Rita Angela (Zabala) Chapin

No summary at this time, please refer to the detailed index below.

0-5:00              Rita remembers her grandparents very well. Her grandmother was Candida Yrasusta Marcuerquiaga and her grandfather was Bruno Marcuerquiaga. Bruno came to America in 1873 and went to work in Orovada, Nevada for Miller and Lux Corporation, which was an old cattle company. He also changed his last name to McErquiaga, which is his kids’ last names. In 1880 he bought Horse Creek Ranch and homesteaded there. By 1908 he sent for Candida to come. There wasn’t much at the Horse Creek Ranch when Bruno bought it. They brought a lot of rock in from somewhere and built a barn, a cellar, and a small house. Rita remembers seeing the house before it was eventually torn down. She doesn’t know how her grandmother fit all of her kids in that house, but they managed somehow. Candida and Bruno had twelve children: Marie (1910), Bruno Jr. (1911), Joe and Leon (1913), Frank (1915), Julio and John (1916), Connie (1918), Millie (1920), Hank (1921), Grace (1923), and Carmen (1925). There were two sets of twins, one of which was Joe and Leon and the other was Julio and John. Marie, the oldest, was Rita’s mother. In addition to these twelve children, Candida raised her sister’s four children because she died young. Their names were Albert, Victor, Evy, and Anne, but their last names remained unchanged. Candida’s sister married Candida’s brother, so sisters married brothers. All of the children were raised on Horse Creek Ranch. They later moved to the River Ranch (unknown location). Horse Creek Ranch had primarily cattle, but her grandmother always kept some sheep around for their own use. Candida and Bruno spoke Basque at home, but if someone who didn’t know the language was visiting she wouldn’t allow anyone to speak Basque because it was rude to the company. Most of their children spoke Basque as well, but not all of them. Rita remembers that her mother, Marie, spoke it extremely well.

 

5-10:00            Rita’s mother was born in 1910 and she remembers that her grandmother always told stories. She would talk a lot about coming to Nevada in a wagon with horses and how many days it took and she would talk about how they would go to town only about twice a year. There was a school on Horse Creek Ranch, and the teachers actually came out and lived on the ranch with them. There were a few other Basque families that lived near them while they were at Horse Creek Ranch. All of the children worked hard. The boys were buckaroos and raised horses. Candida had a huge garden that she would have to haul water to in five gallon buckets. She also kept chickens, pigs, turkeys, sheep, a duck or two, and milk cows. Rita recalls that her uncle Julio loved mules. She says that the ranch was definitely a family deal and that everybody helped as much as they could. Her grandmother used to make “really good” chorizos every year in a huge galvanized tub. Her aunt, Connie, used to make home cured ham that was the best Rita has ever had. They didn’t have refrigerators back then so they would salt meat to preserve it. They would put it in a small wooden box and keep it down in the rock cellar during the day to keep it cool and open the windows at night to get the cool air in there. She was a great cook. She would always cook for the ranch workers. Rita says she used to hate the pigs because they smelled so bad. Bruno took care of the field and irrigating mostly.

 

10-15:00          They didn’t have bands of sheep, however Rita’s grandmother would keep anywhere between twenty and thirty sheep for their own use. They used to share the sheep with some of the Native Americans. They would put the wool in big bags and the kids always thought it was fun to jump on it and squish it down. She now cringes at that thought because of all the ticks and everything. They used to play with the Native American kids. The people in that area were mostly Basque. After school Rita’s mother went to town to work at a restaurant and at the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca, Nevada, which is where Marie met Rita’s father, Justo Zabala. Justo immigrated to America from Spain. The two of them got married in Winnemucca. They had six children named Gloria, Rita, Ray, Louie “Dutch,” John, and Sara. Rita’s parents divorced when she was a freshman in high school and Marie raised all of the kids basically by herself in Winnemucca. All of the kids worked. They had five milk cows and they would sell and deliver the milk to people before they started regulating it. Before Rita’s parents divorced her father worked as a bartender at Monte’s Bar, which was owned by Fermin Montero. When he first immigrated to America he was a camp tender. Rita says growing up in Winnemucca was really neat. It was a small, safe town and you could walk almost everywhere. Rita and her sister, Gloria, worked at the Corner Drug Store as soda jerks (a person who serves soda and ice cream) for about thirty five cents an hour. Rita laughs and says that they thought they were really rich. Rita backtracks a little and clarifies that she and her siblings lived at the ranch until she was in the fifth grade, then they moved to Winnemucca. Out at the ranch they went to school at a small one room school house. Joe McErquiaga’s first wife was the teacher for a while, but then a woman named Lois took over. She lived on the ranch with Rita’s grandparents. Rita’s family had a small, two bedroom house on the ranch right behind her grandparent’s house. Some of Rita’s siblings were born while still on the ranch but some were born later. For a time they also lived on the Orovada Ranch and they would go to Winnemucca much more often. There were no gravel roads back then so when it rained it was horrible.

 

15-20:00          While in Winnemucca a lady from Boise, Idaho came down and would teach Basque dancing at the Martin Hotel. Rita’s father liked to dance as well. Her mother lived to be almost one hundred and one years old. There weren’t any Basque celebrations in Winnemucca that Rita was aware of until much later. She doesn’t remember boarding houses other than the Winnemucca Hotel and the Martin Hotel. Rita’s mother worked at the Winnemucca Hotel as a waitress for a while and the kids would go down there and help with the dishes. When they were all done with the dishes they’d push the tables to the side, turn on the jukebox, and dance there. Mrs. Mendiola was the cook back then and Rita says she was fantastic, and her son Louie was a good dancer. All of this occurred around 1946. At that time there were still a lot of men herding sheep. Rita says that the only Basque owned business in Winnemucca were the two hotels, a department store, and her great uncle’s bar. Rita recalls that her family stayed in an apartment behind the bar before they found a house in Winnemucca. Even after they found a house Rita’s uncle would hire her and Gloria to clean the apartment. One time they went to clean the apartment and their uncle’s two German shepherds were there, but they didn’t cause any trouble until the girls tried to leave. The dogs wouldn’t let them out so the girls sat there until their uncle rescued them. The subject changes back to dancing and Rita says that her grandmother, Candida, was a beautiful dancer and she played the tambourine. Her grandma eventually moved to Winnemucca and had a house right on Main Street, and she lived there until she died. She always wanted a fireplace and she finally got one in that house, so she would sit in front of it all the time and roast chestnuts. Every New Year’s she would have a big family gathering at that house and there would be between fifty and sixty people there.

 

20-25:00          Everybody would bring food to the New Year’s party and would help fix it. There would be clams, codfish, rice pudding, and other Basque dishes. All of her daughters learned to cook Basque food. Most of the children, Rita’s aunts and uncles, married non-Basque people, and Rita’s grandmother was perfectly okay with that. Rita thinks that her mother, Marie, is the only one of the siblings that married a Basque person. Rita graduated from Winnemucca High School in 1949, and then she went to work at First National Bank. After that she did book keeping and cooking for buckaroos. The interviewer backtracks and asks Rita how she and her husband, Harold Chapin, met. She says that he came home with her brother, “Dutch,” one time because they were rodeo friends, and that is how they met. When he finally asked her to marry him he also asked if she wanted to live in a tent. Rita thought he was kidding, but he was serious. She then went and cooked on the buckaroo wagon and lived in a tent in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and she says that it was a great experience that she’s really glad she had. They worked there for Tom Marvel (22:40) at the 25 Ranch for a couple years, but they soon moved to Paradise Hill for a short time. While they were there Harold worked for Frank McCleary, who owned all the ranches in Paradise Hill for a long time, and Rita went and cooked on the wagon there. Rita didn’t know how to cook much before she had to, but she learned quickly. She says she was lucky because the cook they had before her was horrible, so whatever Rita cooked looked pretty good to them. After that they moved back to Winnemucca because Harold wanted to get back into rodeo. Rita went to work at the CB Brown Hardware store and she worked there for seventeen years as the bookkeeper. She left there in 1978 and went back to banking, and that is what she did until she retired. They began developing the property that they live on now in 1977. When they first came there was nothing there. They worked hard to put in alfalfa fields and Harold broke, raised, and sold horses.

 

25-30:00          When Basque festivals started happening Rita and the girls at the bank would help serve dinner. Rita helped with that for about twelve years. They started doing this at the Convention Center. They used to have dancing, wood chopping, weight lifting, and so forth, but a lot of those activities don’t happen anymore. The entire festival has changed. The lady in charge died and then Rita gave it up, and now she doesn’t see as much interest. She partially accredits that to the fact that there just aren’t as many Basque people in the area anymore. A lot of them have moved to different communities and a lot of the older people who started these events are fading out. Rita is very proud to be Basque. Rita states again that her mother was born in America, but her father was born in Spain and eventually became a citizen. Her grandparents were citizens too. Rita says her grandmother was a proud Basque, but she was proud to be American too. Her grandmother went to visit the Basque Country twice that Rita is aware of. Rita had the chance to go to the Basque Country too, but she never got around to it because when the opportunity arose she was always taking care of somebody. Her brother, Louie, went and was the only one of the siblings to meet their paternal grandmother, who was ninety years old at the time. They had to use a translator, but Louie is pretty sure she understood who he was. He went to Lekeitio, Spain and asked a random man where he could find Louie’s great aunt. The man gave Louie a huge hug, told him they were related, took Louie back to his house, and they were buddies from that point on. Rita’s grandfather had brothers named Domingo and Pedro in the Basque Country, and one named Damaso who eventually went to the states and stayed on the ranch for a while, but he went back to Spain. Rita’s grandmother didn’t have any family left in the Basque Country.

 

30-35:00          Rita explains that Bruno changed his last name to McErquiaga because he wanted to distinguish his family from the other Marcuerquiaga family. Rita says that her grandparents, her maternal aunts and uncles, and her older sister are all gone now, so Rita is the oldest. Rita talks about her father again and how he worked at Monte’s Bar. Winnemucca was and is home to a diverse group of people, and Rita says that they all got along well and there weren’t too many language barriers. All of the ranching families would help each other with harvesting, animals, and other chores. Rita says that, had Basque people never gone to Winnemucca, the people of that town would have missed a lot. She says that the Basque people are really fun loving, loyal people. The town wouldn’t have had the hotels or the people who made Winnemucca what it is. Her parents taught Rita to respect others, work hard, loyalty, and be frugal.

 

 

                                                NAMES AND PLACES                                                         

 

NAMES:

Candida, Gloria (Zabala) (Rita’s sister)

Chapin, Harold (Rita’s husband)

Marcuerquiaga, Albert (Rita’s first cousin once removed, Candida’s nephew)

Marcuerquiaga, Anne (Rita’s first cousin once removed, Candida’s niece)

Marcuerquiaga “McErquiaga,” Bruno (Rita’s maternal grandfather)

Marcuerquiaga, Candida (Yrasusta) (Rita’s maternal grandmother)

Marcuerquiaga, Domaso (Rita’s maternal grand uncle, Bruno’s brother)

Marcuerquiaga, Domingo (Rita’s maternal grand uncle, Bruno’s brother)

Marcuerquiaga, Evie (Rita’s first cousin once removed, Candida’s niece)

Marcuerquiaga, Pedro (Rita’s maternal grand uncle, Bruno’s brother)

Marcuerquiaga, Victor (Rita’s first cousin once removed, Candida’s nephew)

McErquiaga, Bruno Jr. (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Joe (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Leon (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Frank (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Julio (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, John (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Connie (Rita’s maternal aunt)

McErquiaga, Millie (Rita’s maternal aunt)

McErquiaga, Hank (Rita’s maternal uncle)

McErquiaga, Grace (Rita’s maternal aunt)

McErquiaga, Carmen (Rita’s maternal aunt)

Montero, Fermin (Owner of Monte’s Bar)

Unknown, Lois (School teacher)

Unknown, Philip (5:14) (Rita’s nephew)

Zabala, John (Rita’s brother)

Zabala, Justo (Rita’s father)

Zabala, Louie “Dutch” (Rita’s brother)

Zabala, Marie (McErquiaga) (Rita’s mother)

Zabala, Ray (Rita’s brother)

Zabala, Sara (Rita’s sister)

 

PLACES:

Battle Mountain, Nevada

Boise, Idaho

Corner Drug Store, Winnemucca, Nevada

Elko, Nevada

First National Bank

Horse Creek Ranch, Orovada, Nevada

Lekeitio, Spain

Martin Hotel, Winnemucca, Nevada

Miller and Lux Corporation

Orovada, Nevada

Winnemucca, Nevada

Winnemucca High School

Winnemucca Hotel

25 Ranch, Battle Mountain, Nevada

 

THEMES:

Business

Children

Community Events

Cooing

Education

Family

Farming

Food

Language

Marriage

Ranching

School

Sheep

Travel

Work