Virgil Dishta

My father, Frankie Dishta, was the first to make this style.

Yes, my son Vincent makes this same style and continues the family tradition.

Yes, my father and mother taught me how to make jewelry. They would get lots of orders from C.G. Wallace and I would help.

My parents taught me in the 1930s, but I didn’t make jewelry fulltime until the 1940s when I married and needed to support a family.

I had a brother but he never made jewelry. He was in the National Guard and would also herd sheep for other people to make his living.

My wife and I had seven children and we taught each of them how to make jewelry. The two girls made their work a little different, but the rest of them did the small inlay circles like my father taught me.

Yes, they were always around it and before they started making jewelry themselves they had seen me and their mother making jewelry since they were babies. Vincent taught himself from the scraps we would leave on the workbench.

They would take their around to the different Traders, and buyers would always find out where we lived and come to the house. Probably Ernie Vanderwagen did the most buying here in the Village and would make large orders.

The last piece of jewelry I made was around three years ago, my vision has gotten real bad.

In pawn here (laughs). We made our jewelry for trade and never kept much. I am told that some of my work is in museums, and I would like to see it there.

Everyone always wanted ranger buckles, and I had gotten fast at making the buckles so I liked getting orders for them. My favorite thing to make was the squash blossom necklaces.

My hallmark is a V DISHTA. I started using it in the 1950s. My parents never used a hallmark on their work, but everyone knows the Dishta style.