Silvio Petricciani - University of Nevada, Reno

Background, Early Life and Education
7
through with the maintenance people and
sometimes I give them the ideas of what to
do about a problem. It’s one of those things.
As a matter of fact, I taught myself what I
wanted out of motor mechanics, and after
the war was over we had a program in the
Army to keep the troops busy while they
were in occupation and so forth, and I taught
automobile mechanics during this program.
And as a matter of fact, I was a mechanic
in the war, and it was all self-taught. They
wouldn’t believe me when I told them that I
was a mechanic because I had no background
or experience when I went in; and after I
got in and they gave me an opportunity to
prove my knowledge, I became the company
mechanic for an anti-tank company. So that’s
how he learned, he just went in there and
stuck his nose and his hands in there and did
it—period. And he was darn good at it.
Let’s see now, first memories were when
we moved into our home on South Virginia
Street. Of course, I was three years old at the
time; I vaguely remember moving in there and
of course, I didn’t start my education until—I
did start in comparison to today’s education
almost a year early. I graduated from high
school when I was seventeen years of age, as
opposed to children graduating now; but in
those days when a birthday falls in December,
so I started school in September. Normally I
would have had to wait until the next year,
but I started school when I was five instead of
six. So naturally, I was a year ahead age-wise
in school.
And when we moved into the home down
there, the city limits was where Center Street
goes into Virginia Street. We used to have
the old Diamond Springs Water Company
down there, which is still in existence today,
and eventually the Crystal Springs Water
Company came into existence. They had
wells that they would deliver water to us
and stuff, and that was the biggest the city
was. I think in those days there were around
possibly seventy-five hundred people in the
whole town.
We had Mayor Roberts that lived up on
the corner of California and Virginia Streets,
and Mayor Roberts’ son-in-law was Walter
Johnson the baseball player. And whenever
they would come to visit the mayor why I
would go up and play with Walter Johnson’s
children, and which was quite an honor in
those days, you know, to be selected. And then
just down south from him was the Sullivan
family, Dr. Sullivan, and he had several
children, Frank Sullivan, Lawton Sullivan,
and Jim Sullivan. And when we weren’t
fighting amongst the Dagos and the Irish,
why we were pretty good friends and used
to have good times together. And then south
of there was a family called the McKennas,
and they had children. They were not a very
well-to-do family, and as a matter of fact, they
used to have a goat grazing on the front yard
in their front lawn. They had quite a piece
of property there. And then south of them
was the Melarkeys. As a matter of fact, the
two Melarkey boys I grew up with are here
in Reno now. One’s in the oil distributing
business, and the other one is a dentist, an
oral surgeon, here in town, a very good one;
Dave Melarkey* is his name. And all these
kids I grew up with. And below them was the
Carrs. Dr. Carr was a dentist in town. He had
one son, his name was George.* They lived in
the house next to us. And George eventually
was mayor of the city here at one time and
went into politics. His mother just died last
year, as a matter of fact. Dr. Carr died quite
a bit earlier. And then we lived, [as] I say, at
675 South Virginia Street. And then below
*Deceased since taping in 1977.