Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

Background, Early Life and Education
5
and her education consisted of the usual
schooling there in the little town, but then
she and all of her sisters as they grew up had
an uncle who was a priest in Livorgno—or
Leghorn, if you will—and when they grew
up in time to get their high school formal
education, why, they were sent to Livorgno
to him, and he would see that the sisters in
the convent educated the girls. They spent
approximately—the schools in Italy are twoyear
schools equivalent to our four years of
high school here—and they would spend the
two years there and come back educated. Now
my mother married when she was nineteen—
my dad came back and married her when she
was nineteen years old— and they came over
here, and of course, their life together from
there was as I had explained before—they
went into California then came up to Reno.
And my first sister was born in 1914, and then
my second sister was born in 1915, and then
I was born in 1917, and I had a brother who
was born in 1924. And that is the family. And
of course, my mother stayed at home all the
time and raised her family. And raised a pretty
good one I might say—all the kids grew up
and married and have led good lives and so
on. And that is about it.
They both became naturalized citizens.
That was the first thing that my dad insisted
upon was that this was his country—his newfound
home—and the first thing he wanted
to do was become a naturalized citizen of the
United States, and my dad and my mother
both became naturalized citizens after he
married her. Of course, he had been working
towards his naturalization for a long time
before that. And so, I guess that about sums
up anything that I can think of.
Oh, as time went on he bought other
buildings—he bought other property in
Reno. He bought the building which is called
the Traveller’s Hotel building, which we just
recently sold to the Del Webb people. It was
on the southwest corner of Commercial Row
and Sierra Street. You know, where the old
McMahan building was—the old furniture store
there? It was right on the corner there, and the
Del Webb people had bought all the property
up to that, and they came to us and offered us a
pretty good deal—plus the tact that it would—by
holding that building and not selling it to the
Del Webb people would have been like a little
pimple sitting there against a big hotel and we
would have stopped progress in the town, and
I don’t believe in that—I just don’t believe in
that. People have held this town down for many,
many years because they’d go out and buy little
pieces of property here and there and the other
place so the town couldn’t expand, and contrary
to what these small-minded people thought,
the more people that come into the town and
the more businesses and hotels that grow in the
town, the better it’s going to be for everybody
because they’re just going to bring more people
into the town. But, as I say, we have some smallminded
people in this town, and they don’t
believe that way. Luckily enough, time changes
that, and it has changed it in the last two or three
years—as we can well see.
There weren’t really any real “life
experiences” other than my dad bought a
house on South Virginia Street in 1920, I
believe—675 South Virginia Street—my
mother still lives there. I was three years old
when we moved in there, and she’s going to
live there until she dies—she’s not going to
move. At the time he bought the house, I think
they bought the house for sixty-five hundred
dollars, and she’s been offered sixty thousand
for it now—wouldn’t sell it though.
What kind of person was your father?
Well, he was more or less of an extrovert
such as myself. I mean people tell me I’m