Born in Carson City B.H.

Vernon Manke tells people he was born in Carson City B.H. -- Before Hospital.

Manke was one of four others who also arrived B.H. and who spent Sunday at the two-story house on East Telegraph Street where they were born.

Three of the visitors were born back to back on Jan. 6, 7 and 8. Dr. Ernest George Hand of Gardnerville made the trip to Carson, to Mae Noonan's maternity home at 710 E. Telegraph St. to care for his patients coming from Douglas and Alpine counties.

Eighteen years later, two of the trio graduated together as members of the Douglas High School Class of 1958. Manke was one of the three born in January 1940 and one of the graduates.

"Dr. Hand was a country doctor from Gardnerville," Manke said. "My mom died in 1986 so I didn't get to talk to her much about this, but I remember her telling me that when she was there Hand checked her and left saying 'I'll be back when it's time.'

"I guess he had a knack for coming back at the right time."

Ada Uhart whose daughter Marilyn Jane Uhart Wills was born Jan. 6, 1940 remembers it a bit differently.

"We shared a room. We were good friends and Mrs. Noonan was telling her 'don't push 'til the doctor gets here.'"

Marilyn was the first child of Ada and Darrell Uhart of Minden. They had six more, though none were born at Noonan's. Today they have 16 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

Uhart said a maternity stay lasted nine days.

"We laid in bed and visited," she said. 'But after nine days, when you got up you were so weak."

The Uharts made the trip from Minden in their Desoto. When they reached Noonan's she said she was dumped off and didn't see her husband again until after the baby was born at 7 p.m.

"Your mother was dumped off too," she said to Manke, who was raised by his stepfather Henry Manke.

Manke was born Jan. 7, 1940 to Alice and Oliver Curtz of Markleeville. He said his mother told him he was "the thorn between two roses."

Kathlene Marie Knowles Prescott was born Jan. 8, 1940 to Alice and Edward "Buck" Knowles of Dayton. Prescott, who lives in Port Orchard, Wash., said her father was a carpenter who worked building mills and they lived all over Nevada. Part of her time was spent in Douglas County where she went to school with Manke and Wills.

"We met in the first grade. Met again in the third grade, again in the eighth grade or something," she said.

At one point in eighth or ninth grade, they had a three-way birthday party at the Uhart Ranch.

"It was the only birthday party I ever had," Prescott said.

Manke remembers visiting Noonan when he was a child.

"It was in the 1940s before the back streets of Carson were paved," he said. "My mom and Erma Wilkes stopped to visit with Mae Noonan and I remember riding a tricycle on the dirt streets in front of the house. It must have been 1947-48."

There are many other stories.

"In those days moms had to bring their own (baby) blankets," Manke said. "One day they brought (Ada Uhart) a baby in her blanket, but she said 'that's not my baby.' It was me."

"You don't know how close I came to nursing you," Uhart said.

That story grew over the years.

"I remember one time when I was making a fuss, Daddy told me that they must have brought the wrong one home," Wills said.

"Daddy kind of embellished on it in later life."

Ironically, only Ada Uhart remembers the 1940 birthdays. During her stay there were four babies at the home.

A family from Markleeville with the last name of Wood was there when she arrived.

Of the Uharts six other children Loran was born in Carson City at the maternity home of Mrs. Snipes, also on the east side, though she did not remember where. Four others, Albert, Janice, Bette Jean and Jim were born in Gardnerville at Mrs. Pitts' maternity home. Darrell, born 13 years after Jim, was born at Carson-Tahoe Hospital in 1961, when maternity stays lasted two-days.

Wills said Mrs. Pitts' maternity home is a two-story, white house on Centerville Lane.

The January 1940 babies came after the Aug. 2, 1923 birth of Les Groth and the May 8, 1934 birth of Don Quilici who were also born at Noonan's. Both lifetime Carson residents remember the home as children and were told over the years by their parents they were born there.

"We lived just a few blocks away on Spear Street," Groth said.

Noonan's nephew, the late John Nulty said 28 babies were born there.

"She was a midwife up until she died," he said in a 1998 interview. "She only got paid for four of them. She did a lot of babies for people out in Dayton. People brought her chickens and stuff."

Noonan purchased nearly all of block No. 48 of the Musser Subdivision Aug. 14, 1928 and her home became the maternity home through the 1940s.

"Mrs. Noonan got sick when Kathlene was born," Uhart said. "I remember a little French nurse who took over our care."

Carson-Tahoe Hospital would not open until May 2, 1949.

The home is now owned by Lincoln Covington who bought the house in 1975 not knowing its history.

Covington found an old rusty hospital bed in the attic when he purchased the house.

"It was all trashed, rusty and broken," he said. "I threw it away. Now when I think of all the ladies who would have recovered after giving birth in that bed, what a terrible loss. But then it just didn't ring a bell. Now I don't throw anything away."