Joseph P. Mosconi - University of Nevada, Reno

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10 Joseph Mosconi small—and my mother would give them food, and they probably stayed in that big hall. That I can’t remember. But the whole town was just with lots of people that came in from the earthquake. How long did you stay at Angels Camp altogether? I don’t exactly remember. We left in the early part of 1907, sometime. I had a sister born there in 1907, in February, and I think we left right after that and moved back to Truckee. Back to your uncle Jim? Yes. We moved back there, and I think we moved over in the little house over on the other side of the river again. I remember that. Your mother didn’t work, though? She stayed at home all the time? She stayed home all the time. And then we went up to Euer Valley and was making the charcoal. Uncle Jim was the head promoter. He was like a contractor or something? Contractor. He’d arrange all of those [stonework] things. Also, he was the one that started this charcoal up in Euer Valley. And my uncle Joe worked up there, too. It was named after the Euer family; they had a dairy up there. All over, wherever there was meadows in the summertime, there would be a dairy here and a dairy there...all over these mountains. People would go up and just milk the cows? They’d bring the cows up—either by railroad or some of them walked them even from Marysville. From way down in there, sometimes they’d walk the cows for 4 or 5 days or more. In Squaw Valley was a big dairy, and Incline Meadows was a big dairy. Meadow after meadow. Sardine Valley. Hope Valley, up here. You mean they’d milk the cows? They’d bring the cows up there; there was barns, there was homes there. And they’d milk by hand. They had a hand separator because there was no electricity up there. This high altitude feed—grass—has more protein in it than the lower, and they would get more cream per gallon from their cow, see. They’d separate this cream on the 10-gallon can. All right. Then that was full, then they’d haul it to Truckee, and then they’d ship it to the Crystal Creamery in Sacramento. The Crystal Creamery is still there, I think. And they’d make butter out of it? They’d make butter. Sure, the cream would get sour, but that makes good butter. We even shipped it from the ranches ourselves there. Even here. We had the cows. We did sell some milk. One time over here at the Donner Trail ranch we sold some milk to a certain dairy that delivered it in Reno. But most of the other ranchers who had the cows...that’s all we done with the milk. We separated it and then we’d feed the skim milk to the pigs. And here we have this 10-gallon can and we’re pouring-cream in there and when it was full, we’d take it to Reno. Had a ticket on it. It was printed right on [the can].... crystal Creamery, and on the other side there was Mosconi, so-and-so-and-so address. And off she’d go? Have to send that on the railroad?
University of Nevada Oral History Program 11 On the railroad. Then they’d test it, and they’d send you the slip of what your cream tested. They’d pay you so much for the test. So your father moved up and was doing that in Euer Valley? We moved just for the summer. To go up there and be in the dairy? No, we didn’t have no dairy. We went up there to cut wood and make charcoal. Shipped it in boxcars full of charcoal...I think for the railroad company; I don’t know who to. And your dad was part of a group of men, or just himself? He and my uncle Jim. He was more like the brains of the outfit. Do you remember how many guys worked on it? We had wood choppers and teamsters that hauled in the wood. My mother done the cooking. When we had the Donner fire, I went up there and half of a log cabin was still there. You know the Donner fire in the 1960s? Yes. Well, anyway, I’d say there was 10 men. Do you remember what they made? Were they all Italian men that your dad and your uncle knew from north Italy? Most of them all from same part of the country where I was born. They’d cut the wood 4 foot long. Then they’d split it... regular cord wood. They had 2 teams—about 8 horses, something like that—and a wagon, and they’d load this wood on these wagons. The bed of the wagon was made so you could put the wood in from the side. A cord of wood is 4 by 4 by 8. They’d haul maybe 2 cords of wood at a time. See, if it’d get too high to throw up, why, they’d just take off. They had this place where they made like a beehive. Same thing.. .cone like. They had to be with nice, smooth, pure dirt, loam—no rocks or anything—and on a nice flat place. Then they’d start in. They’d leave a hole about 2 foot through all the way around and in front, all filled in with flammable material. Then they start putting these sticks of wood, 4-foot wood, all the way around. They made it round, and they keep going and keep going. I don’t know how far up they’d go, probably 8, 12, maybe 20 feet or so. Four, 5 of those, end to end, and all the way around, still leaving this hole in here. They limbed all those trees and branched them, and they’d take the branches and they’d haul all those down there, too, and they’d put them one on top of the other to make a seal. They didn’t have no machine; it was all done by hand, with a shovel. There’d be one here, one over there, and one over there, and they’d start throwing this dirt—this loam—and they kept doing it and kept doing it and kept doing it, and that’s why they could only go so high, understand, because they had to throw the dirt. It was all done by hand, mind you. All right. I don’t know how thick they would put it on there, just so the blaze couldn’t come through. See, there was no vent. [There] was a Mr. Stefani. He was Professor Gottardi’s uncle. There was a John Gottardi, retired. I know him very well personally. I think he’s younger than I. I know his sister. Pete is dead, the older brother. Then there’s another one; I think there’s 2 brothers. One of them was the professor up at the university; he taught language, I think.
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Joseph P. Mosconi - University of Nevada, Reno

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