By Forrest Newton
WINNEMUCCA - Marie Jones has been a familiar face in Winnemucca for many years as she has worked in several customer service areas such as Johnson's Food Store, Albertsons, Khoury's Marketplace and Kragen Auto Parts (now O'Reilly Auto Parts).
On the other hand her husband David has just quietly been working at Newmont's Twin Creeks Mine for 16 years before retiring last year.
David was born in LaGrange, Ind., July 19, 1943, the eldest of nine kids into an Amish family living the simple life until he was 19.
"We grew everything - our own stuff for all the cows and horses and stuff," he said.
Although he had ridden in cars before, primarily on trips, his family finally got their first car in 1957 when he was about 14. It was also about that time they got electricity and a telephone as did the rest of the Amish community.
"It's a good way to be raised really. No TV, no radio, none of that stuff," he said.
The way of the Amish was to quit school at the end of sixth grade and go to work on the farm full time. That's where David stayed until joining the Navy in 1962. It was while serving his country that he earned his GED when he took the test for the first time and then also received his high school diploma.
As an aviation ordnance sailor he was responsible for loading ordnance on F-4 Phantoms that flew into North Vietnam during the buildup of troops in that conflict.
The aircraft carrier he was on only had one pilot down during the eight months that David was there in late 1965 and the first half of 1966 and even that pilot was eventually rescued three months later.
"I don't remember losing any pilots," he said. "The ones (planes) that were kinda shot up, it was kinda amazing that they were able to make it back to the ship."
It was hard, hot work in the humidity in the water off Vietnam.
"I worked harder on that boat than I ever did on the farm," David said.
After being discharged from the Navy in 1966 he spent most of his life driving truck. One day David was considering changing jobs when a cousin called from Golconda in 1994. Later at Newmont he drove truck for a while, but after a few years he worked into driving equipment.
"I always wanted to be a truck driver," David said. "First and only mine I've ever worked at."
With his interest in truck driving it's no wonder that he first met his wife Marie at a truck stop and cafe. She happened to be at the Colton, Calif., cafe in 1970 while visiting her grandmother when he showed up.
"She was beautiful. I just liked talking to her. She's feisty," he said.
Colton was just a stones throw from Marie's birthplace of San Bernardino, Calif.
"We traveled a lot when I was a kid," Marie, 63, said. "I really appreciate it now that I'm older because I know that no matter where I live we can do it. My raising was really good, even though I traveled a lot."
When her father died at the young age of 45 she became the family breadwinner and at 14 as a bus girl in an Albuquerque, N.M., restaurant she began helping with the expenses.
"I was going to school full time and working full time," Marie said.
During her growing up years she spent a lot of time living with her grandmother in the mountains of Vallecitos, N.M.
"Her house had dirt floors. No indoor plumbing. I could never figure out why we had to sweep the dirt floors," she said. "It was just really neat."
Marie remembers one of her family's many moves with a certain amount of fondness when she got to ride in the bed of their pickup with a tarp tied over it from California to New Mexico with her dog, her bird and herself in the family recliner with her battery-operated radio.
"I had a ball. That was the best trip," she remembers. "I sat in that recliner and if I needed something dad had a string with a bell that went into the cab of the truck and if I needed anything I'd ring the bell!"
Marie was around a lot of Spanish-speaking people when she was growing up from her mother and grandmother to cousins and aunts and uncles and still uses it daily in conversations.
"I have two aunts who I talk to every day (in Spanish) on the phone," she said.
Later to better help support her parents she moved to Colton to work and bought a station wagon for $75. She said that the previous owners apparently raised rabbits because she just could never get it clean.
"It didn't have first gear, it had second gear," she said. "When you turned the turn signal on the horn would honk. But it served my purpose."
When she and David went to buy rings one night after dinner she said to herself that she had better not lose them because being Amish David may never buy her any more as the Amish were not big on jewelry.
Initially they lived in an apartment house, room number nine and the memory of that has always stayed with them as country singer Tammy Wynette had a song out by the same name "Apartment Number 9" and Marie often sings it at karaoke nights.
Their daughter Heather Hickman and grandson Jared live in Winnemucca. Son Zachary is now in California and is married to the former Elma Rojas and has their grandchildren Larissa and Jesse James.
One of their first homes was in a the small town of West Cajon, Calif., and Marie hasn't forgotten the time when they were in their home when she heard a rattlesnake just outside the door on the steps. Her brave husband killed it.
"I told him if we ever have a snake in the house I'm gone," she said.
A few years ago Marie went on disability because of her sugar diabetes and David retired from Newmont in March of 2010.
They are enjoying their retirement, traveling when they want and sitting back when they don't.
"Basically I just hang around here (at home)," David said.
They had considered several places to retire to, but decided that Winnemucca was home and they have a lot of friends here, although David would like to go somewhere else during the wintertime.
"Our thing is to get in that four-wheel drive pickup and just head out the dirt roads, go looking at wildlife," Marie said.
"I've actually got more friends here than really anyplace else really," David said.
"They've kinda become family," Marie said.
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