Spicer, matriarch of ranching, mining family, dies

Thursday, June 29, 2000 | 9:59 a.m.

Effie Spicer, matriarch of a prominent Nye County mining and ranching family, spent her days watering by hand the black willow trees in her garden at the Boiling Pot Ranch near Beatty.

"Mom refused to let me install a drip system because she said the trees needed her to water and talk to them to make them grow better," said David Spicer, general partner of D&H Mining, where Effie was longtime executive secretary.

Just before bedtime Tuesday Effie went out to water her garden. A friend came to the ranch at 6 a.m. Wednesday and found Effie's body under the black willows, garden hose still in hand.

Effie Marie Spicer, who in April was named most inspirational contestant at the Mrs. Senior Nevada 2000 Pageant, died of natural causes. She was 64.

A memorial service for the Nevada resident of more than 40 years will be 7 p.m. Saturday at the Boiling Pot Ranch, seven miles north of Beatty, 110 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"My mother lived a remarkable life," David said. "She loved the outdoors because she said it gave her a chance to see and realize that we are all part of a much bigger picture."

Sun Editor and President Brian Greenspun, a longtime friend, remembered Effie as a beacon to her family and her community.

"She truly was a pioneer woman who made a life for herself and her family in the rural areas of Nevada -- and loved doing so," Greenspun said.

Effie visited Las Vegas about once a month to attend events and visit friends. But her heart and soul was at the Boiling Pot Ranch, where she lived a typical rancher's life.

She also played the violin and piano and wrote poetry.

As executive secretary of D&H Mining since it went into business in the mid-1970s, she learned the business from the ground up, everything from excavation equipment to explosives.

Born Effie Marie Steuber on March 4, 1936, in Lakewood Colo., she was the older daughter of Sheldon Stanley Steuber, a medical technician, farmer and dairyman, and the former Letty Schubarth.

After graduating from Excelsior High School in Norwalk, Calif., the 5-foot, 11-inch Effie was a model until she married in the late 1950s and moved to Indian Springs.

In 1966 Effie and her family moved to Beatty but lost their home in a 1969 flood. That year the family bought the Boiling Pot Ranch, where Effie ran the family's dairy business until it closed in 1977.

In addition to her son, she is survived by another son, Frederick "Fritz" Siedentopf, also of Beatty; a daughter, Elizabeth Brookhart of Redmond, Ore.; a sister, Lois Strozzi of Beatty; six grandchildren; and three nephews.