Genoa native Billie Jean Rightmire and Dayton resident Ray Walmsley on the cover of the October 1998 edition of Nevada Magazine. Walmsley died a decade ago. The cover photo was taken by Minden resident Jay Aldrich.
Fourth-generation Genoan and longtime Town Historian Billie Jean Rightmire died Easter Sunday on the property where she grew up. She was 91.
Born Feb. 17, 1933, in Nevada’s oldest town, she attended school in what would later become the Genoa Courthouse Museum. Rightmire was the source for history in town pretty much since she returned in 1985.
She was the great granddaughter to pioneer wheelwright and blacksmith John Walker, granddaughter to Henry Walker and daughter to Ruth Walker Byrne.
She told Mary Settelmeyer in a 1990 Carson Valley Almanac story that her interest in history started when she was 12.
Teacher Margaret Gossi gave her class an assignment in 1945to make a scrapbook pertaining to Nevada and Genoa. Forty-five years later, Rightmire still had the scrapbook, and more.
She was a 1951 graduate of Douglas County High School and received a degree from Reno Business College. She was working for the Nevada Insurance Department when she met U.S. Navy veterans and professional electrician Don Rightmire at Candy Dance.
Her engagement to Rightmire was announced in February 1954 and the couple were married September of that year. They moved to Fallon where they purchased a property dubbed the Broken Wheel Ranch.
After raising sons Terry and Robin and daughter Sheryl, she and Don retired and returned to Genoa in 1985, where they purchased her childhood home.
They purchased the old Walker Home on Main Street in Genoa, which they then rebuilt in 1986.
As town historian, Rightmire was the source of information for the town for the better part of three decades before turning the historian position over to Genoa native Lisa Lekumberry due to health reasons in the last few years. Her archives will be preserved by the Douglas County Historical Society.
Her defense of the town as Nevada’s oldest settlement against claims by Dayton put her on the cover of Nevada Magazine in 1998. She was named a Woman in History in 2003.
Rightmire would often be called upon to write about the history of Candy Dance. Her last project was a book on the history of Candy Dance. In 2010, she compiled the book “Cooking with Genoa Pioneers,” to raise money for the town.
She was preceded in death by her husband Don in 2008. She is survived by sons Terry and Robin, daughter Sheryl (Lou) Dembeck, grandson Devon Rightmire and two great grandsons.
The time and date of a memorial service are pending.
