Rnr story book

StOrYBOOK R N & R ’ S F I R S T FA M I LY G U I d E O F 2 0 1 6 I S A L L A B O U T T h E WAY S FA M I L I E S S h A R E T h E I R S T O R I E S

Chapter 1 Secret Recipe • Page 2

Chapter 2

Learning Potential • Page 5

Chapter 3

Lost in translation • Page 7

A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT TO RENO NEWS & REVIEW • FEBRUARY 11 , 2016

Welcome to the first Family guide of 2016.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how families share their important stories. How do families share their history and heritage through language, food and even teaching little ones. I hope you enjoy these stories from Shaun Hunter, Erin Meyering and me.

—Jeri Chadwell-Singley

seCret reCipe FA M I Ly- O W N E d R E S TAU R A N T S C O O k U P LOCA L LEgACI E S JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY • JERIC@NEWSREVIEW.COM

C

asale’s Halfway Club and the Santa Fe Hotel are two family-owned Reno restaurants that—from their appearances to their cuisine—seem very dissimilar.

The Halfway Club serves Italian fare in a tiny restaurant on Fourth Street. Over on Lake Street, a single table in the family-style Basque dining hall of the Santa Fe Hotel can seat as many people as can fit in the entire Halfway Club.

On the surface, these two restaurants don’t appear to have much in common, yet both have played similar roles within the community for well over half a century.

C a s a l e ’ s H a l f w ay C l u b Inez Casale Stempeck turned 89 on Feb. 11.

Her family has operated Casale’s Halfway Club in the same location—half way between Reno and Sparks—since 1937. For years, it was also the family’s home. On a Sunday afternoon, 11 people, representing three generations of the Casale Stempeck family, gathered around several tables in the small dining room. Joking, laughing and occasionally speaking over one another, the family related stories from the restaurant’s 79-year history.

The Halfway Club started out as a fruit stand that Inez and Jerry Casale’s parents operated out of the front of the family’s home on what was, at the time, Highway 40. Their mother used the presses she’d brought with her when she emigrated from Italy in 1920 to make raviolis. She sold them raw, in to-go containers. In 1946, when the restaurant got an oven and started serving meals hot from the kitchen.

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faMily GuiDe • FEBRUARY 11, 2016

Today, Cierra Stempeck, 21, and Haley Stempeck, 24, still use their great-grandmother’s ravioli presses to make fresh batches twice daily. They and their father, Tony Stempeck, 58, took the reins at the restaurant three years ago—more than four decades after a widowed Inez became the Halfway Club’s sole proprietor as a means to supporting herself and her six children.

The passing of the torch to a new generation was a difficult task for several reasons, despite the fact that many members of the family have been there to help.

“Often people would come in and say, ‘Where’s your mom?’” explained Inez’s youngest daughter, Maria Rogers, 48. “Because they’re coming in to see her, and—at least during the transition—often, I felt that the taste of the food had changed in their mouth before they’d even ordered because mom wasn’t here.”

According to Tony, the taste of the food did change for a time. As Inez spent fewer and fewer hours in the kitchen, he realized there was no simple way for her to give him the recipes she’d been using for decades.

“She didn’t measure,” he said. “It was handful. It was pinch. For months and months and months, we tried to get the recipes right.

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The family at Casale’s Halfway Club (Front Row): Haley, Cierra, Karen, Inez, Beverly and Jerry (Back Row): Tony, Madaline, Maria, John and Michelle

PHOTO/JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY

We couldn’t do it—threw away sauce, after sauce, after sauce.”

Eventually, Tony got the idea to weigh the spices Inez used before and after she’d made a sauce. “Now, it’s dialed in,” he said.

“But before that, we never had it written down, ever.”

There’s some playful debate among the family as to whether Inez couldn’t or perhaps just wouldn’t pass on her recipes.

But everyone is in agreement when it comes to one thing—their years spent at Casale’s Halfway Club have taught them that the restaurant is every bit as special to its patrons as it is to them.

On a Saturday evening in January, a man came back to the kitchen to thank Inez for keeping the restaurant open for so many years. According to Tony, generations of families come to Casale’s Halfway Club to celebrate birthdays and weddings, and even to host wakes. His sister, Maria, recalled that the restaurant was mentioned by name in the obituary of one of its patrons.

“For those who are surviving, it becomes a place of solace,” Maria said. “You can come in here and people remember the person that you loved.”

Michelle Stempeck, 47, the eldest of Inez’s granddaughters, was only a year old

when her grandfather died. Much of what she knows about him comes from stories she’s heard from customers.

“I hear stories from my family about him, but it’s also really interesting hearing the stories from the customers,” Michelle said. “I hear different perspectives and different stories from so many different walks of life that you would never—as a normal family and having a grandfather die so young—you would never get that information.”

The graffitied signatures of patrons—a traditional mark of loyalty and affection found in many a local haunt—grace the walls and ceilings in entryway and bar at Casale’s Halfway Club. The dates, ranging back decades, speak to the countless stories of families and friends who’ve gathered there over the years.

S a n ta F e H o t e l Compared to Casale’s Halfway Club, the dining hall of the Santa Fe Hotel seems cavernous, especially before opening for dinner on Thursday afternoon. The Santa Fe has a long history of feeding and housing people in Reno. According to owner Philippe Zubillaga, 49, it once served as

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a home base for Basque men who immigrated to the United States after World War II. Many of them worked as sheepherders and spent the winter months in Reno.

“They would come and live here, eat here, hang out here, play cards,” Philippe said. “It was just kind of their one place that they could go that everyone spoke the same language, and the familiarity was there.”

Philippe’s great-uncle, Martin Esain, herded sheep for a short time before coming to work for the family who owned the Santa Fe. In 1949, Esain purchased it.

Philippe is the last member of his family with a stake in the business. He’s been operating the Basque dinner house for 16 years now. Prior to its reopening in 2000, the Santa Fe stood empty for two years after Philippe’s father and two aunts retired from the business in 1998. The last two Basque men to live in the boarding house left not long after.

“At that point, those guys were—they’d have breakfast here, make a lunch, go to work, come back, have dinner here, stay here,” Philippe said. “This was kind of their center of existence.”

Today, Philippe still serves the same traditional food that his great-uncle served

before him—one or two entrée options per night that change depending on the day of the week.

“I think primarily what the boarding house restaurants were set up as is to emulate what these guys who came over, sheepherders, ate at home,” Philippe said.

“It’s not the food of the Basque Country, per se, but of the Basque households.”

Patrons come to the Santa Fe to eat oxtails, lamb shanks and sweet breads.

They sit at long tables and talk and share stories with friends, family and strangers.

According to Philippe—much like the case at Casale’s Halfway Club—many of the regulars are comprised of several generations of single families that have come over the years to commemorate everything from christenings to wakes.

“I think, as cities change, the people who are longer residents of a city, tend to gravitate more toward the older establishments—whether or not it gives them a tie to the way things used to be or the city that it was before it got really big, you know, in their mind’s eye,” Philippe said. “So I think that’s an appeal for a lot of people. People have, sometimes—and I see it—stronger ties to the restaurant than even I do.” Ω

FaMIlY GUIDe • FEBRUARY 11, 2016

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LeaRning potentiaL E x p E r t s d i s c u s s t h E i m p o r ta n c E o f E a r ly c h i l d h o o d l i t E r a c y BY ERIN MEYERING

“U

p until third grade, a child is learning to read, and then they read to learn,” said Amy Levy, family reading coordinator at Northern Nevada Literacy Council.

Child literacy and language development starts at birth.

According to Zerotothree.org, the brain is the only organ that is not fully formed at birth. During the first three years of life, trillions of connections between brain cells are being made. Building personal and physical relationships early on is what makes these connections and gives children the skills to expand their learning.

Even very young children can learn the alphabet, learn that reading happens from left to right and from top to bottom, and memorize many, many words. Eventually— like Levy said—children will read to learn instead of learning to read.

“The books that are chosen to read to children should be developmentally appropriate for the child’s age,” said Tina Springmeyer, Washoe County School District Child and Family Services director.

For infants and toddlers, she recommends chunky board books that are can easy for babies to hold onto it, books with colorful, stimulating pictures or even books with texture or peek-a-boo flaps that children can manipulate.

The key is interaction, said Susan Robinson, executive director of the Northern Nevada Literacy Council. Words are all around us, she said, and each one is an opportunity for growth.

The Northern Nevada Literacy Council offers a Family Reading Program in libraries across Washoe County and in their own facility, during summer months. Participants in the free four-week program meet once a week. Parents and children learn how to interact with each other and how to use books regularly in the home. The program seeks to make the process seem manageable for parents—even those who are busy, speak English as a second language, or can’t afford to purchase a new book every week. At the end of the program, each child can take a book home from the class to start his or her personal library.

“The point of the reading program is to realize that reading together is a very enjoyable activity,” said Robinson. “We’re encouraging [each parent and child to] make reading a part of life.”

Having books accessible at home—even if it’s just so a 2-year-old child can turn the pages and experience how a book physically works—is important. Parents should start a home library early and build it as their child gets older and expands his or her comprehension.

a spEcial supplEmEnt to rEno nEWs & rEViEW

Literacy isn’t just about being able to read a third grade level adventure book, though. Early literacy can affect how well children do in school, which, in turn, affects the odds they’ll go to college, the odds they’ll earn a competitive salary.

According to the Pew Research Center and the Reading is Fundamental website, more than 8,000 students quit high school every day, limiting their earning potential and ability to become strong members of the workforce. And for Nevada, the statistic is just as bleak. According to the annual Quality Counts Report through Education Week, Nevada received a “D” on its state report card and ranked 50th in the nation based on student performance, school financing, and other qualities of K-12 public schools.

Encouraging children’s early literacy can lead to success in education. Parents can help their children get a head start by encouraging them to ask questions— maybe encouraging foreshadowing and discussion at story time. Reading aloud is great, but it’s more than that. Engaging in conversation is what promotes reading comprehension, which—in turn—boosts learning potential. Ω

ResouRces: Washoe County Schools and Infinite Campus give parents the opportunity to find out their child’s reading scores. If they are not at the level they’re expected to be, the website offers tips on improving. For details, visit www.washoeschools.net and search for Infinite Campus.

Northern Nevada Literacy Council is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adult learners reach their education goals. The NNLC offers a Family Reading Program to help parents and children gain skills to use at home to further their children’s literacy and comprehension. All of its outreach programs are free. For details, call 356-1007 or visit http://nnlc.org.

Thirty Million Words works to encourage parents to use their vocabulary in promoting their children’s literacy. The more words a child hears by age 4, the better prepared he or she will be to read, comprehend, and write well. For details, visit http://thirtymillionwords.org.

Washoe County Library System offers reading programs for children during the summer, story times throughout the year, and access to books at every reading level.

See your neighborhood’s library for more information on specific programs. For details, call 327-8300 or visit www2.washoecounty.us/library.

FaMiLY guiDe • FEBRUARY 11, 2016

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ralph Burns, a tribal elder of the pyramid lake paiute band, leads his paiute language class.

S p e a k e r S o f N at i v e a m e r i c a N l a N g u a g e S f i g h t t o p r e S e r v e t h e i r c u lt u r e a N d h e r i ta g e t h r o u g h l a N g u a g e BY SHAUN HUNTER

“Y

ouke’e,” Florence Millet greeted her students in Shoshone as they walk into her classroom in a building on a side street lying in the shadow of the Grand Sierra Resort on a Thursday evening.

Florence teaches a Shoshone language class offered for free to the public one night a week on the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.

That night, her students—ranging in age from high schoolers to older adults—played Bingo using cards filled with Shoshone words; however, the jovial nature of the lessons is just a means to what Millet considers an important end. She wants people to learn the Shoshone language before it is lost.

“Our language was not supposed to survive. Long ago, my grandmother—pretty much everyone’s grandparents went to boarding school—where they were told not to speak their native language,” explained Stacey Burns, the language coordinator for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. Stacey also teaches Paiute classes. “At these schools they were punished for speaking their native language. So, my mother’s generation,

the majority of them did not speak the language.”

The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony is a sovereign colony within the city of Reno.

It’s comprised of members of Paiute, Shoshone and Washoe tribes. They oversee the providing of community services to over 7,000 urban Native peoples. Stacey explained that the mission of the Colony is to encourage the growth of a cultural identity in its community members. It’s not always an easy task.

“Here in the city, there are a lot of outside influences,” Stacey said. “It’s extremely difficult for our youth to maintain their cultural identity. We’ve lost a lot of our language, and our language and our culture come hand in hand.”

Ralph Burns [no relation to Stacey Burns]—a tribal elder with the Pyramid Lake band of Paiutes—teaches Paiute language classes through RSIC and echoes these sentiments.

“In 1996 at Pyramid Lake they surveyed 1700 people, and of those there were only 71 people that still retained the language,”

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Ralph said. “Today, on our reservation, I would say there are seven fluent speakers.

At one time there were 13 different dialects of Paiute, now we’re down to two.”

He went on to explain that his mother was sent to the Stewart Indian School in Carson City, but ran away. Ralph cites his mother’s escape as the reason that she continued to speak her native Paiute, eventually raising Ralph and his brother with this native tongue.

Ralph can recall a period of time when he spoke primarily English. “I graduated high school in 1963,” he said. “After that, I was away from the language. Maybe sometimes I would speak to my mom or my grandma, but those were the only times I would speak the language.”

Back at the Shoshone language class, Florence offered a blessing in Shoshone for the food that she and her students brought to class. She then asked class members to introduce themselves using their Shoshone names—a Shoshone word of their own choosing, toward which they feel an affinity.

One girl’s Shoshone name translates to

PHOTO/SHAUN HUNTER

Lost in transLation

“snow,” while another of her classmates has chosen a name that means “monkey.”

They’re learning the language for the first time. Choosing names is a fun and personal experience that helps to break the ice and fits well with Florence’s relaxed classroom atmosphere.

“Our language was never a written language,” Florence said, as she pointed to words written out phonetically in English.

In the past, she has incorporated puppets and games into her lessons.

“You can’t get upset at anybody for not knowing the language, because they weren’t supposed to know it,” reflected Stacey.

“Some of the elders that we have, they went to the boarding schools and they would hide in the covers at night and speak to each other. Those were the brave little ones that preserved the language.”

While there seems to be a renewed dedication and urgency in keeping these native languages on the tongues of tribal community members, there is still a sense that they face a race against time—hovering at the edge of extinction.

Jamie Astor, who teaches RSIC’s weekly Washoe classes, described the few individuals still fluent in the Washoe language.

“There is one fluent speaker that resides in Reno, on the Hungry Valley Reservation,” she said. “There are other fluent speakers, probably around 20, in the other Washoe communities located in Gardnerville, Dresslerville, etc.”

Jamie said that many of her students express interest in learning Washoe so that they can pass it on to their children.

Although Washoe classes are offered at Western Nevada College in Carson City, none are currently offered within the Washoe County School District.

Stacey noted that certain high schools in Washoe County have recently amended their foreign language program to be called world languages, and have begun to offer Paiute language classes.

For now, Florence’s ambitions for keeping the Shoshone language alive remain simple. “If just one learns, my granddaughter, she can teach someone,” Florence said.

When Stacey teaches a new class, she always starts the first lesson in the same way, by asking the question, “Why would I want to learn an indigenous language?”

“When we translate into English, words lose a lot of their qualities, they become onedimensional,” Stacey said. “We don’t have a word for ‘love’ in Paiute. I asked different Paiute speakers how to say ‘love’ and they all had a different answer. One of them translated into ‘respect’, one of them as ‘I like you forever.’ I asked an elder why there was no word for just ‘love’, and they said, ‘It’s more an action. It’s how you show it.

It’s how you treat each other.’” Ω To learn more about the RSIC language classes visit: www.facebook.com/rsiclanguage

FaMiLY GUiDE • FEBRUARY 11, 2016

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