Last alumna of 1929 to lead Lincoln County High’s 100-year parade

PANACA

She'll be one of the highlights of Friday's parade celebrating Lincoln County High School's 100th anniversary, but here's the twist: Martha Bleak didn't actually make it to her graduation. "I was home in bed with the measles, I didn't get to march," said Martha, the only remaining alumna from the Class of 1929.

Seventeen name cards from the others in her class, including her future husband, Nelson Bleak, are protected and treasured in a small yellow box. Each name card looks brand new, yet reminds her of her life in a small rural town only 165 miles north of Las Vegas, but almost in another world.

At 97, Martha is sweet, little, and yes, old. She's also alert and a great storyteller.

Her family's history is intertwined with the history of Lincoln County, its high school, its politics and its core values stemming from its Mormon roots.

Martha Hollinger was born in Eagle Valley, the next valley over from Panaca, the oldest existing community in eastern Nevada founded in 1864 by Mormon pioneers. As a teenager, she boarded with a Panaca family to attend Lincoln County High School in 1928 and 1929, just at the start of the Great Depression.

When she graduated, she went to Pioche, a mining town 12 miles north of agricultural Panaca, and worked in a boarding house with her cousin. The two cousins fed 47 miners, starting with breakfast at 6 a.m., then making their lunches to take to the mine, and finally feeding them dinner. They were long days of cooking and cleaning and her salary was a fabulous $40 a month.

Soon after that, at age 18, she married her classmate, Nelson Bleak (pronounced Blake), and their first year together was tight. Her husband owned a rifle and 13 cartridges and parceled them out carefully to provide them with enough to eat. Thirteen bullets brought down 13 deer to get them through the winter.

In a Sunday evening conversation with Martha, her son, Lorell, and Lorell's wife, Terry, we talked about the life, then and now, in a small town where truly, everyone knows your name. And your parents' names. And your grandparents' names. And how they were related to everyone else in town.

Whether 1929 or 2009, Terry said, "there's a big network or families that take care of everybody's kids."

Lorell explained, "My father and mother ran a tight ship. And it was not just Dad that enforced it, I couldn't go anywhere without everybody knowing whose son I was." Lorell described his father as "a mellow, kind man, a man of service." A carpenter by trade, he was elected to the Assembly in 1956 and served six years.

Martha remembered the time her husband received $2,500 cash in the mail (clearly a bribe), and it wasn't like the Bleaks were rich. "We could have used it," Martha recalled. But her husband returned that bribe, as well as another.

The population in Panaca is fairly stable at 645 and there's a reason. Take Lorell and Terry Bleak as an example. They have 11 adult children between the ages of 42 and 23. Four decided to live in the area because it's a good place for their children to go to school, the rest moved away for better jobs. But Lorell and Terry Bleak are like other Panaca families who hold on to their land and homes, hoping their children and grandchildren will return.

Lorell was a teacher, a principal and eventually superintendent of schools, all in Lincoln County. Terry is proud that all 11 children were in the top 10 percent of their class at Lincoln County High School, two were valedictorians, all received college degrees and one graduated from Harvard University. Education is every bit as good here as in Las Vegas, Terry said, and her family seemed to be the living proof.

Martha valued education and hard work, and she's no shirker now. The day after we talked, the matriarch of four generations planned to peel pears for canning.

One day Martha Bleak is peeling pears, trying not to ruin only the second manicure of her life, and this Friday at 1:30 p.m. she will be leading the parade down the streets of Panaca, representing the Lincoln County High School Class of 1929, and a way of life.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.