Home | About Us | News | Our Supporters | Help Us | Anna Rechel | Rawhide History | About The Area | Photo Gallery Anna Rechel 1884—1967 Anna Rechel Photo courtesy Sally Zanjani Anna Frances Elleser was born on January 1, 1884 in Pearl River, New Jersey and raised in comfort. Her parents were immigrants from Germany who settled in Tappan, New York, where Anna grew up in a luxurious mansion. She was still a young woman in her early 20s when both parents died, and her brother Walter became her life-long friend and companion. She married young, but divorced her husband quickly when she realized her mistake. They had one child, which died. She later married George Rechel in 1911, and the couple moved to Nevada to complete Anna's divorce process from her previous marriage. Anna and George Rechel Photo courtesy Sally Zanjani George and Anna settled on a ranch south of Fernley where all of their children were born. While there, a prospector named Bill Stewart often stopped to visit with Anna about his mining ventures. The mining fever struck and Anna began reading everything she could find on the subject. When the Rechel's ranch failed to support their family and the Great Depression brought hard times to the whole nation, Anna and George made a dramatic change. They moved to Rawhide - the population at the time was approximately 100. George worked for the Nevada Highway Department, and Anna spent all of her spare time prospecting. Because of the Depression, their move was a good economic solution. They lived very inexpensively in a two-bedroom cabin, and they made enough money to buy supplies when most people in the country couldn't even find a job. People who chose mining had to be hardy. Conditions in such a small mining town were primitive - no telephone, no electricity, no plumbing, no grocery store, and no gas station. Water was scarce and most people saved every drop when it rained and hauled the rest from nearby Dead Horse Wells or Fallon. Anna prospecting Photo courtesy Churchill County Museum Evidently, Anna thrived living with just the basics. From then on, Anna was a prospector and a miner. Her eldest daughter, Rees, described Anna's optimism, always believing that she would strike it rich: "She just knew that she was going to find it. It kept her going." When tragedy struck, Anna must have been glad that she had her own way to earn a living. First her husband had a stroke, which left him hardly able to walk for several years before he died in 1938. Her son, George, died in 1937 after never fully recovering from a burst appendix. Her two daughters, Rees and Fern, were grown and gone, leaving Anna as the sole provider for her son, Walter ("Pal"), and her brother, Walter, whose spirit had been broken by financial problems from the Depression. During World War II, Anna mined tungsten, which was considered a strategic metal for the war effort. She worked underground, blasting with dynamite and mucking (shoveling) the ore to be hauled out of the mine. By the 1950's, with nuclear testing and atomic energy on the way, uranium was in demand, and Anna searched for that. She also mined, polished and sold turquoise. Anna with her dog and truck Photo courtesy Churchill County Museum Anna drove a pickup truck, an old rattletrap that constantly tried her patience. When she went out prospecting, she often slept on a mattress she kept in the bed of the truck. When a man named Alvin Nelson came along and offered to help her with her mines and buy her a new truck, she married him, but quickly divorced him when she discovered he really wanted her to become his housewife. In Rawhide and the surrounding area, Anna's ("Annie's") house was the social center. Neighbors and friends would stop to visit and play chess. Often they discussed political ideas. She was vocal on her views, especially on rights for women. She believed women should not have just two choices, either to work for low wages or to marry in order to support a family. She was for equal pay, government operated free daycare and the right to choose any work that interested a woman. Happy at home in Rawhide Photo courtesy Churchill County Museum During the 1960's, Anna was the last, lone resident of Rawhide. It was during this time that dangerous people began roaming the desert. Disturbing incidents of vandalism were beginning to occur. It is rumored that Charles Manson and a companion came through the area - Manson left his name on the Belmont Courthouse at the same time unsolved murders occurred in the Death Valley country. Finally her family moved her to Fallon for her own protection and also because her health began to fail. Anna did not accept the move and at first kept running away to Rawhide. She loved her home and refused to leave. Anna's grave in Hawthorne, NV Photo courtesy Pete Lyons She died in Fallon on August 21, 1967, having lived the life she chose. She lived in her beloved desert and worked at prospecting and mining, which she loved. Although she never discovered her big bonanza, she was an early example of a Nevada woman who made her own choices in life. Rawhide did not long survive her, nor had Anna believed it would when she was no longer there to keep watch.