The Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission is described as identifying, recording, marking, and preserving historic sites and resources, with oral histories made available online. The segment profiles Bill Falconi, a Nevada City native and long-time city-engineer, whose family history ties European mining labor to the region's development; it traces his path from local schooling to surveying and civil engineering, teaching at Sierra College, private surveying, and municipal work, including projects funded largely through state processes and Caltrans, plus a DOE seismic-calibration assignment in Mercury. It also covers personal milestones—his relationship with Laurie, whom he cared for during a 19-year cancer battle and whom he met at the Willow, their children, and his maternal grandfather Dominic Alaria, a mining contractor who died in a mining accident—and reflects on mining dangers, Irish roots, and questions of generational memory.

Full Transcript of the Video:

Hello, I'm Kathy Hillis.

I'm a member of the Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission.

This commission was created 55 years ago by the county supervisors.

The function of the
commission is to identify historical sites and objects through recording, marking, preserving
historical resources of Nevada County.

We are conducting oral history interviews of local
legends who live in Nevada County.

You can watch these interviews, by the way, on our website,
YouTube, or the Historical Serials Library.

I'm very happy to introduce Bill Falcone, William
Bill Falcone, a native of Nevada City.

Bill, there you are.

Yes.

So, Bill.

Good afternoon.

Good
afternoon.

So, tell me, were you actually born in Nevada City? I was born in downtown Nevada
City.

Where was the hospital? The hospital was where the church of the RU VEDA or the whatever
that is.

Okay.

You know, the minor's hospital.

Across the street from SPD.

Across the street
from SPD.

It was brand new when I was born.

Your doctor's name, do you remember? Walker W.

Reed.

Walker Reed? Yeah.

He was a county, he was a county doctor, you know, in those days.

And he did
private practice too.

He was a close friend of my dad's.

They used to hunt together.

Speaking of your
dad, I have not, I don't really know much about your father.

Well, my dad's side is a little different.

My mother's side was more prominent.

My dad, my dad, I think, married up when he did, you know.

My
mother inherited a house from her father.

She was born in Nevada City.

My dad was not born in Nevada
City.

They brought him here when he was about two or three.

So, he grew up in Nevada City, didn't
know anything else.

But they brought him from right down the Swiss border up there by Lake Como.

He was, your father was born in Lake Como area? Yeah.

Bearsville, San Fermo.

It's a little teeny
town of about 1,300 people.

I've been there.

How, how in the world did the Swiss people know about
Nevada City? Well, I think, you see, they were, they were more industrial people.

And between about
the Civil War and 1900, they brought a lot of people in to work professionally in the mines and
did things.

See, and so people came who worked, so they came from all over, you know.

They came from
Germany and Italy and, but the Italians, those came from the north where the, where the, where the
industrial work was done.

And my grandfather on my mother's side, they worked in the marble mines,
you know, and they also worked in those salt mines in southern or austria and northern Italy there.

There's salt mines in those areas.

So they knew, it's like the Cornish, they brought them here
because they worked in the tin mines.

It was all the same tin.

And the Germans, they brought here
because they worked in the coal.

And so yeah, so, so that kind of thing was common.

It was very common.

Did your father go into, what industry job did he do? My dad, my dad worked in the mines when he was a
kid.

Our, our mines here? Yeah.

And then he, but he never liked it.

And when he was old enough,
he went to work for the county and he became superintendent of county, county superintendent
of public works.

He came, he came.

Come on.

Here you are.

Come on.

Yeah.

The apple doesn't fall far
for you.

No, it doesn't.

No, my dad, my dad was a county superintendent of public works.

In those
days, you didn't have to be an engineer to be one.

See, and so he started at the bottom.

He told me
that when he started in, I think it was 1935, there was three people on the road crew and he was
one of them.

Three people in Nevada County on the road crew.

Then in this area, they used to split it
up.

In Truckee, they had some couple of guys and then in Bloomfield, they had it in the South
County and in Grass Valley.

So, but the main headquarters was in Nevada city because it was
a county city.

So my dad worked out of there.

He worked his way to the top.

Yeah.

By the time
he retired in 1969, he'd been there 34 years.

He was the top guy.

Who were his bosses, for
instance? Well, supervisors in those days.

Okay.

See, the supervisors in the district ran the area.

So in other words, the supervisor in Grass Valley, like recently, what was his name,
he was there for years anyway.

That person would be the boss of the crew in that area.

And in Nevada city was the Arbor Gas.

That was an old name.

They lived out on Bloomfield Road
and he was the boss in Nevada city.

And in Truckee, they'd have one and in Bloomfield,
they'd have another one in San Juan.

So it depended upon where they were, but the head guy was in
Nevada city.

And who were some of the supervisors then? Well, there was a, there was a low Robinson's
father.

Really? Guy Robinson.

Really? Yeah.

And there was, there was, I just said, Kerry Arbor
Gas, he was another one.

There was a guy named Charlie Smith.

And I forget what they, the guy in
Truckee was named Lawler, Roylton, something like that.

A name like that.

I mean.

I was just thinking
about Truckee because now it takes us an hour and five minutes to get to Truckee to drive there.

How long did it take to drive? Dad said that they built Highway 20 in the 1920s.

And so it was
a pretty good then.

I'm going to say when I was a kid, it was a two-lane road and it took you,
well, it takes about an hour to get to Truckee nowadays if that's not snowing.

And in those days,
probably took an hour and a half.

So the roads are pretty decent by then? Yeah.

Now you mentioned
your, his wife is your grandmother.

What was her name? My grandmother on my, her name was,
my dad's mother died in the 1918 flu.

Okay, your mom's mother then? No, my mom's mother lived up
until I was about 16.

Oh, so you knew her? Yeah.

What was her name? Julia.

Julia.

Well, she, she,
she was here, her brother here when she was young and she spoke perfect English to us.

And so your mother, was she Italian? Well, they were kind of French Italian.

They spoke a weird
dialect.

But see, my dad's side, you know, come to find out, you didn't find out until later,
my dad's side, they were, they were actually spoke a Celtic language.

They didn't speak Italian
because it must have been, they were driven up there by the Roman armies up in those hills.

And you know, that language lasted until World War II.

And it was just in a little pocket up
there between Bergamo and Coho in that corner.

And, and I don't think, I think my dad went to
the grave and never realizing it.

But my mother used to say, oh, they speak a strange dialect,
nobody understands.

Well, now I know why.

It was a Celtic guy.

Now, did you go to what elementary
school did you go? No, I don't see.

It was a Celtic guy.

Now, did you go to what elementary school did
you go? Not a city, not a city elementary school.

Which is still one there on Main Street.

Right.

And then high school? I was in Nevada, Union.

But I went to junior high.

See, see, that was a
transition period.

I graduated in 59.

It was a transition period.

They had, they had one through
six, there was no McKenna garden at the beginning.

There was one, I started in, in, in September of
1947.

Okay.

So, you know, and, and it was one through six at the elementary school in Nevada
City.

Then you went to the old high school, which is just below where I was born there,
or below the SPV, where that.

Oh, it's torn, it was torn down.

Yeah, it was torn down.

That was
Nevada City High School.

Forest Charter School.

When my mother graduated from high school, it was
that one.

It was Nevada City High School.

My dad never graduated from high school, typical, you
know, oh, you've got to go out and go to work.

He always, he always said, well, Billy, everybody
went school did better than me.

That's why you made me go to engineering school.

But anyway, but
so we went six, six years to the elementary.

Then we went seven, eight, and nine to the old high
school there on Zion Street.

Us and got this, all the Grass Valley kids, everybody.

Together,
they mixed the grass valley kids.

They mixed them all because they formed Nevada Union in 1950.

And it was during those transitions before they started Nevada Union High School.

Then, 10, 11,
and 12, we all went to Grass Valley with the Grass Valley kids and everybody.

See, there wasn't very
many kids.

When I was, when I was in high school, there was no Alva Sierra, wildwood, leg of the
pines.

There was none of that kind of stuff, you know.

And so, so, you know, it was real little
because the war had taken away the jobs and the jobs were gone to the cities and people didn't come
back.

And so, my dad and my family stayed because my dad had a permanent job with the county.

See,
okay, sure.

Probably the better blue collar job in the county.

But anyway, so we went seven,
eight, and nine all Grass Valley and Nevada City to that school, then 10, 11, and 12 all to Nevada
to the one on Empire Street.

On Empire Street? Yeah, the old one on Empire Street.

It's still there.

Oh, okay.

I don't know what they use it for nowadays.

I don't know.

So, so the high school,
as we know it, was built after the fact, after you.

It was started the year that I left in 59.

Our egg had cattle there on that, and there was still a pair orchard there about where the,
where the, oh, where the Dawn Bagot Theater is.

Yes, there was a pair orchard.

There was cattle
down in the bottom.

And cattle.

Oh, my God.

And all of the Litton Hill had old apples and pears
and everything.

There was nothing up there.

Oh, I bet that was beautiful on the old days.

I don't
know.

It just was.

So when you finished high school, what, where did you go to college then?
Well, I, I did a couple of things.

When I finished high school, my mother's
short tail cousin had a grocery store in downtown and he hired me when I was 15.

And so I worked
with him.

And after high school, I still stayed there, you know, and, and work.

And I kind of
liked the grocery stuff, you know, I mean.

And so anyway, so I worked there.

And then my dad,
we were out hunting up by Bear Valley.

And my dad said, Billy, what are you going to do with yourself?
I thought, well, I better do something.

And so he said, he said, I've arranged for you to go to work
for a mining engineer that is a friend of mine that I've known all my life.

And I'd like you
to go to work for him.

And I've already talked to him.

And I said, okay.

So I go to this mining
engineer and he said to me, well, you know, did you do this? Did you do that? I took nothing in
high school.

I was just fooling around.

And so, so he said to me, are you willing to work? And he
was an old, he was stored in Germany.

He was tough, you know, he used to say, I don't care if you make
a mistake, but don't you dare make it twice.

And then he used to do it, but he, but he was good.

Where did you, where was this that you worked in town? In town.

He was, you know, he was up
there by Kim Bigco's office.

Anyway, so I started there.

I worked for about a year or a year and a
half with for him.

He started me off in the office doing survey.

You know, you were doing survey
right at the beginning, but, but gosh, all of the mountain bikes team, you are now excused from
class, please head out front to meet Ms.

Ray.

Again, all mountain bike team, you're excused from
class, please head out front and meet Ms.

Ray there.

Thank you.

You're not in my career.

All right, sorry.

Go, should we go? Yeah, you can keep going.

So anyway, how did you learn how to do a survey? Because he taught me and he took me into the
office.

See, he was close to my dad.

And so he taught me.

He thought, well, I'll take him into
the office and he started from scratch, nothing.

He started and so he taught me every day.

He was
there.

He worked in the office.

He had no children.

He was his wife was deceased and he was and he
liked me.

And so he after I worked there about a year and a half, he said, what are you doing? You need
to go to college.

And he said, you need to become a civil engineer and you need to go now.

So I went
to go back to school, but they drafted me in the army.

Oh, those days they drafted.

So I went in
the army.

Where did you go in the army? I went to Oklahoma.

Okay.

My dad used to say California was
never the same after the old keys came.

Where did I go? I went back to Oklahoma.

And when I got to
Oklahoma, it was about this time of the year.

And it was really nice.

It was gorgeous.

I came home
six months later and said to my dad, you know, Oklahoma is kind of a nice place.

I was going to
fall out of his chair, you know.

But anyway, I was in Oklahoma and I was there early enough and we
were training troops for the Vietnam War.

We were training artillery troops and I had damage.

I had
a shovel up an artillery piece.

Something went wrong with it and it exploded.

And to this day,
I have hearing problems.

But anyway, so then when I got out of the service, I went back to school
and started at University of Nevada.

And I spent five and a half years there.

You know,
I crammed four years into five and a half.

Well, when you went to Reno to college.

To Reno, yeah.

Didn't you, you were sort of ahead of the game because you've already been
trained for a year, right? Well, I knew a lot of stuff, yeah.

And my trigonometry was good and
all of that kind of stuff.

So I was okay there, but I wasn't very good in English.

You know,
they started me out at the bottom, you know.

But yeah, but I went to engineering school and,
you know, if I had to give anybody an advice, Nevada is a good engineering school.

Still is.

I've got a grandson that's interested in going there.

Oh, good.

Yeah, we visited there a couple
weeks ago.

And it still maintains its standards.

So I like it.

And it turns out not many very,
very many engineers a year, but it turns out people who do engineering.

No, I don't know the
difference between civil engineering and.

.

.

Well, there's civil, mechanical, electrical,
chemical, geological, you know.

There's a bunch of engineering compliments, but the core engineering
is about the same for the first two, two and a half years.

And then like a mining engineer and a
civil engineer are about the same for almost three years.

And a mechanical engineer and a
electrical engineer are pretty similar.

But then you take the chemicals and those, they're kind of
different.

And you know, so, but the core is all the same.

Why did you get, why were you most interested
in civil engineering? Because Siegfried, the guy I work for, said, I want you to become a civil
engineer.

Okay, Siegfried is your mentor.

Yeah.

And he said, because, and he's right.

He said,
because civil engineers have the most power and they do.

You know, civil engineers life is very
powerful for public works and buildings and everything.

You know, you have total say over
all of that.

When you graduated, then you had an entree to probably any job you could get,
because you were obviously educated.

Yeah, you know, when they, I was offered a job at PG&E in
San Francisco, but I wouldn't take it because I didn't want to go to San Francisco.

So what was
your first job then? I worked for Pat Ingram.

He was a city engineer in Grass Valley and Nevada
City.

That's why I started in Nevada City.

I work under him.

You had to work after engineering,
you got to work two years as an apprentice.

You got to, you can't get applied for a license until
you've spent.

So I worked for Pat, you know, for a year or so, because I already had other
background.

So I worked for Pat and then I, I immediately got a license right then.

But I
taught at Sierra College for a number of years.

But you did.

So what was your first project that
went? My downtown veteran.

I did Nevada cities.

We put the gas lights and the, and the electricity
underground.

That was you.

72.

I was the engineer for that.

That must have been interesting digging
up the street.

Yeah.

Oh, did you find any bodies or anything? You know, you know, they used to take
mind tailings and dump in the streets.

And one guy, I don't know if it's true or whether he made
it up, but he said he found a little piece of gold on the street.

And he showed it to us and it was
real, but I don't know if he pulled it out of his pocket.

I really don't know.

I wasn't there when
he picked it up.

So you had to take all the telephone poles down, everything, dig up the
street completely, everything, put new curb.

What happened to the merchants while you were doing that?
Well, it was terrible.

Oh, it was absolutely terrible.

And, and you know, I was a kid and he was,
and everybody complained and moaned and literally, you know, I mean, it was terrible for the
merchants.

You were about 25 years old.

Yeah, 27.

And here you are running the show.

Yeah, I know.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, because Pat, Pat was always, he was always running around doing stuff.

And so
he kind of left me alone.

I did it all.

I did it all.

I did the pays.

I did the, you know, the cost
estimates.

I did the inspection.

I did.

So what was it after that was done? After that was done,
and I taught at Sierra College for a few years.

And I still work for Pat part time.

And then,
and then I began doing work for the city direct after I got a license.

And then I
worked for the city part time and then I did my own private practice part time.

What would that be? Oh, you know, surveying and engineering.

Because I'm a licensed
surveyor separately from an engineer.

I have two licenses.

So who was our city manager at the time
when you were? Burl.

Burl came to work there in 65.

And I came to work in 71.

What was, what's another big project that you were proud of? Oh, gee, was that we did.

You know, I did a lot of things in my career for the city mainly.

You know, the other was the,
was the Pine Street Bridge.

But you know, people will laugh at me, but one of the more challenging
jobs I did was with the sewer plant, with the sludge press and all that.

It's very high tech,
you know that.

I know, I live right above it.

And you don't smell it or not.

I never have smelled it.

I didn't understand that was a big project.

It was a big project.

What was there before you started
the project? It was there, but it was, it was nowhere near as high tech.

I see.

We just,
we just upgraded it.

See, but when the earlier days, they took the sewer from downtown and dumped it
in the creek.

And then after World War II, they began to do what they call a trickling filter where
they put it on rocks and they had bugs that would kind of eat it.

They did that down there.

And then
over the years, then we turned it into a real high tech thing.

But it's been down there for,
for a long time.

Right.

Nevada City is such a, a tiny little town, and it's on the hill,
so everything goes downhill.

Oh, that's right.

Thank goodness.

Well, your, your biggest project
right now, you're finishing up.

Is the bridge.

Is the bridge.

Tell us a little bit about how,
how you got that all coordinated.

Well, the Nevada Street Bridge was, is typical in all over the
nation, not only in California, but all the states are in charge of the bridges.

The state.

The
states are individually in charge of the bridges in their state.

And it falls on the DOT for that
particular state.

So in California, they're under Caltrans.

And Caltrans goes around and looks at
every bridge, every odd, odd year.

So every odd year, they, they go, they look at a bridge this
year, and then two years, they come back and look at it again.

And when they do that, they rate them
with a number.

And then when that number gets down to, you know, they, it's high up here,
starting, and then it goes down with time.

As it gets below a certain number, then it's available
for funding.

And, and you know, I'm sure just by everybody in this room heard, you know, when you
hear Congress and they're going to pass the Highway Act, you hear that, the Highway Act.

That is,
the Highway Act has that, that money in it for bridges.

And so that the feds paid 90% of that
job.

Oh yeah.

That's 90% federal money.

Now, but it's, it's, for lack of better language,
it's laundered through the states, because they give the money to the states and then the states
distribute it.

You know what I mean? They don't, the feds don't do it.

The states do it.

And so,
so what you do is you, you, when you get to a number, the state puts you in a queue.

When you
get in that, you get into that situation, when you get in there, then, then you're eligible for
funding.

But it takes years and years.

It took us 10 years.

So I remember they saying, oh, they're
going to fix the bridge, but when's it going to happen? Because you've got to do the environmental
work.

You've got to do the design.

You know, the design took us a year and a half.

Did you help
with the design? Yes.

But we had design engineers, bridge engineers out of Sacramento.

But Brian and
I see that bridge looks like it does because we did that.

That's, there was an old bridge that looked
like that 120 years ago.

And so we replicated it.

We made it look like that.

They wanted it, but
that cost an extra million bucks.

That's a $10 million job.

Now, who made that replication of the,
around the sides there? Who did that? A local person? Yes,
Sierra Metal fabricators.

They're back at the SPD there.

They made that bridge to look old.

They made every piece, including all the rails.

Every steel piece that you see there was
made by them.

Gee, that's great.

It's just beautiful.

And of course, in two weeks, they're
going to dedicate it to the William Falcone Bridge.

That's right.

That's a wonderful honor.

What did they, who told you that they were going to do that? Well, I, they did it without.

The city council did it? Yeah, they did it without me knowing it.

But then they asked me to come to
the council meeting.

And then, you know, by the time the council meeting was, the cat was out of
the bag, you know.

But yeah, they named it, I didn't do it.

They said, well, what do you want it to
read? You know, and I said, I don't do that.

You guys do that.

You know, I'm going to write my own.

So yeah.

Well, that's, I, and, you know, I hate to say this on camera, but in a couple of months,
I'll be 84 years old.

And you know, you know, I'm going to retire.

I started in 1961.

You said you were going to retire a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Well, I'll still do
stuff, but I won't be the engineer for the city anymore.

I'll still do things.

You'll be around.

Brian and the city engineer now will call you.

Oh yeah, Brian and I do things all the time.

And the
city, you know, like recently they had the problem with the foundry.

And I was, I was part of that
transition team there, you know, to help them.

What's another, okay, the waste manager plant,
and the pine street bridge.

That was a big one.

You know, the, I'll tell you, the most, the most
interesting job I ever did was not in Nevada City.

It was for the Department of Energy at
Mercury, Nevada.

We, we, my brother and I had commercial, sole commercial explosives for years.

And we did an explosion for the Department of Energy, which was two million pounds of
conventional explosives.

And we put it in underground in one of those canyons where they
test nuclear stuff in Mercury.

And we put that underground so that they could
calibrate their instruments, their seismic instruments, so that they could tell the difference
in the world between a conventional explosion and if the rogue country had nuclear weapons.

Because nuclear is a fusion and commercial explosive is a mechanical, it breaks the rock.

So it behaves totally different and it looks different on the seismic, but they had, nobody
had ever done two million at once.

So we actually set up a plant down there and built, made the
explosive, brought it underground there in a big.

You drove the explosives over the mountains.

But no, we drove it over in, in, in, you know, in raw form, not explosive.

And we made it there,
for that reason, because it was so much.

So we, we brought the raw materials in, we put a,
temporary plant in there, we, we mixed it and made it there and then put it underground,
put it in the hole we needed.

Where is Mercury? It's a hundred miles north of Las Vegas.

It's
here.

Wow.

It's, it's above, it's in Nellis Air Force base land.

Oh.

It's between, between Las Vegas
and Tonopah.

And it is in nowhere.

Nowhere.

And you know, do you remember where'd you go? In Los
Angeles.

Did you remember when they exploded the bombs at Yucca Flat? Oh yeah.

When you were a kid
and you could see the flash.

Well, I remember that.

If you got up on the mountain, you could see the
five and those atomic bombs, when they tested them in the fifties, that's called Yucca Flat.

And, and that's at Nellis.

That said Mercury.

And when I worked there, we lived in a compound
and then you had to drive 35 miles to get to where we were doing John and used to drive through Yucca
Flats and the craters are still there.

Oh really? Craters from the atomic bombs.

Oh my.

Yeah.

We've been
talking about your jobs and everything, but let me tell me a little bit about your family.

Well,
let's see.

I have a son.

I know.

I have a son who went to school with your son.

That's right.

And
he went to West Point and then he was an Army Ranger overseas and he was also went to
Pepperdine, got a master's.

Got a master's, that's Pepperdine.

And then I have a daughter.

She went to Wheaton, which is a private conservatory music with Laurie Center
in Illinois.

She went there and then she got a master's in administration from
University of Colorado in Denver.

And now she's a principal and music teacher.

She's a principal
and a music teacher making her mother so happy and her father so happy.

I know, I know.

She's coming
too on now.

She's coming for Easter? No, for the dedication.

Yes, so you'll see her.

Oh, great.

And so, and her husband's a chancellor of the University of Colorado Mountain Division, so he's
very impressed.

Pretty big shot.

Well, tell me how you met Laurie.

I knew Laurie.

Well, Laurie and I
met in Pioneer Park, playing in the band.

Oh, come on.

Are you kidding me? Talk about a native son.

When I got back from the University of Nevada, Ernie Harris, you don't remember Ernie Harris.

He
ran the old Gold Country Bank, as the home go on.

But anyway, he ran the bank and he used to be kind
of a musician, jazz musician.

And so somebody, him and some other guys, decided they wanted to start
the old county band that the county, they used to have an old county band here years ago back in
the 1800s.

And, and so it, but it dissolved years ago.

So this was in the early 70s.

And so they
decided to start up a band.

And so they, they were looking for anybody they could get.

And when I was
at school, I played the band and he knew it.

What instrument did you play? I played the trumpet.

Oh,
I didn't know that.

Yeah.

And, and so I, I was not good at average, you know, but he said,
Bill, we need people.

And he said, I need you to come.

So I said, okay.

So I went and played in
the band.

Well, when I played in the band, Laurie had come up here to do some work.

She worked for
the county for on kind of a halfway house for kids that were in trouble.

And so she was teaching.

And on Monday night, she went to, she went to play with the Nevada County Concert Band because she
was a musician.

You know, she just went, you know, the first thing musician asked for is who's plays
around here.

So anyway, so, so we went and we did a concert for an outfit called a surge.

Do you
give her the surge? The surge? Yeah, see it.

Sons in retirement.

Sons in retirement.

Okay.

And they were,
they were kind of a, I think they're long gone.

Yeah.

It was probably a drinking group too, wasn't
it? It sounds like it.

I don't remember.

Yeah.

But you played as kids for kids? We played for that,
for that group in Pioneer Park.

And so, so that particular night, we walked out of this off the
stage and out there.

And here was Laurie and we started to talk.

And that's where we went on
our first date to the Willow.

You went to the Willow? Yeah.

Well, that's very interesting.

So that
was how lucky both of you liked music.

And you know what? She, you know, she was, she, you know,
these kids could relate to this.

She was 30.

And I was 32.

And neither one was there of America.

That's how it's more and more like today.

And we were very 48 years.

And then she died a
cancer five years ago.

She really was a fighter too.

Yeah, she did.

She had it for 19 years.

And you were her caretaker for 19 years.

I know.

Tell me about it.

I know.

And poor people,
the discomfort they go to is beyond me.

Well, you certainly have had wonderful children though.

I know both of your kids have just made you very proud.

Yeah.

Yeah, my, my grandfather on my mother's
side was more prominent than my dad's.

Oh, okay.

He made money in the mining business.

And he used
to do contracts for people around here.

In other words, if you needed an air shaft in the mine,
and they always used air shafts so that they could get, you know, for the, for the environment, you
know, and, or you needed it, you needed to build a room for a receiver or you needed it to improve
a shaft or something.

He put a crew together and he did that.

And he made money.

He did, he did,
he did well.

So this is your grandfather? That's my mother's father.

What was his name? Dominic
Alaria.

But their name was Alaria.

Dominic Alaria.

And did he, did you, were you, you knew him
till he was 16? Till you were 16? No, his wife.

His wife.

Okay.

He died, he died 10 years before I,
he was killed in a mining accident.

Yeah.

He was, he, they were in a, in a, in a room like or underground
after they shot the, stoked out the area.

And, and, and they, what they used to do was bar down the
rock so that the rock would, wouldn't fall from the ceiling and one came down and hit him in the
head.

He didn't die then, but he didn't live long enough.

A lot of sad things happened for the mining.

I think we're just about done.

It's been wonderful talking with Bill and, and I'm so happy that we
got to have this chance.

So native son, native son.

Yeah.

That's a good thing.

So you're a native
Californian, uh, second, third generation.

Third, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's, I'm, I'm fourth generation.

You're a fourth generation.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm an Irish fourth generation, a little different than this.

Where did the, where did your family come from? The County Cork, I guess.

But did they come,
did they Eastern first? No, they went to, um, are we, are we on the, are we, we're just chatting
now? Is, are we still on tape? Oh, yeah, but we can turn it off.

Yeah, we're just chatting.