WINNEMUCCA - Margaret Hochstrat remembers her parents once hiring a man to babysit her and her younger sister, and one day her parents asked the old Basque sheepherder to build a feed box. Recognizing that building the box and at the same time trying to watch a couple of active 4- and 5-year-olds was not going to be all that easy, he nailed their coattails to the lid of the box.
"We didn't even think about taking our coats off and going anywhere," she said.
Later an opportunity presented itself to get back at him and they took a handful of baby mice and put them in his back pocket!
Born in Meridian, Calif., in Sutter County just north of Sacramento in a maternity home on Aug. 13, 1931, Hochstrat, 81, worked for a good part of her adult life as a tax professional for H&R Block.
Colusa, Calif., was where she was raised, just across the Sacramento River from Meridian. Hochstrat and her three siblings were brought up during the Great Depression.
"One time groceries were real short and we had beans for lunch and dinner (several times), and I got so sick of beans it was years before I could even look at a brown bean (pinto beans)," she said. Although she can eat them now, she is still not interested in seeing beans on her plate as a steady diet.
She loves her siblings, but remembers her youth as a time of constant conflict with them. "There wasn't a day went by that there wasn't at least one fight," Hochstrat said.
Life on a ranch kept her and her siblings busy during her early years tending sheep, milking cows and riding horses.
"It wasn't really too bad," she said. Her dad was one of the last ones in the county to farm with mules. But in 1941 her dad opened a wrecking yard with one car and by the time he died in 1964 he had 7 acres of cars.
"He could tell you every car on that lot," Hochstrat said. "If it hadn't been for him and his wreckin' yard half of Colusa County would have been walking."
But life was not easy. When her parents divorced, the kids bounced back and forth between them and at one point when she was about 7-years-old they had to walk four miles to school year round. "There were no school buses then," she said.
At one time they attended a one-room schoolhouse that offered classes up to eighth grade and the teacher drove in from Chico, Calif., every day. There were four families in the school.
"I got a better education there than half the kids do in the eighth grade now," Hochstrat said.
A camping experience in Deer Lick Springs with her mom sticks in her memory as the time when she took on a fright about bloodhounds. While camping they heard terrible howling and her mother explained those were bloodhounds but didn't explain that a bloodhound was a dog. So, for many years she shook in fear when she heard howling.
Although she was not able to finish high school with her class, she later took the GED test. "I passed it with, they said, the highest grade they'd had in six months."
Afterward, Hochstrat attended Yuba Community College ending up with an associate's degree in accounting. Later she moved to Burney, Calif., with her husband and children.
Several years after her divorce from her first husband she remarried and moved to Russellville, Ark., between Fort Smith and Little Rock, where she remained for about five years before returning to California and to Redding. After several years there they ended up moving to Tuscumbia, Ala., to take care of her husband's elderly parents. It was in Alabama that she first trained in how to do income taxes, receiving her education from H&R Block.
"One year I did over 500 tax returns during the tax season," Hochstrat said. After another divorce she moved back to her home state and to Marysville, Calif. She did all that while also being a seamstress for family and friends.
She enjoyed working with figures during tax time, but it was the interaction with customers and being able to help them with something as confusing as taxes that really interested her. However, after all that training and experience in tax preparation she ended up cashiering at a truck stop for the next several years until moving to Winnemucca.
Arriving in Winnemucca 17 years ago, she worked for a while the front desk at the Value Inn and later became night auditor. Some time before she left her position there she had an aneurysm in her head.
"I'm a walking miracle, whether you believe it or not," Hochstrat said. "I went 12 days living on aspirin."
Finally, she visited a doctor who diagnosed her problem and sent her to Reno where she ended up losing three weeks and when she woke up she told the nurse that she was getting up and out of there and the nurse told her it wasn't going to happen.
"I told her 'hide and watch me,'" Hochstrat said. "Well, they tied me in the bed."
The surgery had gone well, but they had told her daughter it could go either way and she could have ended up with paralyzed legs; however, she says she has had no real after effects, although she admits to problems with memory and sometimes with her eyesight.
"One day I was going from work and driving down the road and here's a pickup comin' at me. Well, there was one on top of the other!" she said.
Ever the stalwart after having an aneurysm and quitting the motel job, she went home and started raising pigs with her son-in-law.
"You wouldn't believe how smart those pigs are," Hochstrat said. "One day I was going out across the yard with the lawnmower and I heard something and looked down and here (Big Red the pig) is romping along with me."
She had followed her daughter Martha (Marty) and husband Billie Warner to Winnemucca, where she has proudly followed the doings of great granddaughter Jordan Mecham.
"She's been pitchin' since she was about 9-years-old. She's taking EMT classes. I've been braggin' about her ever since I've been in here (Harmony Manor)," said great grandma.
Seizures eventually brought her to Harmony Manor, where she has made many friends among the patients and staff and where the food is great.
Hochstrat's words of wisdom for young people center around the need for a good education because you will need it to make a better world. But don't forget to have some fun on the way to adulthood.
"Don't grow up too fast. Be a kid while you can," she said.
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