, is also the author of two books chronicling the most talked-about events of the area’s history—the Gold Rush and Lola Montez. Doris Foley, author of Gold Cities and The Divine Eccentric, has an interest in Nevada County that goes back to the days when she was a young girl listening to her grandmother tell stories of Lola Montez, visiting with Chinese laborers imported to construct the railroad, and meeting with the native Maidus. Following is an interview with Foley, and on the facing page the story she recently wrote about one of the last members of the once substantial Chinese community in North San Juan. Doris Foley: In my educational work they always told us never to start a history course of any kind with children until after the third grade. I think that’s true because they’re not too interested in history. When I taught first grade one time I remember on Lincoln’s birthday, we were making Valentines at the same time, and one youngster said that he wanted to send his to Abraham Lincoln. I said, “Oh, but he’s not here.” He said, “Well then send it to George Washington.” That’s what history meant to them in the first Doris Foley wrote the best book about Lola Montez’s life in California, and established a reputation for careful research. grade. It was around the fourth grade that I became interested in history. I think the reason for it was that my teacher was Margaret Kelly, and as a little girl she knew James Marshall [who had discovered gold in 1848 at Sutter’s Mill]. She used to play on the floor of his blacksmith’s shop. She became very interested in him and later wrote his story and collected his things for a museum. She might have been an inspiration because I was always interested in the Gold Rush period. That was just about the only thing I was interested in for a long, long time. Q: Nevada City and Grass Valley were very much still “Gold Cities” when you were growing up, weren’t they?” DF: Yes, but it was over in El Dorado County that I knew Margaret Kelly. That’s where my father and mother lived until my father’s death, and then my mother remarried and came over this way. I was a little girl when we came on the narrow gauge [railroad]. And I'll never forget the omnibus that came from the National Hotel. I can’t remember if it was horse or auto, but I think it was auto, and they backed up against the curbing there at the little station. We entered through the back end and sat along the side of it. It was my first experience in Nevada City at the National Hotel. And then the next morning my stepfather had rented this car to take us up to Foote Road. He wanted to show my mother the sights of Foote Road and Alleghany. And then we went down to Pike where his ranch was located. And I was there until high school days. Then they sent me down to the National Hotel to live so I could be near to the high school.™ They sent my horses with me. I knew no one here. I was about fourteen or fifteen. At that time I remember reading The Diary of a 49er. 1 loved that story. Q: As a teenager, what was it that struck you about that story? DF: That it might be authentic. I loved anything that was a true story. I never would care for fiction. It was the fact that it could have been real and the names were the same names as the pioneers that lived here. At the end of my freshman year I wrote my first historical story. It was about this man who was having problems with tuberculosis. He had gone up on Sugar Loaf to rest and just stretched out there looking towards the town, wishing that he knew about its history. All of a sudden he heard this rumbling voice and old Sugar Loaf itself began to talk and told him the story. I wrote this in high school and submitted it to be published in The Quill, but it was rejected. The Quill was the annual magazine that the school got out. Of course the type of story they chose was usually something more modern. You know how young people like modern things. My poor old historical story bit the dust at that time. I don’t remember writing again for quite some time. I enjoyed living at the National. That was really fun. There were a lot of high school teach~™ ers living there too. I remember on Saturdays we rode the streetcar between Nevada City and Grass Valley. And there where it stopped [at the northwest corner of Broad and Pine