Interviewee: Marie Oliver

Interviewers: Peter Oliver, Jack Robinson

April 30, 2024

Peter Oliver: This is Peter Oliver and Jack Robinson.

PO: I am pleased to welcome Marie Oliver, who I'm interviewing on behalf of the St. Helena Historical Society's oral history program. We are conducting this interview at 3.50 p.m. on April 30th, 2024 in Rutherford, California. Welcome Marie Oliver.

Marie Oliver: Thank you, Peter. And Jack.

PO: Can you tell us about your family and where you grew up?

MO: I was born in Burlington, North Carolina, and I lived there until I was 21. I went to college in Chapel Hill, which wasn't that far away. And then I moved to New York City, where I lived for 20 years, and then I moved to California, to this place, this town. [chuckles]

PO: Why did you move to St. Helena?

MO: My late husband, who is your grandfather, had ties to St. Helena and we always wanted to live here, we thought the Napa Valley was beautiful and peaceful and we had lived in New York for 20 years and we thought that when we leave we'd like to come to St. Helena. So we did. His aunt lived here at the time and she died and her husband died and they had no children and so they put their house on the market and we bought it.

PO: So what was it like being a new family in this community?

MO: Wonderful. Everyone was very welcoming and we liked to play tennis. So we met a lot of people playing tennis. We went to church, met a lot of people there. My husband had a lot of business activities that introduced him to a lot of people. And his, as I mentioned, his aunt had lived here for a long time. They moved here in the 20s. And so, they had a lot of friends who were very welcoming to us. They were older than we were, but that didn't matter. They were very kind to us. And so we met a lot of people that way.

PO: What did you do in your free time when you first moved here?

MO: Well, I had two small children. I had a daughter, nine years old, and a son, five. And they entered St. Helena Elementary School. So I helped out in the classroom, and I was involved in activities at school. And I met a lot of people that way.

PO: Would you say there's a big difference in the culture of where you grew up versus St. Helena?

MO: Not really. They're both small towns. My town had 25,000 people, which is far more than St. Helena, but it still felt like a very small town. It was a small southern town, very quiet.

PO: How would you say the culture of St. Helena has changed from when you first moved here to how it is now?

MO: I don't think it's dramatic. The wine business has certainly changed a lot. The wine culture, I would say, and we've gotten a little bit more global for whatever that's worth. Some people don't think it's worth much. And it's also a tourist destination now, which it wasn't then. Back in the day, there was only one restaurant in St. Helena. Not however many we have now. Lots.

PO: What was a typical dinner like for your family?

MO: My family in St. Helena?

PO: Yes.

MO: Well, we all ate dinner. Well, we didn't always eat it together because my husband was always late getting home from work. But we would actually, we waited for him and that was a sore point because sometimes he wouldn't come home until 7:30 and we'd be starving. But, so we all ate dinner together, and we sat around the table and ate dinner [chuckles] and discussed the news of the day, events of school and so forth.

PO: Do you remember any specific forms of entertainment like popular movies or clubs that you would go to?

MO: Well we went to the movies a lot. I always loved the movies and I was once on a committee to screen movies for schools. That was in New York. I would go see movies that hadn't been released with a couple of other members of the committee. There were screenings and we'd see the movie and then we'd write it up and it then went to some kind of magazine that was distributed to schools. I can't remember the name of it, the Green Sheet or something like that. And it was a matter of suitability. This was before movies were rated. So we would say if there was anything, you know, untoward, too unpleasant in the movie, we didn't have much violence then, not like we do now, well we had it but it was cowboys and Indians and things that we couldn't quite relate to. It wasn't violence in the street. You know so, I did that, so we loved movies. And Reg, my husband, he thought movies were a waste of time. You should be out doing something active. But I introduced him to the movies. So we went to the movies at least once a week, because there were lots of movies in New York City.

PO: What were the popular food places in town when you first moved here?

MO: in St. Helena?

PO: Yes.

MO:There was Taylor's Refresher, which is now Gotts. Places to eat, there really weren't any. There was one restaurant that everybody called the Bowling Alley, but I don't think it was a bowling alley. It wasn't a bowling alley, it looked like one. There weren't any fancy places to eat. I guess, Meadowood started up about the time we got here, and that was the first, you know, club. And then Auberge came along, and, what else is there? Another fancy place. But the restaurant boom had not really hit St. Helena at that time.

PO: Were there any like aspects of the community or community events from the “‘80s’’ that you wish would come back?

MO: Hm I have to think on that. I can't think right now that anything I wish would come back.

PO: Which decade of living in St. Helena Would you say was your favorite?

MO: Yeah, I can think of some things I wish would go away. [chuckles] But I don't know about coming back.

PO: Which ones are those?

MO: That I wish weren't so important. I don't know. Well, the food and wine business has gone berserk. I mean, it's wonderful we have all these fancy restaurants, but many of them are out of the price range of most of the citizens. And, we do have a lot of casual places now. What are they like? Gotts and the pizza places, we didn't have those. I don't think pizza had really taken hold at that time in St. Helena.

PO: What decade of living in St. Helena would you say was your favorite?

MO: All of them. I think it's a wonderful place to live.

PO: You wouldn't say you have a favorite?

MO: My favorite decade? Well, when my children were in school here. That was really fun.

PO: Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? Like what it was like, the school system now and…

MO: Well, sports activities that you boys do and they did, too. My daughter is an equestrian, as you know, Peter. And so she was very involved in horses, she went to Justin, I have to confess, in high school. And, she was able, they allowed her to skip the last period and go ride her horse instead of taking PE. So that was great. So she got her driver's license the day she was 16 because her horse lived out somewhere. And I don't know. Beyond Napa, I don't know, just to the east of Napa somewhere. I can't remember the name of the barn. So she did that. And my other child, Jack, a boy, was involved in all the sports that were available. And so that took his after-school time and weekends. We went to all the soccer matches and ball games of all kinds.

PO: We know you and your husband had a winery when you first moved here. How did you guys get involved in that industry?

MO: Well, the house that belonged to his aunt and uncle had been a winery. It was defunct. It had closed after Prohibition, and it was called the El Molino Winery, meaning the mill, because it was right beside the Bale Grist Mill. And the family that owned the Grist Mill at one time also built this winery.

So, but they had all, Mr. Lyman was still alive. He was a well-known figure in town, a scholar, really an important person. He had taught school at St. Helena High, I believe, a long time ago. He was a poet, and he was my next door neighbor, and we spent a lot of time together. And, but I'm veering from the question, what was the question?

PO: How did you and your husband get involved in the wine industry?

MO: Oh, so we bought, and owned the property, and our house had once been part of their property.

PO: Those are the Lyman’s that owned the property?

MO: Because it was called the Bale Mill and the winery was called El Molino meaning the mill. We lived in the house, which had been the factory, the winery building. The bottom, you remember the house, it was a big house, sort of 30 feet by 50 feet deep, and a tunnel in the back that went into the hill for the storing of the barrels for making the wine. There weren't that many wines sold by the bottle then. It was mainly sold in bulk. You know, railroad cars would take it to San Francisco, sell it to restaurants there. So there wasn't a big bottle business. So, Reg’s aunt and uncle had bought the El Malino winery when it was derelict, really derelict, in the 1920s. And they fixed it up and made it into a wonderful house. And so when they died, we bought it from their estate.

They didn't have any children, as I said, so we bought it. And it required a lot of renovation, but we did that and it was a great place for us. The downstairs was just one big room, they brought the grapes in there and that was really the factory. And then upstairs, his aunt and uncle had redone it, of course, in the ‘20s, early ‘30s when they moved there. They had made it a house, you know, very habitable, and they entertained a lot. So...the house was great in that respect. What was the question Peter?[chuckles]

PO: Just the wine industry. What was it like running a winery in the ‘80s?

MO: Oh, it was very neighborly. And it still is in a lot of ways. Although now you have these big corporate wineries. But we just had, you know, old wineries were private. I mean, privately owned. There were some families that always owned a winery. And, but they weren't big scale the way they are today.

PO: How would you say it has changed from then to now? What are some of the big changes in the wine industry?

MO: Well, just as I said, it's become corporate, it's become international too. I mean, Napa Valley wines were really put on the map at about this time in the 1960s. From then on, they sort of began to be reviewed favorably and people wanted to buy them. And in the beginning they were only sold in restaurants, but later on you could go visit wine, and then people started coming to visit wine country and tour wineries. People would drive up for the day or come for the weekend, and so.

PO: Are there any other industries that you feel have changed over the years in Napa Valley, drastically changed?

MO: Industries. I don't think so. I think we are, we represent the wine industry. I mean, that's what people think of when they think Napa Valley. Well, tourism, I mentioned that. Now there are a lot of tourists because it's beautiful. It's a beautiful place to visit. There are wonderful restaurants. You can visit wineries. You can visit the Bale Grist Mill still. It's a fabulous monument to the days when the farmers who lived here brought their wheat to the grist mill to have it ground. It goes back to, I don't know, 1868 or something like that.

PO: You mentioned St. Helena had a country life aspect when you first moved here. Do you still think it has that?

MO: No, it's gotten more-big town, you know, as I said, more tourists, more fancy restaurants, more fancy hotels. It's a destination now. It has lost a lot of that, for better or worse.

PO: In what ways did you think it had a country life aspect when you first moved here?

MO: Just the beauty of the place, it was quiet, very quiet. Now there's a lot of traffic. There's noisy traffic. We have the wine train, which is objectionable in some people's view. It's noisy, toots the horn, you know, many times going up and down the highway. It's used to court tourists around.

JR: Are you glad that the wine industry became super touristy and super popular? Or do you wish that it still was more neighborly and private?

MO: No, everything has to evolve and that's what's happened in the wine business because the wine business has brought a lot of success to the wine country where we live. [It’s] helped in a lot of ways, employs a lot of people, put us on the map with the French people and the Italians in terms of wine.

PO: You were very involved in the, was it the Grace Episcopal Church?

MO: Yes.

PO: Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

MO: Well, I'd always been a churchgoer and my family always went to church. So it was, you know, ingrained in me that's what you did. And I wanted my young children to have some Sunday school. So we started going there. We went in New York too, but we went to a Presbyterian church there.

I was brought up a Methodist, but I became an Episcopalian when I was in high school. And so I started going to the Grace Episcopal Church. It was very welcoming. I knew a lot of people through my late husband's aunt because she had a lot of friends there. She didn't go to church there, but she had a lot of friends who went there. And a lot of those people became my friends. And I met wonderful people there. And, I served on the vestry and did a few things around the church.

JR: How do you think your upbringing differed from that of your children's?

MO: Oh, my children had many more opportunities to live their dreams like the horse thing. My daughter was able to ride horses and she loved that. We traveled, you know, and people in North Carolina didn't travel that much back when I was a child. Certainly my parents didn't. We just went away for the weekend. We went from the equivalent of San Francisco to the Napa Valley for weekends to visit my father's family who all came from that part of North Carolina. So I knew my cousins very well. We all lived around my grandmother's house and there were three or four houses around it. And so we spent a lot of time as a family together. It was very old fashioned.

PO: Did you have any family traditions when you first moved here?

MO: Well, we had all holiday meals, [they] were big affairs, and family traditions. Yeah.

PO: So would you say it was easy for you to meet new people and make friends in St. Helena?

MO: Yes, because my children were in school, elementary school, and I went to church. Those are two places where you meet a lot of people, for better or worse, you do. I still have a lot of friends from those places. I volunteered in the classroom a lot too, in the library at RLS. And listen to book reports, oral book reports. I don't know if they still do that or not. You just come and speak to the person who was hearing the reports that day. I just read a book that was called Ulysses, and this is what it's about, and that sort of thing.

PO: How...

MO: Excuse me, go ahead.

PO: How would you say your relationship with William Lyman impacted your time in St. Helena?

MO: Oh, most favorably, he made a big impression on me. For example, they didn't have, I don't think they had TV. They didn't believe in a lot of things like TV. And they had a lot of cats. They had about, I don't know, seven or eight cats. And in the evenings, everyone would get a cat on his or her lap and Mr. Lyman would read aloud to the family. And their oldest daughter, Becky, would play the piano and entertain.

When you went over to their house, they would have a little entertainment, and there would be Becky playing the piano, and then Mr. Lyman would read. That was very old-fashioned. He didn't like wineries because they cut down trees and he was a big lover of nature. And he was very upset at everything that had happened in what's now called Lyman Canyon, which is the road up the mountain there. It's still beautiful, but I mean, he thought it had been defaced.

He belonged to some group, and I can't remember, they were poets and they would walk up there in the woods and read poetry or recite poetry. He was [chuckles] quite a character. And he became blind at the end, but he knew his way around places that he had known all his life. He was almost 100 when he died. And we lived next door, but it was as you know, a short walk. But he could walk over there by himself. And his son was married to a lady from Thailand. And he claimed they never had desserts in Thailand. They ate no sugar. So he liked to come to our house because I'd give him cookies.

PO: What was the process of buying a winery like?

MO: Well, I don't remember because I was, you know, nine years old. Well, maybe 10 or 11 by then, but by the time we bought it, well, maybe even older, I don't know. But, you know, the person who owns it says, my winery is for sale, do you want to buy it? And this is the price, and then you negotiate, and then you buy it. And then you know, you go to the lawyer and get the papers drawn up, just like it is now.

PO: What was it like raising kids here at St. Helena?

MO: Wonderful, I would say. But raising kids is wonderful anyway, I think.

PO: What was the fashion like when you first moved here? How has it changed since you've been here?

MO: Fashion and clothes?

PO: Yes.

MO: [chuckles] Well, maybe a tiny bit more formal, but I don't really think so. Well, I know in church men wore ties and jackets to church always. Now they don't necessarily. People have accepted that God doesn't care what you wear. They didn't then. Fashion? I don't know. People like fashion or they don't. They probably always have been that way.

PO: How has the church community changed since you've been here?

MO: The church community?

PO: Yes.

MO: Well, now we have women priests in the Episcopal Church and that's changed things a bit and now there's a lot more global outreach to other religions and communities. For example, at the Grace Episcopal Church, I believe they have a mission in El Salvador. And they do a lot of outreach there. And in Africa, they do some things there in Africa with schools. There's one man who's in charge of that.

PO: How have the kids around town changed over the years?

MO: Well, I don't know kids the way I once did, except I know you and you. And I don't know, people are still interested in the same things. I mean, there are certain forces in life that interest people or drive people, and people respond. I don’t know, well, probably, I would say the Mexican community has made great strides in the last forty years here, particularly the girls, because the girls at that time were very much more sheltered than they are now. A lot of them were not allowed to cut their hair. And they had really, really long hair. Now everybody has really, really long hair again, so I guess it's just everything going around in a circle. But they have a lot more freedom now. Now a lot of girls play sports, a lot more than did then, and they're cheerleaders, and, you know, they get involved more in the school community, I think.

PO: What did a typical day look like for you and your family when you first moved here?

MO: Well, we had breakfast, always. My parents believed in breakfast, and I do too. So we always had breakfast, and then we'd go to school, and I guess my mother would drive us to school in the very beginning. No–when we moved here? no, no. When we moved here, I mean I was a grown up, right?

PO: Yes.

MO: But I drove my children to school. That's what I should have said. I drove the children to school, or my husband did, but usually I did. Because he left earlier and I picked them up too. Rode the school bus a few times, but we were kind of the last on and the last off, so it took forever to get home from school. So I just started picking them up every day.

PO: Were there any specific moments or events throughout your time in St. Helena that you think are really important or had a big impact on you? Or just events that you remember?

MO: Civic events or… I haven't thought about that. It's just all one happy blur. I guess

JR: Did your kids go to college and if so, what was it like being an empty-nester?

MO: Terrible. I hated it. Of course, I didn't, I was happy for them, but I missed them terribly. So fortunately I had some interest to fill up my time. So that was that.

JR: What were you interested in?

MO: Well, as I mentioned, I used to play a lot of tennis and I was interested in exercise of all kinds. I took yoga for a long time. I worked at the schools, you know. I didn't really work at the schools after they [my children] left.

PO: What were some of the things?

MO: I played bridge. That's what I did. [chuckles] I did a lot of bridge. How can I have forgotten that? It's a big part of my life. I started playing when I was in high school.

PO: What were some of the other things you did at the school while your children were there?

MO: I went to all their activities. I helped in the classroom. I helped the teacher in elementary school. You know, the teacher always wanted aids. So I worked in the library and I'd help the teacher.

PO: How so?

MO: Well, helping people with their spelling and listening to them read. We did a lot of that.

PO: Do you think the education system has changed a lot in St. Helena?

MO: Well, I really don't, I can't really compare it now because, well, I mean, I've watched my grandchildren go to school, but I can't really weigh in on that too much. I guess it's in some ways better, in some ways maybe not as good, I don't know, but on the whole. I think you have to make an effort if you want to get ahead in any school. And you can't just go with the flow. You've got to rise above.

PO: Do you see any big changes in how your children grew up here versus how your grandchildren are growing up here? In terms of their experience.

MO: No, I think it's similar. I mean, everybody has the same opportunities for sports and scholastics. Not everyone takes advantage of them, you know? But I think it's similar. I think it's a wonderful place to grow up, go to school. Gives you a foundation, because you know a lot of people and you think you can count on them, you know?

PO: What wines did you guys primarily grow at El Molino?

MO: We didn't grow anything at El Molino. We just made wine. Now we grow grapes here, where we are today [Rutherford]. But we didn't at that time. We bought all the grapes. And we bought some of them from the spinners. So that's one way we got involved in that. What was the question?

PO: What wines would you guys make?

MO: We always made Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Just those two. That's all. No Cabernet, no anything else and very small production.
PO: Why did you guys choose to make those two specifically? Why did you guys choose to make those two wines?

MO: Because we like the wines from Burgundy and that's where those two wines come from.

PO: What was the process of making those wines like? And who would you sell them to?

MO: Well, in the beginning, we made them ourselves. It was homemade wine. And then we got, finally, we were able to resurrect the original bond for El Molino Winery, because they had made wine for a long time before they went out of business during Prohibition. So we were able to, you know, start up the El Molino Winery again with the same name. And we had to go over to Santa Rosa and appear before the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and prove that we were decent citizens and we had to have the money to buy the barrels and the equipment. But as I said, we were always a small wine room. We made less than a thousand cases of wine. And I don't know what El Molino makes today, but it's not much more than that. I don't think.

PO: Was there a reason you guys decided to stay a small winery instead of...

MO: Well we had the perfect plant for it. We had a tunnel that went into the hill. We restored the barrels. We improved the building there and built a lab for, you know, wine testing and stuff like that. So we just wanted to stay small because that wasn't my husband's primary occupation. So, you know, it was just a hobby. But he wouldn't do anything just as a hobby. He wanted it to make some money too, so it did.

PO: What was his primary occupation?

MO: He worked for a brokerage firm in New York City for many years. He worked there, till he died actually.

PO: Did he continue that in St. Helena?

MO: Yes, he opened an office in St. Helena and still took on clients here, more in the nature of investment counsel here.

PO: Who did El Molino sell to primarily? Who did you guys sell wine to primarily? MO: Oh, it was basically a mailing list, you know, like that. And then we started selling it to restaurants here and other cities. And in New York, we had a lot of friends in New York. And my Reg had a good friend who owned a wine shop in New York, Sherry Lehman Wines and Spirits, which is a very well-known wine shop. I think it's simply, it's just folded, to tell you the truth. And he promoted our wine a lot. And so he was able to sell a lot of it there. But we didn't make that much, so it wasn't too hard to sell it all. We always did sell it all.

JR: Have you visited New York recently and have you noticed any changes from when you guys lived there?

MO: New York is always changing. That's what makes it so exciting. But it has a permanence to it. I mean, New York is a force. The thrill that I lived there myself for 20 years, I learned so much there. There's so much to do and so much to do that's free. You can go to museums. It's not free, but it's very inexpensive. You can take courses at the Y. I took lots of courses. I took Italian lessons at the Y. I took art courses at all the museums, which were virtually very, you know, that was after I stopped working. I had the time to do that and it was inexpensive. I felt like I learned everything in New York. I mean, a lot.

PO: Were there any parts of New York culture that you brought to St. Helena with you?

MO: No, none that were followed. I can't say that. Except some people thought I wore funny clothes. [chuckles] But that's their problem.

JR: What did you do for work before you retired in New York?

MO: Well, my first job in New York was for a private school for boys, a grammar school called the Buckley School. And it was a very old school. And I worked for the headmaster. I was his number two person. I mean, he had a secretary, she's called the school secretary, she was a very forbidding figure but a nice, you know, woman who had never married and her job was her life. And I was her number two, I was her assistant and I worked there. And then the headmaster who became a friend. I mean, he wasn't a friend, but he was the smartest person I ever met in terms of grammar and writing. And I learned a lot from him because he helped me a lot with that. And he decided to put me in charge of the alumni of the school and school was so old by then it was started in 1900, I think it was. So it had many, many alumni. And he put me in charge of the alumni records, keeping up with all that stuff. So I enjoyed that. But I didn't make very much money there. And so, I changed jobs a couple of times to get more money. So I worked for a publishing company at one time and just doing, typing and proofreading.

JR: What did you study at UNC?
MO: Dental hygiene.

PO: What was that like?

MO: Well, my reasons for doing it, I don't know if I want to share because they're very frivolous. But anyway, yes, I worked as a dental hygienist for two years in North Carolina. And then I decided that I wanted to go live in New York City. I figured I'd live there one year and learn my way around town and it would be worth a year out of my life. So I lived there 20 years, because I met my husband and we got married, we were married till he died.

PO: Do you ever go back to your hometown?

MO: Oh yes. Well, not so much now because both my parents and my sister, my immediate family is all dead now. I have a couple of cousins that I'm in close contact with and they keep me up with everything that's going on in Burlington, North Carolina.

JR: Have you noticed many changes in downtown Napa over the years?

MO: Oh yeah, certainly it's spread up and widened and everything else. Spread out, gotten taller. I've never spent much time in Napa. Yeah, I like it here. Well I lived three miles north of St. Helena when I lived at El Molina Winery. Now I live, what, five miles south of St. Helena. here in Rutherford. My daughter now runs the El Molino Winery, and so she lives there.

JR: What about Calistoga?

MO: I never lived in Calistoga and I've never spent that much time in Calistoga. I love Calistoga because it hasn't changed very much. It's still pretty old fashioned. The parade was great. They used to have the greatest Fourth of July parade, but I don't think they even have it anymore.

JR: They have a tractor parade.

MO: They have the tractor parade. That's at night. Is that on the Fourth of July?

JR: I don't think so.

MO: Around that time?

JR: Around that time.

MO: That's fun too.
JR: Yeah.

MO: You know, I'm getting so old. I don't go out to those night time things too much.

JR: Was the Cameo Cinema there when you guys first came here?

MO: Oh yes, it's been there for over a hundred years hasn't it? I love the Cameo, we were great supporters of the Cameo, I mean in terms of attendance, I don't mean we gave them any money because we never did. I loved the cameo.

PO: I think you mentioned a dance club on the questionnaire.

MO: Yes. There was something called the Square Dance Club in St. Helena put together by a bunch of old timers. It was on Lodi Lane in the old, I think it was a schoolhouse on Lodi Lane. It's just after you turn in Lodi Lane from Highway 29. We met there once a month. And it was couples, you know, and we'd square dance. They'd hire a caller. You know what the caller is, a guy that tells you what to do, do-si-do, do this stuff. And we danced, I guess we had records. We didn't have live music, I don't think. It was really fun, and we had dinner, we'd cook dinner for everybody. If you were on the committee, your term usually came up only once a year. With other members of your committee to prepare the meal for all the people. Wasn't that big, it was a lot of fun.

PO: What type of music would they play?

MO: The kind you square dance to [chuckles]. Maybe we did have live music, I can't remember.

PO: So with the restaurants now selling, what do you think about restaurants selling wines from out of Napa? Do you think they should be exclusively selling Napa wines?

MO: No, I believe in open market. They can sell whatever they like and we can see how it goes. And I think Napa wines hold their own.

PO: Would you say you have a favorite year or there was a golden age in St. Helena when you were living here or no?

MO: For me personally, what was my golden time in St. Helena?

PO: Yes.

MO: Well, I would have to say it would be the first however many years it was that my children were at home before they went to college. And of course we saw the match when they went to college too, but when they were living in the house, that was special. And we were more involved with, you know, local school activities.

PO: Okay, well thank you so much for your time, Marie.

MO: It's been my pleasure. I hope it has, I hope it makes sense.

PO: Yes.

JR: Thank you.

MO: You're welcome, Jack.