WINNEMUCCA - If her husband could grow 'em she could can 'em. Angela Mentaberry, 91, said there was a time when her husband, John Mentaberry Jr., had a huge garden on the lot next door to the house she lives in and she spent a lot of time canning.
"One time he had 32 tomato plants," she said, and she accidentally stepped on a few. "And I never bought a can of tomato sauce for the whole year."
Born on the Rock Creek Ranch outside Orovada in 1921, the first of five children into a loving Basque family in a house that would over the years hold two and three families comprised of 10 children.
Mentaberry still retains fond memories of her years on the ranch living with those families as they gave her lots of playmates. They raised sheep and cattle, but one of her jobs was gathering cows from the pasture each day and bringing them in for her brothers and cousins to milk. She said that was almost a mile, so she doesn't understand why people enjoy golfing.
She remembers the beautiful apple orchard her father had, which regularly garnered ribbons at the Humboldt County Fair each year. During that time she was also learning some tricks in the kitchen, such as baking for which she developed a certain reputation. They were using Watkins' products and the cake recipes were in English so, her parents couldn't read them giving her a leg up in the baking department.
Although she was born on the 24th of June, her dad wasn't able to make it in to the Rebel Creek Post Office to file the birth until the 26th so Nevada marked her birthday as the date of filing.
"If Carson City said it's 26 let it be 26," Mentaberry said. "So, I just start celebrating the 24th and quit the 26th!"
Come time to go to school her first grade year she had to walk a mile to get to the Orovada classrooms, but that was only the beginning of difficulties.
"I did not speak one word of English," she said. It was the first time the little Basque girl had heard much English and her first grade teacher began to teach her this new language. Her mother and father, the Gabicas, were both from Spain's Basque country and never used English in the home. However, there was so much talk about the old country that even though her parents never returned when someone came to visit from there she felt like she already knew them. Mentaberry is still able to speak the old Basque language she learned from her parents, but said there are few around anymore that speak the old original Basque.
She said that she thought little of learning another language as everything about school was new to her and it was just something else to adjust to outside her home.
"We had some nice teachers," she said. And when her siblings began to also attend the school she was able to lead the way. "We went together. We fussed and fought a little bit and went ahead and got to school," Mentaberry said in her matter-of-fact way.
After attending Orovada's small school through the eighth grade she boarded with families in Winnemucca while attending Humboldt County High School paying her way, in exchange for room and board, by babysitting, washing dishes or whatever needed doing while attending school, which she didn't find all that interesting.
No sooner did she graduate high school than she married John, who had been courting her during most of her high school years. It was the Depression years and he had been pulled out of school to help on his folk's ranch, but was able to attend weekend dances at the Winnemucca and Martin hotels when the rodeo was in town. It was at those dances they met and where they spent time together until she graduated high school.
"He was my boyfriend all the time I went to high school, practically," she said.
According to Mentaberry John acquired quite a reputation in high school the one year he was there when he was on the football team. One day after they were married the couple was walking down the street in Winnemucca when a friend called out "Hello Bull!," which startled her and she asked her husband where that came from.
"He said because in football he got that name because no one could stop him," she said.
"The rest of the city kids (in high school) were all driving their little cars and things," she said. "I didn't know what driving was." They didn't own a car and it wasn't until long after she was married that she finally drove one.
Mentaberry doesn't remember there being a great adjustment from ranch life to city life when she moved to Winnemucca as she easily adjusted to varied circumstances during her life. However, she does remember it was quite a walk from the home she was boarding in over near Scott's Shady Court to the high school where the Humboldt County School District offices are now.
The newlyweds moved in with his parents for several years, which has given her an appreciation for having her own place. The union produced two girls, Marilyn Dee (Mernie) Warn of Winnemucca and Rita LaRae Warden, now of Reno. The in-laws' ranch was the Washburn Creek Ranch outside of McDermitt.
"I had very nice in-laws," Mentaberry said. "I got along really good with my mother-in-law." Eventually her father-in-law moved a house onto the ranch and they fixed it up and moved into their little nest.
Later her husband got a job at the Cordero Mine where they spent 10 years during which time both daughters went to the school there for eight years and she ended up one of the trustees of the school.
It was while John was working at Cordero that they bought their first car, a wine-colored Plymouth. She was a waitress and oftentimes the cook at the Cordero dining hall, where it oftentimes took on a family atmosphere with her husband helping and the two girls waiting tables during the summer.
"He was a workaholic," she said. "Jack of all trades. Master of none." John passed away in 2001.
During the time the girls were in high school in Winnemucca, back before McDermitt had a high school, John had some hearing problems caused from his work at the mine and they ended up in the big city where they lived in the house next door to the one she lives in today. And when she moved into the one she's now in she was no stranger to it as in the past it was in the living room of that house that she got her hair done. Her father had bought the house years before and was renting it out to a hairdresser. When they moved to Winnemucca John went to work for the Dyer Lumber Co.
When they moved into the house Mentaberry lives in now during the 1950s there was a small cellar under the house. John decided he wanted more room and eventually dug out an entire basement the size of the house. Their daughters would come home from high school at lunchtime and push and pull wheelbarrows full of dirt out of the cellar and dump in the back of the pickup and then do the same thing after school.
"That's the kind of pastimes we had," she said.
She remembers going to the circus when it was in town, which would set up in the area now occupied by Uptown Market on Bridge Street.
In the early '60s the Mentaberrys bought the Westerner Trailer Lodge on Fourth Street from her brother and lived there for about 20 years managing that property and in 1978 sold it to her youngest daughter and her husband, who have since sold it to their son and then she moved back into the house she had occupied before and still does today.
Nowadays she sits at the living room window watching traffic, the intersection and the world going to work and about its daily business. Little has changed out that window over the years, except perhaps the traffic on Bridge Street has become heavier. Besides taking care of her home by herself she also likes to read magazines with recipes and the local paper.
"I like the Humboldt Sun very much. It tells me what goes on in Winnemucca," Mentaberry said. "I keep busy, if it isn't one thing it's something else. I don't plan to move anywhere."
She has four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren who regularly stop in and share their lives with her. She used to go to the Pleasant Senior Center regularly, but her hearing is not all that good so, she decided to try Meals on Wheels and really loves it.
A couple of weeks ago her furnace went out, but she stayed in the house and made do with some small heaters. "I was never cold," she said. "I didn't suffer from the cold." She said that she and her husband didn't take many vacations so she doesn't feel any compunction in bumping up the thermostat to keep comfortable. "My vacation is my heat," she said. The only prescription she takes is for her blood pressure.
"I like people, but I just can't hear, so people maybe think that I don't care because I can't hear," Mentaberry said. "But I like Winnemucca. I like everything about it. I've a lot of good friends here."
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