Carroll Dolve: A Contribution to a Survey of Life and Structures on the Comstock

Interviewee: Carroll Dolve
Interviewed: 1984
Published: 1984
Interviewer: Ann Harvey
UNOHP Catalog #111

Carroll Gladding Dolve was born into a mining family in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1908. She grew up in Virginia City and attended the Fourth Ward School, graduating from there in 1925. Mrs. Dolve then moved to San Francisco to become a secretary. In 1929 she married Arthur Charles Dolve. Carroll Dolve returned to Virginia City in 1973, and she has lived there ever since.

Carroll Dolve recounts the story of the Gladding and Carroll families, both of which arrived on the Comstock early enough to participate in the nineteenth century mining boom. Mrs. Dolve reminisces about her childhood experiences growing up on the Comstock with her brother, Edward, and her sister, Harriet. Through her eyes the reader can glimpse the active life of children in Virginia City in the opening decades of the twentieth century. She also recounts the numerous household chores she observed her mother engage in while she grew up, and discusses the activities of an Indian woman who worked for her family. This affords the reader with a rare glimpse into the busy life of women on the Comstock, and helps to round out the picture historians have drawn of work on the Comstock.

This introduction and oral history is reprinted with permission from the University of Nevada Oral History Archive, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Nevada, Reno.