Transcript of interview with Della Mae Rostine by Irene Rostine, October 31, 1991

An Interview with Della Mae Rostine An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. ______________________________________________ Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas 1991 ii ? NSHE, Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, 1991 Produced by: Las Vegas Women Oral History Project Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, UNLV Dr. Joanne L. Goodwin, Director Irene Rostine, M.A., Interviewer Tamara Marino, Transcription iii iv This interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of donors to the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada. The College of Liberal Arts provides a home for the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, as well as a wide variety of in-kind services. The History Department provided necessary reassignment for the director, as well as graduate assistants for the project. The department, as well as the college and university administration, enabled students and faculty to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the University for its Support that gave an idea the chance to flourish. The text has received minimal editing. These measures include 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. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Dr. Joanne Goodwin, Project Director Associate Professor, Department of History Women’s Research Institute of Nevada, Director University of Nevada Las Vegas v Preface Della Mae Rostine left Missouri with her husband, Rocco, in 1942, and headed to Las Vegas. Happy to leave behind the hard life and instability the mining industry had to offer, after living in Las Vegas for the first year the couple settled in Henderson, Nevada, known as the townsite at that time. Della Mae’s oral history provides readers with a glimpse of what life was like for the 14,000-plus individuals and families who also moved to southern Nevada during the same period in order to make a living in the growing “war work” industry the area had to offer. Della Mae shares the hardships faced in finding housing, especially for families with children. She discusses challenges ranging from securing home furnishings to purchasing groceries, including the rations on gasoline and butter at that time. Della Mae also discusses her experiences with the Basic Magnesium plant where her husband was hired as a construction worker in the early days of the plant and where she would work briefly as a machinist making shell casings and monitoring the down time on the production line. She also touches briefly on the social opportunities the BMI plant, and later Rheem Manufacturing, offered to the workers and their families. When World War II ended, more than half of residents of the townsite left, leaving fewer than 7,000 people to form what would later become the city of Henderson, Nevada. Della Mae’s oral history is a brief overview of a family life which began when BMI was just getting off the ground and continued through the many changes that took place in the BMI complex and the town site over several decades. The timing of the Rostine family’s arrival and the fact that they stayed and made a permanent home in Henderson led to their designation as one of Henderson’s “founding families.” vi vii An Interview with Della Mae Rostine An Oral History Conducted by Irene Rostine, M.A. viii 1 [Beginning of Track] [This is an oral history interview with Della Mae Rostine, on October 31, 1991, at her in her home, 56 Mallory Street, in Henderson, Nevada.] So, what can you tell me about the wage scale at the plant [Basic Magnesium, Incorporated (BMI)] ? When you were working, did you make better money at the plant? Well, I don’t recall, really. I think I probably got a dollar an hour, but I know when Rocco first started working at the plant, when he came out here when they were in the process of building it and getting it ready for production, he was getting a dollar an hour. A dollar an hour for construction work. I'll be darned. At that time, a dollar went a long way. You could get a steak for 49 cents a pound or something like that. I know my uncle had this store and of course everybody had coupons to buy meat, and butter, and stuff that way. According to the size of your family, you got more stamps, naturally. That’s right, there was rationing. What, meat, butter? There was no butter, was there? Products like that. Gasoline, of course. Shoes? Sugar. Sugar. Shoes, shoes were scarce, weren’t they? Actually, you used margarine. You were lucky to get margarine, even, let alone butter, you know. I remember, whenever I knew that some was coming in, that sometimes the store up here would let you know when they were expecting some and everybody rushing up there trying to get a pound of margarine. Times were tough, huh? So, there were no stores here in the beginning? You had to go to Vegas to shop? 2 Well, they had one store, one grocery store. It was a big store. I remember, we moved out here on the 4th of July, 1943. We thought, you know, the store would be open. We had no idea it wouldn’t be because the stores in Las Vegas were open on holidays. We came out here and I didn’t buy a lot of groceries because I knew I was going to have to move and we just moved in the car what we had. We went up there and the store was closed and we didn’t have very much stuff. In fact, as I recall we had some salmon. I had a can of salmon and, then, probably some bread and stuff, and that’s what we had for the 4th of July. Salmon hotdogs. [Laughing] Then, I went up there the next morning to get groceries. You lived in Las Vegas before you moved out here and then your husband commuted to the plant? He had to go back, from Las Vegas, back and forth? Yeah, he had some men that worked at the same shift he did and they rode with him. It seems to me like, I don’t recall for sure, but I think they sort of shared rides, you know. A different one would drive at different times. Sort of like car-pooling. So, you moved out to Henderson and you moved in the townsite houses on July 4, 1943? Yes, we were the second person to move in. The people who had lived there in the beginning went back from where they came. I don’t know if they were from California or where, but anyway, the house was vacant. I’m not sure if we had a choice. I think it was probably the only one [that] was available. The reason we came out was because Rocco was a labor foreman and they would like to have him because, there often at night, he would have to do things, you know, for his crew. 3 So, when you went to work there, you went to work later during the war, like 1943? Do you know when you went to work? Well, the war was over in ‘45, wasn’t it? Uh-huh. Do you remember which month? Yeah, I think it was August that the Japanese surrendered. [Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.] Well, I remember I only worked down there a few weeks. I am not sure whether it was two or three weeks before the war was over. Was it weeks or months? It was in the summer time. I know when I went down there and applied for a job, there were some other people there, too. They sent us into Las Vegas to join the union. I remember that it was real, real hot. So, I knew it was the middle of summer some time. Let’s see, I think [it was] November 15, 1944 before they closed the plant. Is that when you left? Well I don’t recall, Irene, whether they worked after the war was over or not. I don’t think they did. They may have worked a little bit to close down what they were in the process of doing, but I am sure it didn’t continue to produce stuff after it was over. Originally, this town was built just for war time. I suppose, had not these other companies come in and took over, you know, like the chemical companies and all, it probably would have just gone down. [Magnesium production at the BMI stopped in 1944, but portions of the plant were converted for other purposes. Rheem Manufacturing Company rented a portion of the plant in May 1945, to make artillery shells and tracer ammunition.] 4 [It probably would have] been a ghost town. When you came out here, you said you didn’t have any furniture for your new house, the house you moved into? No. We had to wait until somebody in the neighborhood sold something because, even in Las Vegas, there wasn’t any furniture hardly available. So, when somebody was going to leave town, then you bought up what they didn’t want? Well, that’s the way we did. As I said, we got the couch and two chairs. Then some people on Water Street were going back to California and they had some furniture. They were selling the whole house full of furniture, but at that time we didn’t figure we were going to be out here. We didn’t want to buy that much furniture. We did buy a bedroom set. It was this desert pine sort of thing. It had cactus painted all over it. Oh, yeah? [Laughing] So, you bought that and you had a bedroom set, and a couch, and two chairs when you moved out? And I had my wash machine. Then, we went back to Missouri and I brought back my radio and a floor lamp. We did send and get a mattress and springs because one of the fellows… They always had a lot of debris and stuff that had to be hauled out in the desert. One of the men that worked for Dad on his crew hauled some of the stuff out there and he saw an old, wooden bed out there. It was kind of broken, the headboard or the foot, I don’t remember which, but anyway, he brought it and we fixed it up. Then we sent and got this mattress and springs from our furniture back home and that was the second bed that we had. The kids had to sleep on that. When you were out here, then you got the two beds at that point, but you had three children in your family and you and your husband? No, I just had two. Both the boys are already [in] the service. We moved out here in April of ’42, and Larry went into the service, I think, in October the same year. Bob graduated from high 5 school in ‘43 and he was in the Navy. He went back to Warrensburg, Missouri, to go to college. He got an opportunity to get in the Air Force, the Navy Air Force. So, he only was, I think, one year there - back in Missouri. Then, they sent him to St. Mary’s out in California to finish up before he went into training. So, then that wasn’t too bad because it was just the four of you and a two-bedroom house? Yeah, we had a two-bedroom house and it really wasn’t a bad place to live. It was much better than I had in Las Vegas. You lived with your in-laws, didn’t you? Well, when we first came we stayed with my mom, but just about two or three months, maybe even not that long. Then, we managed to get this house. My aunt and I walked all over Las Vegas trying to find a rental. Finally, there was a lady that had a motel out on 5th Street. We went and asked her about renting a cabin. She was going to let us have one for twenty-five-dollars a week, but she found out there was six of us. They would only allow two people in a bedroom. So, we didn’t get it, but she did tell us that Mr. Marble… Maybe you remember Marbles? Nuh-uh. Anyway, he had something to do with a government thing. I remember that, at that time, they had some kind of an agency in Las Vegas whereby, if people tried to raise the rent… Rent control? …they could protest about it. I remember that he charged us sixty-dollars for this and I heard that he had been renting it for forty to somebody else. It seems to me like I went up and protested, but it didn’t do any good. He bought me a new couch and a new stove. I guess, maybe, that took care of the fact that he could raise it, you know. 6 Yeah, I think during the war they did have rent control. He was a nice man to rent from. But it was better when you got out here? The house was new, practically? It was pretty far out. It was in the 1500 block of South Second. It was a two apartment place with a big drive in between the two apartments. Like a duplex? I think it had two bedrooms and a kitchen, and the front room, which I guess they would have called a living room. They had the couch in there and the kids slept there. Was that sixty-dollars a month or sixty-dollars a week that you paid? That was a month. A month, OK. Like I say, we were going to pay twenty-five-dollars a week for this place, here, had we been able to get it. She wouldn’t let us have it, but she did tell us about this other place [that was going to] be vacant. So, we went there. I remember he sent out a black lady to help me clean up the house. She took the bedding out and aired it and everything. When you were in the plant, of course you said you didn’t have much contact with the other women because you were just minding those machines, [but] were there any black women working in the plant? I don’t remember. You don’t remember? There were men, but I don’t know…I don’t remember. That’s what everybody says, “There were men, but not women.” I imagine the women mostly worked, maybe like as cooks, at Anderson’s? 7 Well, I imagine some of them must have worked on machinery. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have given me that job to do. Like I said, I just was real light in those days and I just couldn’t do it. So, I told Dad about it and he said, “Well, you just have to tell them if they haven’t got anything else to give you, you’ll have to quit.” So, that’s what I did. I told him I wasn’t able to do the kind of work he had assigned me and that, if that was all he had, I just have to quit. So, that’s when he gave me the other job. And that was boring? I guess you had to keep, pretty much, track of stuff whenever it went on production and off because that’s what I had to do. I had to write up [a report.] I kept track of it and then, at the end of the shift, I had to make a report, write out a report, about what machine went off of production and when it went back on. So, when the machines would break down or something and then they would stop producing, you would have too… Well, all I did was write down what time and I just sat there until it went back on production. There wasn’t anything else I could do. It was kind of a boring job. Originally, you started out as a machinist when you couldn’t handle the machines? That’s right. Because you were too small? It seems to me like that shell was about as long as this [Gesture] and big around. I put it in this machine and you were supposed to, well, I don’t know. There was some kind of handle that you had to do and I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t heavy enough to do it. [Laughing] What was the thing you were making, was it a shell casing? Is that what you were doing, was it shell casings? 8 It was a shell casing and it was putting the rings, you know, the threads on the thing. Rings and threads, uh-huh. The machine was putting the threads on. But you couldn’t handle it? I couldn’t handle it because I was too light. I couldn’t turn the thing like it was supposed to have been done. So, that was it. [Laughing] Like I said, I only worked such a short time. I don’t think I drew more than one check, maybe two at the most. And then the war was over? The war was over and I was glad it was. You were glad to get home. [Laughing] Yeah, and I was glad because my boys, too, you know, Larry and Bob, both in the service. Did you go to work after that or did you stay home for a while? No, I stayed home until George got out of high school. When he got out of high school, then I didn’t have too much to do at home. He went to the university up at Reno after he graduated, you know. They had this little boutique shop. I knew this lady through her daughter [who] was in the same class as Betty at school. I went up there and we were talking one time, and I said, “You know, I kind of like to work,” if she needed some help. Come Christmas, why I worked extra. And then you became permanent? Maybe about a year I must have worked extra because they weren’t doing too much business. It was just a small shop. After that, I started working steady and I worked there from, well I don’t remember. I guess George got out of high school in ’51. I must have started working there Christmas of ‘52, maybe. I worked until, let’s see, I was sixty-two. I must have quit working about ‘67 or ‘68. 9 So, there was about five years between the time you left the plant and [when] you went to work at the boutique shop? Well, probably longer than that, Irene, because George was in third grade when we moved out here. Let’s see, Betty graduated from high school in ’48, I guess, and as long as she was home, I didn’t work. It was after George went to the university that I [did work]. There wasn’t really too much to do. I didn’t drive, so I couldn’t go to Las Vegas and work. I know Mrs. Hamblin went to Sears, went over and worked at Sears, she said. I didn’t catch that. Mrs. Hamblin went to work at Sears. Yeah. I really enjoyed working up there, you know. It was small town. You knew just about everybody. Yeah, everybody would come in to get their dresses. The people I worked for were really nice people. Margaret was the manager and she and I got along real good together. So, it was like a real small town here, when you first came? It was still small at that time. After the war was over, a lot of people moved away. At one point, there were quite a few empty houses in townsite. After the other companies came in, why then, I guess things filled up. I don’t remember. In those days, I really had wanted to be home with my family and I really didn’t take part in anything except school. I use to go to PTA. In fact, I was room-mother for both of the kids. How about company-sponsored functions that they’d put on for the workers at BMI, like their picnics and their parties and stuff. Did you all attend those, or where you too tired? 10 Oh, I don’t know anything about those, Irene. See, Rocco didn’t go to things like that during the war time. Of course, when he worked down there after the war was over, naturally the people had Christmas dinners for the employees, especially the older ones who had been there longer. I think you had to be there about four or five years before you were invited to dinners, but then the picnics were for everybody who worked there. So, you did go to those? Yeah. But the other things, like during the war, you didn’t? You were probably too tired after all that work. Well, I don’t know if they had those things during the war because, you know, it was the type of thing that people just didn’t have a lot of entertainment and stuff in those days. Well, for one thing, I guess everybody was geared to the war effort. I know, my Uncle who had the market spot in Las Vegas, he always had a big picnic for all his employees. I remember going up to Mount Charleston for that because, even though Rocco didn’t work for him, Bob did until he went in the service. Since he was family, you know, we would have been invited, anyhow. What about Ruth? Did Ruth live here during the war? Ruth? Uh-huh, Ruth Stapleton? Ruth lived out here before I did. She did? [For] just a little while. Let’s see, my dad came out here first. My dad was hurt in the mines and he and my brother came out here to visit my aunt and uncle. Let’s see, I guess it must have been between Christmas and New Year, I believe. Aunt Dode, and Charles, her son, and my mom, 11 and Merle, and Helen, and Aunt Dode, and Uncle Falls, they all got in a car and came out to Nevada. That was the latter part of December. I believe it was right after Christmas. I am not sure, but I know we didn’t come out here until April. We came out in April. My mom, she lived out on North Second Street. I guess it must have been one block off of Fremont, or two blocks. We moved in with her, but we [were] still looking for a place. We weren’t sure whether Rocco was going to get work or not, but he did. I mean, it wasn’t very long. In fact, I guess my uncle, you know, maybe knew somebody, too, that kind of helped him to get on as early as he did. You know, they were looking for people, so it wouldn’t have been any problem I don’t think. Anyway, we were there and, I think I may have told you that, this colored lady here had a lot of little cabins there. A lot of people who worked at the clubs were roomers and they slept during the day. George and Betty were smaller in those days. I guess George must have been, maybe eight years old, and Betty was probably eleven, and my sister was about the age of, well, she was a little older than Betty. There were some other children in the neighborhood there, and I guess maybe they were making a little noise. Anyway, this lady protested, so we decided we better try to find a place because we didn’t want my mom to have to move, you know. So, Ruth came out. What did Ruth work at, do you know, or didn’t she work at all? Ruth came out here. My aunt, Charles’ mother, came out first with her husband, and Uncle Brad, that was Aunt Meg’s husband, he worked for my uncle as a security man. Then Ruth and Charles came out. I don’t remember exactly when they came, but anyway, they were here before we came out. Oh, I guess they came out when my mom came. Of course, I don’t think Charles worked too long before he had to go in the service, too. So, then what did Ruth do? Did she go to work? Gee, I don’t remember. 12 Did she live in Vegas? Well, I think she must’ve. She must’ve stayed with Aunt Meg. I really don’t remember what happened. I wonder if she worked at something during the war? No. She didn’t work at the plant, I know. No? Ruth may have done some office work. I don’t know, but that is what she did back in Missouri. She was a secretary. I don’t know where, [but for] somebody back there. What do you know about Rocco, when he worked in the mines in Missouri? What do I know about what? Rocco, when he worked in the mines, he was a coal miner? Well, yeah. He worked in mines from the time he was about sixteen. Sixteen? Fifteen or sixteen. I guess they probably wouldn’t let him go until he was sixteen. So, he worked in there until he came out here. In fact, I guess when they [were] sinking one of the mines, before he was able to go in to the mine [him]self, he carried water for the people that were working there. Oh yeah? How old would he have been when he carried the water for them? Well, probably about fifteen. That young, huh? Fourteen or fifteen. Fourteen or fifteen. Then, when he got older, he went down and worked [inside]? 13 He went in the mines. Because he was that young, they wouldn’t give him a certain number of rails. That’s the way they went by, so many rails. They called it a room. Evidently, because he was inexperienced and young, he had to work with his dad, but I think he only worked one payday with him and they gave him some rails by himself. They called it rooms back in those days. So, what did they do in rails, in the rooms? Did they blast for coal or use a pick? I think they used dynamite. They did? I think so. So, at fifteen he was working with dynamite? No, he didn’t do that himself. No? They had a crew that did that kind of work. No, I don’t believe they used dynamite. I think they had machinery that cut underneath of the coal. Oh, I see. I think that’s the way it was. They would work at night and cut the [inaudible] off when there wasn’t anybody there. I remember he would say, you know, that they had a “fresh cut.” I think that’s what he called it. And then he would go in? He would go in and, well I’ll tell you, I wish I had this paper. When he was applying for the Black Lung, he had to describe all this stuff and I was the one that wrote up the papers for him. He described, you know, how much of the cut was coal and how much of it was dirt you had to move, which was slack and stuff from the coal. The face of the coal, part of it was coal and part 14 of it was slack. It seems to me, like as well as I can remember, you had to handle about three times as much dirt as you did coal to load up the coal. They had these flat cars that they loaded up and then it was pulled by mule to the bottom where the shaft was and from there it was lifted up and dumped into the truck. Did they get paid by how many car loads of coal they turned out? They paid according to the ton you loaded. The ton you loaded. How long did he work there until he came out here, practically all his life? Let’s see, he was sixteen and we came out here in ’42. He must have been forty-seven-years-old. No, let’s see, we came in ‘42 and he was born in one, so he was forty-one-years-old when we came out here. Forty-one-years-old and he was born in Oklahoma Territory? Yeah, that’s what they said and then, eventually, they said something about McAlester. So, I really don’t know whether McAlester was [a city] in 1901. I don’t recall whether it was a state at that time, even, or whether it was just a territory. I really have to look that up and see when [they] were admitted. That must have been a pretty hard life for Rocco? Well, yeah, it was. That was what he knew? His Dad was a miner? I guess he was a pretty strong fellow, you know, but he worked hard when he was back there. Of course, in the summer time you didn’t do too much work because there wasn’t demand for the coal. So, you didn’t get to work too much in the summer time, but if a man couldn’t find work, 15 you know, he would work on the farm. You know, there was quite a bit of farming in that area, so then they would get a few days’ work on the farm. And his father was a miner too, then? Rocco’s dad was a miner? I don’t know what all his father was. Yeah, he worked in the mine. I don’t know what all he did before that because he was out west in New Mexico somewhere. Apparently, they said he had a movie house of some kind in those days when he was out west. So, I really don’t know too much about it, you know. But that’s how Rocco got into the mining, was because of his dad? That was his real dad. He did work in the mine because I remember him talking about [it] when they moved to Kansas. They moved him to Kansas before they lived in Missouri and, evidently, his father broke a leg while he was working. I guess it hadn’t mended and they were asking him if he wasn’t going to be able to come back to work. They had a company store there. You never saw any money. You just bought your groceries and they gave you that credit for when you worked. And then took it out of your pay at the end? Yeah. Did they get much money under that system? I don’t know. I [don’t think] very much. [Laughing] [End of Track] [This is the end of the interview.]