Nevada Women in History

1891 Š May 11, 1978

Therese Alpetche was born in 1891 in the Germiette quarter of St. Etienne de Baigorry, in the Basque province of Basse Navarre in France. She spent her latter youth in Bordeaux, France, where her family operated the Hotel Amerika and one of the early travel agencies from Europe to the Americas.

She was a graduate of the Cordon Blue in Paris, and came to the United States after World War I to take home her brother, Michel, who was dying from the lingering effects of a poison gas attack as a soldier in the French Army. He died in Reno in 1920, and Therese chose to remain in the United States.

In 1921, Therese was married in Reno to Dominique Laxalt, who was born in 1887 in Tardets, Soule province, France, and immigrated from the Basque country in 1906. At the time of their marriage, he was part owner of the Allied Land and Livestock Co., with sheep and cattle holdings in Nevada and California. The company raised crops on five ranches and farms with headquarters at the old Fallon ranch near Yerington.

After the livestock crash of 1922, Dominique trailed what was left of his herds of sheep to northern Washoe County hoping to make a new start, but a heavy winter and freeze decimated his remaining bands.

In the following year, Therese accompanied her husband as he worked as sheepherder and ranch hand for various ranching outfits in California and Nevada. She also worked, cooking three meals a day for as many as 30 ranch hands.

Therese and Dominique had six children: John, currently an attorney; Suzanne, a retired nun with the Holy Family Order; Peter, an attorney; Paul, former Nevada governor and later U.S. Senator; Robert, author and former director of the University of Nevada Press; and Marie Bini, a former school teacher.

The Laxalts moved to Carson City in 1926, where they operated the French Hotel and owned the original Ormsby House. When Dominique Laxalt went back to the sheep business, ranging his own herds in the Carson City, Dayton, and Marlette Lake areas, Therese tended to their joint business interests and assumed much of the task of raising their family of six children. (Dominique retired in 1947, but after a visit to the "old country" poignantly described in Sweet Promised Land, he grew increasingly restless and returned to his beloved hills as a herder. After a long illness, he died in Carson City in 1971.)

Therese's dream was that, somehow, they could give to all their children a college education that they might earn their livelihoods with their minds rather than their hands, as had most of their Basque ancestors before them. They would grow to manhood and womanhood as fine examples of the opportunities for successful careers that America gives those who are willing to work and make the sacrifices necessary to that end.



- Biographical sketch by Jean Ford.