NUNES, Linda FS 1967 - 1993 10-02-06 04 Original U.S. Department of ...

Interview with: Interviewed by: Location: Date: Transcribed by:

NUNES, Linda 10-02-06 04__Original U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region Five History Project

FS 1967 - 1993

Linda Nunes Victor W. Geraci Vallejo, California October 2, 2006 Mim Eisenberg/WordCraft; October 2006

[Begin CD Track 1.] [Transcriber's note: Background static negatively affects audibility.]

VICTOR W. GERACI: This is Victor W. Geraci [pronounced jeh-RAH-see] from the University of California Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Library. Today is October 2nd. The time is approximately 10:50, and I am here seated with Linda Nunes [pronounced NEW-niss], in the Region Five offices at this point, and this is part of the Forest Service Phase II oral history project.

Linda, let's just kind of get started with--you and I have talked about, at least a little bit--a background. You know, it's always a good part of the story to start at the beginning. Let's start with the childhood. Let's go all the way back. I guess what we're looking for are the things that really I guess would affect you in your position and what you do today. LINDA NUNES: Okay. Well, I was born in Orland, California, a little town near Willows and Chico. I'm a fifth-generation Californian on the Portuguese side, and I was born July 5th, 1947. My father was a rancher, and my mother was a mom at that time that I was born, and I have a brother who's five years older. GERACI: When you say "ranch," what kind of ranch did your dad have?

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NUNES: Sheep. GERACI: Sheep. NUNES: Yes. Later on a friend of his became sheriff, so he became a deputy sheriff. [Laughter.] And by that time, they moved into town, into Orland, when I was getting ready to go to school, so the ranch was still out there that we'd visit, but I moved into town. Through the time--as I say, I was a country girl, so we'd go out to the ranch, and we camped a lot on vacations. That's what we did on vacation, was to take a little teardrop trailer, which had just enough room to have a double bed inside and a kind of camp stove, camp kitchen on the back of it. GERACI: It actually opened up out of a shelf, right? NUNES: Yes, right, it came up like the hood of a car, and you'd prop it up. And so we went as far as the Midwest, to Yellowstone [National Park], et cetera, on that, but also always on the Lassen [National Forest] and Shasta-Trinity [National Forest] and just going up into the Sierras and Mendocino, so I was familiar with the country, myself. We did primitive camping, as you will with that teardrop trailer, and so when [sic; trailer. When] I was older, I was a counselor at church camp for the primitive camp, so we'd dig latrines and foot trenches and [cross-talk; unintelligible]. GERACI: Oh, we're talking real primitive. NUNES: Oh, yes, yes, cooking in Dutch ovens. That's all stuff that I always liked, but I knew that some kind of mistake had been made plopping me down in Orland, California. I read a lot, so I knew I was just doing time and [unintelligible] in Orland until I could get out to somewhere else that had more. GERACI: So you always had plans of--I mean, the farm life wasn't quite doing it for you.

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NUNES: No. GERACI: [You had?] other plans. NUNES: Yes. It was small-town living. I think it's good for people who have kids, to grow up in that environment, but when you're single you really don't want everyone in the world knowing what your business is. [Laughs.] GERACI: [unintelligible]. NUNES: In terms of job, I remember after we moved into town, my mother began working for Federal Land Bank, and as I saw it, she seemed to do all the work, and the managers would come in and out, and she would train them and then they would move on. The board was pleased with her, and they actually made her assistant manager, and it was a big deal at the time. GERACI: So we're talking in the fifties. NUNES: Sixties, probably early sixties. GERACI: Early sixties. NUNES: So they made her assistant manager and did it at meeting of the board, et cetera, gave her a corsage--I remember that--and then soon after, the higher mucky-mucks said, "No, we can't have a woman as assistant manager, so they made it assistant to the manager. That was my first thought: Hmm, there's something wrong about this. GERACI: So you were a young teenage girl at that point. NUNES: I was about twelve. GERACI: Okay, about twelve, thirteen. NUNES: Yes. GERACI: So there's that little bit of a spark in you even at that age of: There's a disparity here. NUNES: Yes.

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GERACI: This isn't right. NUNES: Yes, absolutely. I just saw my mother working so hard all the time, and my father, being as he was a deputy sheriff and [he would?] park the car--you know, he was at work when he walked to the curb and he was off work when he got home. She worked all day and came home and worked all evening. I just have a remembrance of that and that I really didn't want to do that. That was [unintelligible] I'd get out of Orland. I read a lot, so I knew there was a world out there. GERACI: How about school? NUNES: I was good in school. In fact, when I graduated I got a couple of scholarship offers. One was to Berkeley, and one was to Brigham Young University. GERACI: Two big different choices. NUNES: Two different places. And this is 1965. The BYU one would have covered everything, and the Berkeley one didn't, although it was closer. I chose the BYU one, but when I think now if I'd gone to Berkeley in '65, I would have been there till '69. I was always feeling I needed to be the most progressive or liberal person in a group, which was quite safe in Utah but would not have been so safe at Berkeley. GERACI: Why do you think you felt that need to be progressive or liberal? NUNES: I just knew that if I agreed with the people who were blatantly conservative or used the N word or used those--you know--that I had to be not that, so whatever else they believed in, I always questioned. I was a questioner of authority throughout. Questioning that often meant I came out on the more progressive side of the [cross-talk; unintelligible]. GERACI: Was that a sign of the times or just you? NUNES: It wasn't a sign of the times. There weren't very many people were like that.

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GERACI: Not to quote Bob Dylan. NUNES: Yes. [Both chuckle.] Certainly my family was more progressive than some families I saw around, so I did have support within the family. GERACI: It seems that your mom was a working mom. NUNES: Yes. GERACI: Was your dad supportive to you, as a woman? NUNES: He was a fifties kind of dad, no, no. It wasn't like he was against it, he just wasn't for it. [Laughs.] GERACI: What was your mom's support? NUNES: Just that you should be the best that you could be. I didn't join the Army, but [both chuckles], with that slogan, but to be the best that you could be and not be arrogant about it. GERACI: Did they give your brother more support than you? That's a tough question. NUNES: From a college standpoint they did. I mean, he got a car when he went to college, and I didn't, but yes, definitely, the need for him to go because he was going to support a family. GERACI: We're talking traditional family values, the expectation--well, it would be nice if you were educated, but you'll probably get married and have children and that'll be your job. NUNES: Right, yes. And even though all around us, in our own house, there was my mother, who was working full time and probably could have earned more money if she had gone to school. GERACI: Right. NUNES: Maybe that's what made me progressive, is seeing that kind of contradiction [voice level trails off; unintelligible]. GERACI: Was there a lot of support in your family to go to school?

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