MCDERMITT - Women have long been the ones to care for the sick, using the knowledge of folk remedies and medicines handed from generation to generation to treat any number of ailments.
It became a trained profession in the late 1800s in England when standards, registration and regulations, led by Florence Nightingale, were established. The United States formed similar regulations and organizations that standardized training methods for nurses.
Longtime McDermitt resident Mary Lou (Laca) Minor did not graduate from McDermitt Combined School, but as Humboldt County school nurse, she treated kids at the school and throughout the county for over three decades.
She moved just south of McDermitt to the Minor Place shortly after she married Gary Minor on Nov. 28, 1954.
Mary Lou's father, Pete Laca, came from Bilboa, a Basque province in Spain, with his mother, Leona Laca, in 1901 at the age of nine. They joined his father Domingo in Lovelock, Nev., where he was herding sheep. Later Domingo and his brother moved to the Mitchell Place north of McDermitt.
Mary Lou's maternal grandparents, George and Grace Newman, lived on the Vance Ranch near the Mitchell Place, and their daughter Madeliene was only 15 years old when her mother signed permission for Madeline to become the bride of Pete Laca.
After their marriage Pete and Madeline moved to Jordan Valley, Ore., most likely traveling by horseback, to make their living and raise their family. Pete worked for Ed Stoffer for 10 years before moving into town with his family, which by then included daughters Dorothy Peterson and Patricia Danner, to work at a service station owned by Jenero Rementaria.
After the move to town, a third daughter Georgiann Snyder came along, then the service station burned to the ground just before his fourth daughter, Mary Lou, joined them on Aug. 12, 1933.
Pete then built a service station of his own that he operated for 16 years, during which time daughters Virginia Haynes and Linda Edmonson were born, rounding out a total of six girls! (It is interesting to note here that the next owner of the service station, which is now the Ranch Supply Store, also had six daughters.)
The Laca family lived across the street from the grade school and when Mary Lou was four she would run over to the school and the teachers would let her stay.
Her favorite teacher was Mrs. Bennett in the fourth grade. In high school the girls had no coach - still, she remembers playing basketball and not liking to play volleyball. She worked after school at the Bus Stop Cafe for 3 ½ years, and only got into a little bit of trouble when she was a junior and the tradition was to skip school on April Fool's Day - not the best idea when your dad is on the school board!
Graduating from Jordan Valley High School in 1951, Mary Lou's friend Lova Loveland wanted her to go to nursing school with her in Boise, Idaho.
After Lova changed her plans and married Ray Easterday, Mary Lou set off on the journey by herself. The program at St. Luke's was for three years, with classes during the winter session while working unpaid for eight hours a day year around. She was capped five months into the program on Feb. 1, 1952, and continued to work year around, including psychiatric training for three months in Blackfoot, Idaho, and six weeks of tuberculosis training in Gooding, Idaho, until she graduated in 1954.
Gary Minor had deep roots in McDermitt. His grandfather William H. Minor homesteaded above today's Willow Creek Ranch in 1887 and his great Uncle James was Nevada's second Secretary of State.
The Minor family holdings increased with the homesteading of the Mentaberry Ranch and the Jacamento Place south of McDermitt. As the Great Depression lingered on, much of the land was sold off, except for the Minor Place, which was leased to Dave and Josie (Bengoa) Bankofier for a number of years.
Gary grew up in town in a house, no longer there, just east of Louie Jaca's house. With no high school in McDermitt, Gary attended Humboldt County High School his freshman year, transferring during his sophomore year to Jordan Valley, where he graduated in 1949.
He and Mary Lou knew each other, but it was some years later, after he served in the military in Korea and returned to his job at the home ranch in Orovada and she graduated from nursing school, that they got together again and married on Nov. 28, 1954.
They lived in the brand new duplex at the home ranch for a little while before leasing and operating the Minor Place from Gary's dad, Bill Minor. They lived in the house that was there until it was moved to the reservation in 1968, when Gary and Mary Lou built the beautiful home that she still lives in today.
Their daughter Yvonne Johnson (MHS 1973) - who was named by Mary Lou - was born in 1955, and now lives in Lovelock while working for the Silver Peak Mine. Mary Lou's granddaughter, Lindsey Tregellas and great granddaughter Addison, age 4, live in Winnemucca. Her other granddaughter, Sherry Van Horne, lives in Pasco, Wash. Her son Cash (MHS 1975) - named by Gary - and his wife Dorothy live in Elko, where Cash is the assistant manager of Elko County. Grandson Adam is with Verizon in North Dakota and Brynn is attending college in Salt Lake City
Mary Lou started working at the McDermitt Combined School in 1966 as a nurse and study hall teacher. She did a lot with Indian Health, even making home visits. She held this position until 1973 when she took three years off during which time she took a four-month practitioner training class at UNR.
It was the fall of 1976 that she accepted the position as Humboldt County school nurse, traveling to all the schools in the district. She drove 10,000 miles per year between McDermitt, Denio, Kings River, Orovada, Paradise Valley, Leonard Creek and Jackson Mountain, as well as the three schools in Winnemucca - the grammar school, the junior high and the high
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school! (At that time there were about 1,500 students total in the county.)
Mary Lou gave immunizations (Patti Albisu and Debbie Hill agree that they were practically painless); screenings for vision, scoliosis and dental; monitored weight and height; gave programs on health care, dental care, and growth and development; and sometimes she filled in as a shoulder to lean on.
In April of 1994 the Minor Place was sold to Wilkinson Brothers with arrangements made for the couple to continue to live in their home. Gary passed away later that year on Nov. 30. Mary Lou retired from full-time work in 1999 and continued part time until 2001. Since then she has kept herself busy traveling to faraway places, on trips often called "sister" trips as she and one or more of her sisters sometimes shared the adventure.
The tradition started when she and her sisters traveled to Las Vegas together for her nephew's wedding. Her first big trip was to Hawaii, followed up with Florida and then closer to home to Colorado and Wyoming. Charleston, S.C., and Florida again in 1999, was with four of her sisters. (She has returned to Florida several times since.) A fun trip for a collector of Swarovski Crystal was a cruise that included Austria, Italy and Greece. 2002 found her in Canada and then Germany and France with her granddaughters. The next year was a cruise in the Caribbean and in 2005 she and three of her sisters visited lighthouses on the Oregon coast. She has been to Alaska, Mexico, and our own New York as well as a month in Australia, and a "Journey to the New World" Cruise. While telling her story, Mary Lou shared some of the beautiful pictures of a recent and maybe her longest trip - a 35-day cruise to China, Vietnam, South Korea, Russia and Alaska with her sister, Virginia, just last spring.
Her travels were put on the shelf for almost a year when she was struck with a bacterial infection in her leg five years ago, requiring five and half months in a Reno hospital where she underwent several surgeries. She then spent four more months of recovery with Cash and his family in Elko before she was able to return home.
When Mary Lou is not traveling to exotic and faraway places, she still enjoys her home on the Minor Place, where she has been for nearly 60 years now. She says that she enjoyed working all those years with students in McDermitt and that she probably told them plenty through the years, but would still share with today's kids.
"Be true and challenge yourself to do the very best you can and look to the future. A good education is so very important to the career you may choose. Making good choices in today's society is a real plus!"
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