Longtime Genoan dies Friday

Sonia DeHart learned to ride, rope and shoot as a girl growing up on Hot Creek Ranch just outside of Tonopah, then she became a ballerina and performed on three continents.

Services are 2 p.m. Monday for DeHart, 96, who died Friday afternoon at her home in Genoa, where she has lived since 1941.

Her daughter, Genoa resident Alice Cleary, said DeHart was born in Tonopah in 1906 to Victor and Elizabeth Barndt.

"Her father had a lot of mining interests and lived on the ranch out there," Cleary said. "They lived at Hot Creek, then in Berkeley and spent some time in Washington, D.C."

Growing up on the ranch, DeHart learned how to be a cowgirl.

"Mom as a girl learned to ride, rope and shoot," Cleary said. "She accompanied her mother on a cattle drive as far as Ely, 90 miles away."

As a teenager, the family sent DeHart to Hollywood, Calif., where she learned to dance.

"She joined the Koslov Ballet Company and performed in ballets, operas and silent films," Cleary said. "She loved ballet and adventure so she went to New York and danced there. Then she headed to Europe and danced with a ballet troupe in Germany and France."

DeHart performed as a soloist at the 1923 opening of the San Francisco Opera Company.

DeHart met her first husband, Lee Cochran, when she joined another ballet troupe and went to Argentina.

Cochran was the American vice counsel in Buenos Aries. The couple married in 1928 and moved to New York when they returned to the United States.

"She joined the Rockettes and toured Canada and the Northwest to make money during the Depression," Cleary said.

They moved to Los Angeles with two children and then moved to Tonopah where she had twins. The couple moved to Carson City and then to Genoa in 1941, where a sixth child was born. DeHart taught ballet in Tonopah and Carson, but stopped when the family settled down in Genoa.

DeHart found herself having to defend the family ranch after auto dealer Cal Worthington attempted to take it over.

"He tried to take the ranch away from them," Cleary said. "All they had was my grandmother's life interest. She took him on and won. She fought long and hard in the courts to protect the ranch."

While a member of many political, environmental and humanitarian groups, she always participated in those causes close to home.

"She ran the Episcopal thrift shop for many years and helped them pay off the mortgage and was active raising funds for Genoa during Candy Dance," Cleary said. "She made lots of fudge."

An avid reader and world traveler, she went to Australia with her second husband, Howard DeHart.

"She was an accomplished flower and vegetable gardener and I think she owned the first antique store in Genoa," Cleary said.

In addition to Cleary, DeHart's children are David Cochran of Danville, Calif., Rosemary Girolamo of Reno, Robert Cochran of Anacortes, Wash., Robert Pope of Hot Springs Village, Ark., and Gilbert Cochran of Reno.

DeHart's sister, Elizabeth Crouse, moved to Genoa, where her daughter, Hope, married Carl Falcke.

DeHart maintained her independence until just weeks before her death. She drove a large car nicknamed the "Silver Bullet," and lived in her own home until her death.

"She lived alone right up to the end," Cleary said. "She died in her own home and that's how she would have it."

IF YOU GO

A Funeral Mass for longtime Genoan Sonia DeHart is 2 p.m. Monday at St. Gall Catholic Church in Gardnerville. Interment will be in Genoa Cemetery. Walton's Douglas County Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.