Guy Nixon’s grandfather heard many stories from old men at the sawmill and he passed that oral tradition on to Guy. In El Dorado in 1974, Guy also heard stories from his Sunday School teacher, Mertile Schuster, an 87-year-old Miwok. Guy’s father was also a fertile source of stories that he heard from old folks on various ranches. The sound of his dad’s Model T Ford would bring out memories that they had.  His dad also recorded various stories on a camcorder.  

After his stint in the Navy, Guy and his Dad started to research these stories. He found Mr. Peabody from Hanks Exchange who had also collected stories. He and Guy worked together often, to unify multiple versions of the same story because every telling had additional details the others may have lacked.  As a result of collecting all these stories, Guy wrote 14 books and told stories on the Sierra Community Access Channel 2 TV shows and YouTube. His effort has been to preserve the history by correlating these stories with broader, related events. Guy tries to put the events and decisions into the context of what was happening around those folks and the factors that contributed to what they did. Guy hopes we enjoy his presentation, get some questions answered, and enjoy the get-together.