Transcript of interview with Sigrid Capel by Michael McKenna, February 10, 1980

UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel i An Interview with Sigrid Capel An Oral History Conducted by Michael McKenna Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel iv Abstract Sigrid Capel (b. 1915 in Ely, Nevada) provides an oral history narrative about growing up in Southern Nevada and serving in several civil service positions. She begins by talking about her experiences of growing up in Ely, Nevada, including her childhood trips to Lake Tahoe. She then describes going to business school in San Diego before returning to work as a secretary for the Agricultural Extension Service. Capel then describes the details of a trip to Norway, from which her parents emigrated, as well as to other European countries. She later lists some of the recreational activities available in Ely before mentioning the notable Ely natives who entered significant political and service positions in Nevada. Capel goes on to describe her experiences working for the Nevada Gaming Control Board and eventually becoming assistant city clerk for Las Vegas, the jury commissioner for the county clerk, and executive secretary for the Clark County Board of County Commissioners. Capel concludes the interview with a brief mention of her retirement. Note: Photographs and newspaper clippings provided by Sigrid Capel can be viewed in the Appendix at the end of the interview. UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 1 Narrator is Sigrid Capel. The date is February 10th, 1980, 3:30 pm. The place is 4410 South Bluecrest Road, Las Vegas, Nevada. The collector is Mike McKenna, 2301 Pommel Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. The project is History 117, Oral Interview. I was born in Ely, Nevada in 1915, my parents both being immigrants from Norway. My father came to Ely in 1906 and my mother in 1914. My mother had lived in New York for a few months and then in Portland, Oregon, and when she came to Ely, she thought it was the most godforsaken place on earth. One day, my father came home and said, “Marie, get yourself ready for a picnic Sunday; I have rented a horse and buggy and I want to take you out to a lake.” Well, the lake he took her to was about nine miles south of Ely called Cummins Lake, which is a very small body of water surrounded by nothing but sagebrush—no trees, no grass. She was thoroughly convinced by this time that this was not the place for her, but due to World War I, they were unable to get back to Norway and was going to make the best of it in Ely. When I was five years old, her family did move to Norway where they stayed for three years. I went to school here in first and second grades, and when we came back to Ely, I couldn’t speak a word of English. My parents were very concerned about me growing up speaking with an accent, and also my brother, who was born in Norway. So, nothing but English was spoken around the house, and we were not allowed to use any slang. We had to be very careful about (unintelligible). They were very much determined that we were going to grow up and be good, American citizens. And Ely was a good place for children to grow up. There was a lot to do around there, there was a lot of fun. In 1927, my parents and another family by the name of Johnson, also Norwegian, took a week’s trip by automobile from Ely to Lake Tahoe. We made the trip in a 1924 Overland Touring Sedan, and we were able to get as far as Fallon the first night. We carried UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 2 water in the car for both ourselves and the automobile. The next day, we went on to Reno; there was a state exposition going on, and we took that in, and then we drove up to Lake Tahoe. At that time, there was nothing in the lake except beautiful country. We spent the whole week driving around the lake, camping in different places. When we crossed the state line into California, my mother got quite upset because of the California Inspection Station. You need to stop, unload the cars, unroll the bedding, unroll the tents—unload everything. And she was fuming. She said, “What does California think, that I have bugs?” In 1928, I made another trip to Lake Tahoe with the Girl Scouts. This time, we went by train to Ely to Reno, stayed the night in Reno with families of other Girl Scouts, and then up to Lake Tahoe for the week or for ten days. Also, at this time, there was still nothing at the lake but camping grounds and beautiful country. The whole trip, ten days, including the train ride, in ten days we’d stay and camp, it was ten dollars round trip. During Prohibition—this is a funny story—right behind our house on Murray Street is a hill, and the garages for each house were built right into the side of the hill. Behind the garage was a cellar of sorts dug into the mountain. Well, my girlfriend and I were sleigh riding down the top of this hill, and it went right off, sloped off to the end of the hill, and a pipe sticking out of the ground, we smelled, oh, the liquor smell coming out of there was real strong. So we dashed off thinking we really had a story—told our folks we had discovered a still and where it was. And my dad laughed and he says, “Oh, Sigrid, everybody in town knows it’s there.” So, he kind of burst our bubble on that. When I was in high school in March of 1930, my first year of high school, our basketball team won the state championship. One of the players was Dr. Russell Elliot who got his doctorate in Nevada History and was later professor of history, or head of the History Department for the University of Nevada in Reno. He recently retired and was a professor UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 3 emeritus. Between my first and second year of high school, during the summer months, we spent at Lund, Nevada, which is a farming community about thirty-five miles south of Ely. And my father was a building contractor and was down there to build the high school. So we spent this whole summer living right on the school ground in a tent, and my brother and I had a wonderful time. I’m sure my mother didn’t enjoy it very much because it wasn’t the best way of keeping house, but it was one way she could be sure that my father had proper food and was properly taken care of. Ely and Las Vegas were, at this time, about the same size, approximately 5,000 population, and our big football game of the year was on Thanksgiving. And when it was played in Ely, which was every other year, we used to pray for snow because the Las Vegas (unintelligible). And when my daughter was in high school, she went to Rancho; she was president (unintelligible) the year that Rancho’s homecoming game with Las Vegas was played and Rancho run, and I told her that, “Now you know how I used to feel.” At this time, she couldn’t believe it, because at this time, White Pine High School was not in the same league as Las Vegas High School. We only had forty-eight people graduating in my class in 1932. There were some other very prominent people from my high school: Senator (unintelligible) also graduated, I believe in 1931—no, he was in my school in ’32—later became dean of students at the University of Nevada in Reno. Of course, I mentioned Dr. Elliot. Jack Richardson is one of the owners of the Gold Strike Inn out here, the first casino this side of Boulder Dam. And (unintelligible), later to become head of the Motor Vehicle Department for the State of Nevada. In 1932 and ’33, I left Ely and went to San Diego to business college. This was the spring when the banks all closed, and I had enough money with me—it was right in the middle of the Depression—my parents had given me enough money to pay for ten months’ tuition, which I had put in the bank. The banks all closed, so none of the students were able to UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 4 pay for tuition, and the school just remained open. Luckily, our bank reopened, and the money was good, but a lot of people lost their life savings at that time. When I finished business college, I was told that if you were able to get a job for fifty dollars a month, feel lucky and be prepared to work for two weeks without pay while you’re learning the job. And still, there were no jobs available. So, I went home to Ely, and unable to find a job there, I applied for every job in town I thought, except one, and that was the one I happened to get. In the meantime, while I was waiting for secretarial work, three boys that I had gone to school with and myself formed a little orchestra, (unintelligible) orchestra. We had no money to join the musicians here (unintelligible) so we just played for country dances. That was a lot of fun; the dances would start around nine or ten o’clock at night and go approximately two o’clock in the morning. That’s what we agreed to play for. And they’d pass the hat for the musicians, hoping we’d play a little longer, so we’d play another couple of hours. And we’d pass the hat again, we’d play till five or six o’clock in the morning. Maybe for the whole night’s work, we’d get five dollars or six dollars apiece, which in those days, was a lot of money. In January of 1934, I got this job as secretary to the Agricultural Extension Service Agent. His name was Claude Townsend, his nickname Mud—I never did find out where he got the nickname Mud—but he was known all over the state of Nevada by that name. His son Wallace is here in Las Vegas now, and I believe he’s a keno writer for one of the hotels. It was interesting work; as I say, it was the only job in town that I hadn’t applied before because I felt that (unintelligible) was there for life. And Mr. Townsend called me up one afternoon after having been out the night before with a friend of the family and finding out that I was looking for job and said he had heard that I was looking for work, and I said yes, I was, and he said, “Go bring your pick and shovel and come on over this afternoon.” It turned out this secretary, UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 5 Christine Russell, was going to leave to get married, and I got the job and held it for a little over four years when I left to get married. Under our jurisdiction, we had five counties, three to begin with: White Pine, Eureka, and Lander. And I think I knew every rancher and every sheep man in all three counties by name. I used to go with Mr. Townsend to the various counties, ranches, and take the minutes of the different farm bureau names, and they’d usually have a rodeo, so I’d (unintelligible) the ranch. Later on, we took in Nye and Esmerelda County—that was at the time that the Taylor Grazing Act came to be. Also, talking about the Taylor Grazing Act, there was a meeting on that (unintelligible) Pioche, Nevada, which is in Lincoln County, and one of the people in attendance was Rex Bell, a (unintelligible) movie star who had lived with wife, Clara Bow, the former “It Girl” in a ranch in Clark County. Rex Bell was about the handsomest thing I think I’d ever seen. He was glowing; he was dressed in a black cowboy western outfit from head to toe. Later, he became lieutenant governor of the State of Nevada and ran for governor but died before the election. During my stay, my work at the Agricultural Extension Service, one of our trips took me to Tonopah with Mr. and Mrs. Townsend, and after the meeting, we met this friend of Mr. Townsend’s who was also a friend of Death Valley Scotty’s, and she had arranged for us to go to Death Valley. She had prepared a picnic lunch, and we drove down to Death Valley. We met at the castle by Death Valley Scotty who took us up to the castle, and then afterwards, we saw in his kitchen. He joined us for a picnic lunch. There was terrible drought during this time, the period that I worked there, too. We had nine veterinarians working in our office and federal veterinarians who were going out to the different ranches and appraising the cattle. Those that were able to walk to the railroad, the ranchers were paid something like twenty or thirty dollars a UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 6 head for them—I can’t remember exactly—and those that were not strong enough, because of starvation, to walk to the railroad, they shot on the spot and the rancher was paid something like ten dollars a head for them. The cattle, I understand, [that] were then able to make it to railroad were shipped to the central part of the United States I think around, I think it was Oklahoma, where they were slaughtered. And the meat was canned for people on relief, people belonged in soup lines. It was a very bad time in this country. I was very fortunate in that I had a job that started out to pay me one hundred dollars a month; that was an unheard of amount for a secretary to make at that time, and I think after four years, I was making $150 a month. In two-and-a-half years as secretary on this salary, I was able to save $1,000.00, which I decided I would take my two weeks’ vacation, and I was granted a three months’ leave of absence, and I decided to go to Europe. I took a (unintelligible) train from Salt Lake City to New York and went by steamer from New York to Southampton, it was a Bremen North German Lloyd Line. And then from Southampton, we had a train to London, two-and-a-half days hotel in London, train to Newcastle, took a boat to Bergen, Norway, another boat to Alesund, Norway where I was—my mother and my aunt were with me, and we were met by relatives in Alesund, had lunch with my mother’s cousin and my grandmother who met us there—after lunch, got another boat to (unintelligible) and then another boat from there to (unintelligible) which is where my grandmother lived. I spent seven weeks in Norway and then left my mother and my aunt there and took the train from where I was staying with my grandmother to Oslo, the capital of Norway, met a friend there and had a good time. Then we took an airplane from Oslo to Berlin, stopping, changing planes in Copenhagen and getting on the German plane in Berlin from Copenhagen for Berlin. This was the opening day of the Olympic Games in 1936, and the plane circled the (unintelligible) which was up over UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 7 the Olympic stadium. It circled the (unintelligible) three times before landing. I spent three weeks in Berlin, took in all of the field activities at the Olympic Games, and then by train to Paris where I had two-and-a-half days, hotel and meals in Paris; train to (unintelligible) where I met (unintelligible) with my mother and aunt; and then back to New York and back to Salt Lake City, the total trip costing a little more than $300.00. And of course, I didn’t care if I spent everything I had because I had a job to come back to, but I did have $100.00 left from the (unintelligible). Getting back to the Olympic Games, this was 1936 in the year that Jesse Owens took all of the gold medals for the United States. At the time I purchased my tickets and made arrangements to attend the games, there were no hotel rooms available, but the Olympic Committee made arrangements for various private homes to take in tourists, and I stayed with the German family. The husband and the daughter could speak no English, but the mother and the son could speak a little English. And I took one or two days away from the Olympic Games, and the mother took me on some real interesting sightseeing trips around Berlin. And one thing that was interesting at that time was that I could be downtown in Berlin for no more than half a mile without a parade of stormtroopers come by. In the Olympic stadium, I was seated directly across from Hitler’s box, and of course his flags were up (unintelligible). They made arrangements to seat people in groups of their own nationality, so I was surrounded by Americans. In the first day or two of the Olympics, they announced everything only in German—no other language—during which time I was able to pick up a little German by just following the program, but then someone must have complained because they announced the scores and the winners and the events in three or four different languages: English, French, I believe Spanish, besides German. UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 8 I came back to Ely and of course took up my job again with the Agricultural Extension Service. We took the trip one day to Mt. Wheeler—my brother and myself—and we went out to Kirkeby Ranch, spent the night with the Kirkebys, and the next morning at 4:30, started out on horseback with Laverne Kirkeby and Rodney Kerb, who was a hired hand with the Kirkebys. We rode horseback to Timberline, which is about 10,000 feet, and then tied the horses up and walked the rest of the way. This is on the west side of Mt. Wheeler, on the Spring Valley side. Mt. Wheeler is 13,061 feet elevation, and the last 3,000 feet were very, very difficult to make—take two steps and sit down and rest, and take two steps and sit down and rest. However, we made it to the top, and it was a beautiful clear day. We counted seven mountain ranges that we could see in the distance. We had a lunch on top of the mountain and then started back down to pick up horses, rode back to the ranch, and it was just exactly twelve hours from start to finish, but a very interesting trip—exhausting and I would never do it again, but I had to do it once. Another trip that I took during this time was to Wendover, the salt flats, where they do a lot of the racing. This was, I can’t remember the exact year, but it was sometime in this period from ’34 to ’38. But we went in for the purpose of watching Sir Malcolm Campbell set a new world speed record in his racing car called the Blue Bird—very, very interesting. Something else I might mention about my father: he was able to bring in, or not bring in, but to detect water with the aid of a warped willow tree, which is called water (unintelligible). Not only was he able to find the water, but he was able, by triangulation and mathematics, to tell how deep one would have to dig to come to water. The only thing he wasn’t able to do was to tell how much water was there, but he did bring in two wells that I know of for different people—not bring it in but found them. One was for the Majors’ place, which is a little restaurant, bar, and service station just on the Spring Valley side of Conor’s Pass, just starting up the mountain, and the other one UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 9 was for the Kirkebys’ ranch; he brought in a very good well. This was one of the last things he was able to do before he became ill on his last illness. Ely was a real fun place for children to grow up. There was skiing, sleigh riding, ice skating on Comins Lake in the winter; and swimming, tennis, hiking in the summer. All of our family vacations that I remember were spent on the creeks fishing and hunting. My father was a great sportsman. My brother was six years younger than I. I think he taught us both at about age ten how to handle a gun—took us out hunting with him, loved to have us go with him hunting and fishing. And these are very fond memories; I think again that my mother probably didn’t enjoy them as much as the rest of the family, although she did love the country and some of the most beautiful country in the state of Nevada is in the White Pine area where Lehman’s Caves; Lehman Creek and Baker Creek were some of our favorite places to go. I don’t know how many trips I’ve made through Lehman’s Caves, but I remember the first ones, we used to climb down a ladder to get into the caves and carry miners’ maps. Now they’re all, of course, electrified, and there’s a tunnel going in, so there isn’t (unintelligible) what we used to do. My parents were, as I say, both born in Norway, and they instilled in my brother and myself a real pride in our knowledge and heritage, but even more so in our United States citizenship. They were very patriotic and very loyal to the United States, celebrating every American holiday as it came along. As an example, Washington’s birthday never went by without us having a cherry pie. We’ve had some famous people from Ely. Two of our former governors: Vail Pittman was the owner and editor of the Ely Daily Times, and former Governor Charles Russell was owner and editor of the Ely Record. Pat McCarran, our former United States Senator, after whom McCarran Airport is named, was campaigning through Ely one time when my brother was about, oh, I think eight years old, and he came home one day, and he says, “Mother and Daddy, you’ve UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 10 gotta vote for Pat.” They said, “Why is that?” “Oh, he’s a great guy. He bought all us kids ice cream cones down at the fairgrounds.” He was quite a politician, a very well-loved Nevada senator. I left Ely in 1938 when I married my first husband, and we moved to Reno, Nevada. The first summer, we lived at Lake Tahoe; my husband worked for the Standard Oil Company and was transferred to Tahoe City for the summer, which was a very nice way to spend my first summer, and in the fall, back to Reno. And then, in 1939, we moved to California where I lived for the next twenty years. I returned to Nevada in June of 1959—nice, hot summer day. I think the temperature was 110 degrees when I arrived. That summer, I didn’t work, but I made many trips back and forth to Ely; it was my father’s last year, and he was ill, and I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. In the fall, I went to work for the Gaming Control Board, and George Ullom was the member appointed from Las Vegas. The chairman of the board was Ray (unintelligible) and the other member of the board was Nick Turner, also a native of Ely, Nevada. They were all appointed by Governor Grant Sawyer, and this was the first gaming control board to act in this particular capacity; before this, the gaming had been under the control of the Nevada Tax Commission. When I went in for my interview with all three of the board members, of course I said, “Well, I know Mr. Turner,” and he was curious as to what my maiden name was and I told him, (unintelligible). He says, “Why, we were neighbors one block down the street from me,” and I said, “Yes, I know.” Well, from then on, it was nothing by reminiscences about Ely, and of course, George was sitting back there sort of laughing because he realized this was going to happen, being a Native Nevadan himself. This was a very interesting job. The Black Book that is referred to so often contains the names of the undesirables for admittance to any of the casinos. It was first compiled by that UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 11 particular board, and Jerry Lane, an agent for the board, and myself, worked on the first Black Book, which consisted of a loose leaf black notebook and photographs which were pasted on the pages and the typewritten information typed underneath. There were ten criminals listed in this first Black Book, then copies were made from this and distributed to the casinos. They have been added to and taken away from since then. But still, it’s referred to as the “Black Book,” the Gaming Control Board’s Black Book. One day out in the office, this person came in that I could recognize as a VIP, but (unintelligible) couldn’t place him. Mr. Ullom brought him over to my desk and said, “Do you know this gentleman?” And I said, “Well, I feel like I should, but I can’t place him,” and the man said, well, he feel the same way. It turned out to be Lou Spitz who graduated from high school in White Pine Valley with me and was now the head of the Motor Vehicle Department for the State of Nevada. Ned Turner, before becoming a member of the Gaming Control Board, was a clerk of the state Supreme Court for many, many years, I think approximately twenty years. George Ullom was appointed to city manager of the City of Las Vegas in early 1961, and later when (unintelligible) was manager of the Nevada Resort Association. After George went over to the city as city manager, he brought me over there as the assistant city clerk, and then later I became the acting city clerk for about a year while Mrs. Coe, who was city clerk, was on sick leave. This was a very interesting position; it involved getting the agendas ready for all of the city commission meetings, recording all of the meetings, keeping on file all of the city contracts, conducting city elections—it was a fresher type of a job, especially the elections. During (unintelligible) we had so many deadlines. The NRS became my bible during this time, and I worked very closely with the city attorney and George Ogilvie, in particular, who was the assistant city attorney; he is now the city attorney. UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 12 Tom Purcell was also at this time assistant city attorney and in the elections, decided to run for the office of the justice of the peace. The day before the election, he came around handing out his cards, and about five minutes later, his secretary, Eileen Carson came around and said, “You’re gonna vote for Tom anyway. Let me have your card, we’re running kinda short.” Well, Tom was elected, and he promised at that time that he would perform my next marriage free of charge, which I called on him to do in 1964. I married Fred Capel, who was a field engineer for RECO, working at the Test Site. I left the city clerk’s office and went to work for the county clerk, Loretta Bowman, in late 1965. In 1966, she appointed me as the jury commissioner. At that time, there were only three district court judges; Judge Mowbray, who is now a Supreme Court justice, was the chief judge for the district court. One of the things that’s kind of hard to believe right now is that women were not allowed to go into court unless they had skirts; they were not allowed to wear slacks in court. If they showed up for jury duty, I was to give them the alternative of going home and changing, or we had two skirts there that they could wrap around themselves—roll their slacks up and put on these skirts which were not very becoming. However, now, of course, slacks are accepted anywhere, including in church. During my term as jury commissioner, I found that, as a whole, most people would rather not be called for jury duty, but ninety-five percent or more of them are willing to assume this duty and were most cooperative. My husband was called for jury duty during this time, and this gave us great publicity. There was a little article in the paper about it, and the jurors came in and commented on (unintelligible). I called my husband in for jury duty, and I could say, “Yes, there’s no favoritism shown in the office, the names were strictly drawn by lot.” UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 13 In 1972, I was promoted to the position of executive secretary to the Board of County Commissioners. One of the county commissioners is Bob Broadbent, who is still a county commissioner, and he was also a native of Ely. And Mr. Broadbent was the first mayor of Boulder City after it was turned over to the citizens by the federal government. And at the same time as Bob was the mayor of Boulder City, his father was the mayor of Ely. This job also was very similar to the city clerk’s job in that it involved getting the agendas ready for the meetings, taking minutes, not only at the county commission meetings, but they had different hats: the sanitation district board, the police commission, the police civil service board, the airport, the hospital. It involved keeping on file all contracts and agreements. It’s a much larger scale than the city clerk’s job. I retired in 1975 and my husband and I are both now retired. I’m enjoying my retirement thoroughly, being able to do my gardening, take care of my house, and meet my friends for lunch and the various things that I’ve never been able to do during my working years. We are members of the community Lutheran church. I’m also a member of St. Jude’s Women’s (unintelligible); that’s the auxiliary that helps support and take care of the St. Jude’s school for neglected Nevada children out at Boulder City. An interesting thing, since my retirement, I’ve had a major heart attack, and my doctor referred me to Dr. Charles Ruggeroli, and I must have had a strange look on my face as my doctor said, “Do you know him?” And I said, “No, but I think I might know his parents. Is his father’s name Harry and his mother’s name Maxine?” And he said, “Yes,” and I says, “Well, I went to school with them in Ely.” Not only did I know his parents, but I knew his paternal grandparents. When I was secretary to the Agricultural Extension Service in Ely, we had this trip to Las Vegas and Boulder Dam, and one of the members of the Farm Bureau that went to the convention was Dr. Ruggeroli’s grandfather, Elliot. I don’t know whether my husband is UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 14 as satisfied with his retirement as I am, but he keeps busy with various projects, including our trailer park on Boulder Highway and the one we just completed building in Henderson. UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 15 Appendix UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 16 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 17 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 18 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 19 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 20 UNLV University Libraries Sigrid Capel 21