“Home Means Nevada” is the state song of Nevada, composed by Bertha Raffetto in 1932. Raffetto was asked to find a song about Nevada for a club function and completed an unfinished one. The song describes the beauty of Nevada, a mixture of mountainous and desert regions. Raffetto continued to write music, poetry, and ballads, and was named Poet Laureate of the Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs.
The state song of Nevada is “Home Means Nevada”. It was composed by Nevadan Bertha Raffetto in 1932. Also a singer, Raffetto had been asked to find a song to sing about Nevada for a club function. When she found none that she felt captured the spirit of the state, she recalled an unfinished one. His completed composition was made the state song by the Nevada legislature in 1933.
Nevada is one of the western states of the United States. Its major border states are Utah to the east and California to the west. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish word “nieve,” which means snowy. The state is a mixture of mountainous and desert regions. It is nicknamed the “Battle State” because it gained sovereignty in the Union during the American Civil War.
Bertha Eaton Raffetto was born on March 15, 1885 and lived in Reno, the capital of Nevada. Growing up, she was surrounded by books and music. Religious music in particular was part of her daily life. Raffetto wrote ballads and poems as well as music. She was asked by the Native Daughters of Nevada to find a song about Nevada that she could sing at the group’s annual picnic.
Raffetto found a few songs that fit, but none that she felt expressed the true spirit of Nevada. She decided to complete a song about Nevada that she had left unfinished a few years earlier. Working nearly 18 hours straight, she finished the composition on the morning of the picnic. She played and sang what would become the state song of Nevada from handwritten pencil notes.
The song is mainly about the beauty of the area. Raffetto calls Nevada the “Land of the Setting Sun”. It is also a place of “grey desert” where the wind “blows wild and free” with “mountains towed” across the landscape. He concludes that Nevada is the only place that means “home sweet home.”
After “Home is Nevada” became the state song of Nevada, Raffetto continued to write music, poetry and ballads. “Her Ballad of Katie Hoskins” received widespread critical acclaim and was used as a text at Columbia University in New York City to teach ballad form. One of his concert marches, “The Spirit of Democracy,” was performed by the US Marine Corp Band and broadcast nationally from Washington, DC
Among the honors Raffetto was named Poet Laureate of the Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs. She has also been active in many literary and musical groups. Reflecting on her career, she called writing the Nevada state song “the most rewarding experience of my life.”
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