Transcript of interview with Verna Chadwick by Keri Wright, February 24, 1979

UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick i An Interview with Verna Chadwick An Oral History Conducted by Keri Wright Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick iv Abstract On February 24, 1979, Keri Wright interviewed Verna Chadwick (born 1931 in Lehi, Utah) about her life in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chadwick first talks about her early life in Utah and some of the activities in which she would take part when first moving to Las Vegas. She also talks about her family and living in several homes throughout the city, including some of the steps taken to build those properties. She also talks about her involvement in Cub Scouts, her church membership, political involvement, recreational activities, atomic testing, and the first stores and casinos that opened in the city. The interview finalized with a discussion on social changes and the changes in prices of goods over the years. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 1 My name is Keri Wright, my age is nineteen, and I’m doing an interview for Nevada history, and I have with me Verna Chadwick and we’re at her house doing the interview. And I’ll now turn it over to Verna, and she can give you the details of where she lived and everything. Okay, my name is Verna Chadwick, and I live at 4858 West Pioneer Avenue. I’m forty-seven years old and married, have five children; three of them are grown and moved away, and still two at home, ages eighteen and fifteen. And whatever questions you’d like to ask, I’d be glad to help you, Keri. All right. Were you born here in Las Vegas? No, I was (unintelligible), Utah, about thirty miles south of Salt Lake City. All right. And what schools did you attend when you were up there? I attended Pleasant Grove Junior High School and grade schools there, too, and then I completed my last two years of high school in American Fork, Utah at Am Fork High School. All right. And when did you move here to Vegas? Well, I visited here once in 1947, came to visit my cousin, Evelyn (Unintelligible) was married and moved here, and I just kinda played best with Las Vegas. It was a small town then, very small. And I still remember the road to North Las Vegas, seeing the policemen with striped uniforms, kinda reminds you of a Western town. I was really impressed with that. I always like that kind of stuff at that age, anyway. At that time, I was able to visit Boulder City, and I was really anxious to see Boulder City, because in 1931, my grandfather, Hubert Chase (Unintelligible) built the little red brick houses that are up on the hill there in Boulder City. It’s always been such a beautiful clean little town. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 2 Anyway, this was done in 1931 when he got these houses, and my grandmother was always proud that he had a letter of recommendation from the governor at that time, time that anyone that wanted to hire him, he did very good work and he was always kind of proud of that. (Unintelligible) these people, they have moved into Victory Village in Henderson and (unintelligible) lived with them for about three months and went to work at Monarch Cleaners in town, and rode the bus back and forth to work (unintelligible) go out there in the mornings. And that was probably two or three times a day, I would ride the bus (unintelligible), spend the whole day in Vegas and back home at night. And that was just for three months; in July, they moved into town on Thirteenth Street, but they bought a little house in there. It was too small, and they had two small children, so they end up (unintelligible) and still working at the same place, and then after about two months, a friend of mine went to Los Angeles. And on the way back, she stopped and I talked her into staying and getting a job, and so she went to work at another cleaners that was down on Fifth Street, as we called then—Las Vegas Boulevard now. We had a lot of good times living here in Southern Nevada; we used to spend a lot of time at the lake. At one time, we bought an old ’28 DeSoto (unintelligible) wanted, her husband, and it still had wooden spokes, if you can imagine. And we had (unintelligible) tires for it. There was a place called the Green Shack down on Boulder Highway, and they had an old Buick sitting out in back, and it still had the wooden spokes on it, so we asked them if we could have it, the tires off it and sell it to us, and so they sold me two or three of the tires, give them six dollars for a whole bunch of them. They’re kinda odd-shaped, and they’re (unintelligible) wheels and big around, you know. So, anyway, we used to use this old DeSoto and just go down to the Roundup, what used to be the Roundup, and get ice. So we lived there in the old trailer park and what’s called (unintelligible), which is now called Commerce Street. And there was about four or UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 3 five trailers in there, and we lived in one of those. And they had only had an icebox in it, so if we had to go down and get ice, we used this old DeSoto (unintelligible) get ice. One day, we decided that we’d go a little bit farther and went over into town, and we end up getting on the wrong street and end up by the old police department there on North Second Street, I guess is where it was at. And about that time, some policemen turned around and started coming out, and we jumped out really quick, and our tire was low, and they were looking at this tire—we jumped out real quick, stood beside the license plate so they couldn’t see it, ‘cause it had California plates on it from about three years before that. It was really old. (Unintelligible) talk to us from that point on, and we went back home—we never went any farther than to get our ice from then on it until was able to get a license there. I took my brother out in (unintelligible) the DeSoto, too while it was running good, and it was still just in its original shape. It had one little dent in the fender (unintelligible) seat and a nice little car, lots of springs, and it had a (unintelligible) engine in it. And went to ride in the desert in the area about where International Hotel is now, rode it to the sand dunes and just really have us a good time. Later on there, they built a racetrack in that same place, and it’s not the International Hotel. Anyway, in March of 1951, I was married to Glen (Unintelligible) and married in San Antonio, Texas; he was in the Army then. And I lived here till he got out of the service in 1952 in October and went back up there and picked him up in Carson, Colorado, and we stayed in Utah and lived there for about a year-and-a-half. And then we came back down here to Las Vegas in 1954 in the spring; it was March sometime in 1954, and we went right out. In the meantime, my cousin had sold their little house on Thirteenth Street and bought five acres of ground where it was owned by Owen Leavitt to be homesteaded, and they built a little house out there and they sold us a half-acre of property to build us a house. And so, we just moved the UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 4 trailer out there and started building, and it was kind of slow ‘cause my husband was trying to build it and work and (unintelligible). At that time, when he first came down here, he worked for Mark as a (unintelligible) carrier. When we first moved in the desert there in 1954, we had a little two-room trailer that we lived in while we were building the house. And we didn’t have any power; they had a power plant over to condos, which was about 300 feet across the ground, and they were able to pump water up once a day so that we had water to drink, which was about all. That’s all they’d run it for their plants if they’d plant it. But we had to go and find all the people that owned property down on Decatur and all the way up on the north side of Charleston clear to that property that came in between them down on West Monroe, and contact every one of them and have them help on the cost on putting the power lines in, which was quite an expense. But anyway, this took some time, so we were there from the time we moved there in March clear through the summer, clear through September without power. You can imagine what living in this desert is like without having air conditioners; well, it was really kind of a fun thing. We ended up, when we’d go to bed at night, we’d soak a towel and just kinda wring it out really good and lay it over us, kinda keep us a little bit cool, be able to sleep. When we finally did get the power hooked up towards the end of September, why, you never saw anybody so happy—we all hooped and hollered and really carried on. You didn’t really know what it’s like to, can imagine what it’s like to be without power until you’ve tried it. It’s like, you never miss the water till the well runs dry. It was kind of slow (unintelligible) build it and work and (unintelligible). When he first came down here, he worked for (Unintelligible) for a few months until he had an accident, Mark had an accident, and he wasn’t able to work for a month. And UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 5 (unintelligible) as a block man. At first, he used to drive a truck and deliver the blocks, and then after (unintelligible) decided that he had a mechanical (unintelligible) so they went ahead and hired him on, on the nightshift. They were making so many brick that (unintelligible). So, he made brick using (unintelligible) machinery on nightshift, and our home that we built there on Westwind was made from some of the bricks that he made as a block man. And we finally got our home finished; it took us about a year-and-a-half to get it where we could move into it. It wasn’t completely finished then, but we moved into it anyway. And by this time, we had two little boys: Don and Brad. And he worked out the block man for a couple years and went to work for (Unintelligible) Tile Company setting tile; in some of these homes, that’s where the (unintelligible) tract and some of them, houses in that area, the whole town, just setting tile in the bathrooms and around the sinks and that type of thing. And he worked there for a couple years, and then he got a job working for (Unintelligible) Drilling Company, drilling—at first, he drove trucks for them and helped in the machinery-type things. And they mounted a big well rig on a two-and-a-half ton Army truck, and Rudy worked pretty well together, so kinda worked as a team; he was kind of a helper for a while, and then he got on where he was drilling. So they drilled quite a lot of the wells in the area up there, and out towards the outlying areas because they were so expensive to bring the main waterline in; they don’t do it unless, you had to put the big (unintelligible). Most of the water came from the wells in that time. A friend of my mother’s was down one time; they said, “Oh, sure good things they got Lake Mead out there for all that water.” And I said, “You’d be surprised,” ‘cause at that time, only six percent of the water came from Lake Mead, and the rest of it was all underground. We drilled a well at our place and had a little trouble with it because it was drilled by another company, and they used a (unintelligible) and sand sinked in, and for two years we had a jet pump on there—UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 6 (unintelligible) at first and it would spray muddy water in. And so we always had to wait till the water settled before we could wash clothes and stuff like that. It was really kind of a hassle. But anyway, I’m getting ahead of the story a little bit. When we first was building there, we got to name the street, we named Westwind because the wind was so much that year, it just, constant, and a large pickup truck, the wind blew the sand against it so hard that it just sandblasted and brought it right down the primer—took that maroon right off (unintelligible) truck. Anyway, (unintelligible) set up one night, and if I decided to name it, we had to have a name before we could have our mail delivered, ‘cause up that time, we had to go down on Stewart Street and pick up our mail every day and get general delivery in town, and (unintelligible) down there anyway, our groceries. For that time, there was only about four or five grocery stores in town, and they were starting to build the Panorama Market, we was really tickled about that, have out grocery store back close to home. And at first, (unintelligible) mail out on our street, we had to have it picked up for about two or three years on the corner of Arville and Charleston, waiting for the town to grow a little bit more. And we finally had mail service, and we got our mailbox after quite a few years nand started delivering to more people out there. This house that we lived in on 1604 Westwind was, like I say, was a block house. There was only two bedrooms, though, so we had, our family was increasing. We had three children while we lived there in that house, so we decided that we probably were going to have to be moving sooner or later. But the last three children were born at Las Vegas Hospital on North Eighth Street, which they closed town about a year ago now. And I think they said it’s an alcoholics rehabilitation center; it’s an old Spanish-looking (unintelligible) roof. It was a good hospital when we lived up there—get really good care. I had surgery there once, and besides UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 7 having my three children (unintelligible). In that hospital, it got so that everybody knew you; it was just like a big family. It wasn’t just your doctor or nurse that knew you; it was every doctor and every nurse. And some of the people, even, that went there, it was just such a small hospital that everybody had a chance to get acquainted, especially if you had enough kids that were sick like mine were, always running down there all the time. I really hated to see the hospital closed down, ‘cause they had everything really quite convenient. They had their lab in the bottom, and the doctors’ offices were right downstairs, and then the hospital part was upstairs. So, if you went there to have your babies delivered, they could just buzz the doctor down to his office, and he’d go right up, and he’d keep on taking care of his practice right up till the time that your baby was born. And another time—this is kinda unusual ‘cause they always talk about the long waits that you have in the hospital now—but another time, Ralph got his arm broken in a primary, and he came home and we called down there at about five o’clock, went down there as fast as we could, and they set his arm, and he was out of there in thirty minutes. They were right waiting for us, just getting ready to leave to get off shift. They were waiting for us to come, so they could get him done that quick. And that’s something I don’t think that would happen nowadays, you can imagine. Let’s see, we moved over here to 4858 West Pioneer Avenue in 1967. We couldn’t decide what to add on to that house, so we decided the next best thing would be to move, and we’d have just the three-bedroom house. Also, we wanted to dry wood floors, because I suffer from varicose veins on the cement and always had (unintelligible) so we decided to try wood floors. This was a barracks that had been moved in from Nellis, and there was three of them brought in all at one time, and needed a lot of fixing up. We decided that since it was wood UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 8 construction, it would be easier to make any changes and went all through this house and changed it, since we lived here and that. But this was really close; nothing really changed by moving here except that we’re two miles away from our good neighbors that we had over there. I guess I’m not one to adapt to changes very well, ‘cause I cried for two days after moving over here, I missed my neighbors and that so much. Not that we spent so much time together, just (unintelligible) over there, and my husband said, “Well, there’s no need to be getting all upset about that; it’s a ten minute drive over there go see them anytime you want to,” but it’s still not quite the same. It’s been a really good neighborhood here. When we first moved here, this was a dirt road coming down Decatur for quite some time. It wasn’t even cut through to Spring Mountain then. Of course, it wasn’t very much longer after that it seems like we always pioneer all these old dirt roads out in the western area here. But I was glad to see that when they finally did (unintelligible). When we first moved here, this was a level area to (unintelligible); the water used to run down and come right across the backyard and underneath the house and on (unintelligible) down the road, and then when they reconstructed this road, they lowered it down till, we’re up on a hill now. It looks like an optical illusion; if you look out there, it looked like the water was running towards Decatur, ‘cause it’s so low, but it really runs down and into the track down on Pioneer farther on down. But it’s been really a nice neighborhood to live here, and we’ve enjoyed the house and everything. The kids had the Cashman Junior High right here (unintelligible) and they were one of the first ones to go there, and they were the first to go to Clark High School. In this area, we’ve always been the first ones that started all the new schools. Like the kids first started at Rex Bell when it first opened; they first started to Doris Hancock when it opened new, or started UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 9 (unintelligible) when it was new, they first started Rose Warren when it was new, ‘cause they used to bus all these children that was in this outlying area, they’d always bus them, so they’d just take them to the next school. So we had to start all the PTAs and get involved in all that kind of stuff. In September 1972, Ralph was one of the first ones that was bused through the Westside, and I didn’t feel like he really got a lot out of it that year, but when Kelly was finally bused over there, they kinda had the program so that a child that was aggressive could advance however they’d want to; they would just let them go on at their own speed. Getting back to Don here, he was working as a well driller, and he worked there for six-and-a-half years, and towards the end, he did a lot of drilling on elevators shafts and things like that at the hotels, for those high rise, as well as still doing wells occasionally. And in between this time, when he worked as a well driller, he had an offer to go back to Utah, and his mother and my mother both had cancer and they were sick, so they decided to see if he could go back to work out there in Salt Lake City. But he only worked a short time, and (unintelligible) ‘cause they didn’t pay their taxes. So he ended up staying and working with his brother and stayed for six months and then I stayed here with the kids and finally just came back. And he went to work for a while at Blue Diamond, and they did some convention work, like they had conventions for, one of them he worked on where they had a lot of paint displays and things like that. One was (unintelligible) fixtures, remember him going and assembling all that stuff. He worked on that for just a short time. And in the meantime, he (unintelligible) and they went to work (unintelligible) as a truck driver, and he worked there till he was able to become an operating engineer. And he worked with them for, like, twelve years, I guess. And then they sold to another fellow, and he worked with him for two years and then went to work for (unintelligible) where he’s working now. But he’d done really well there. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 10 Could you tell me if he’s worked on any of the hotels? If he has worked on any of them? Yes, the ones that were built then or whatever? Well, I remember the one time he was drilling an elevator shaft at the Sahara Hotel after it was constructed, and they took down some of the walls and they set the rig up right up next to the ladies bathroom. He called me and said he wanted to know if I’d bring him down something to eat, ‘cause it was all so muddy with the wind and what with his drilling clothes on in the hotel, so I took him down some lunch, or some dinner, I should say, and a little while later, forty-five minutes or so, he was back home. I said, “What happened?” He said, “Oh, they told me I wasn’t keeping in tune with their band, so they made me quit.” They had their show going—he was drilling the elevator shaft to get ready for that high rise that they put on—all those different ones on the Strip there that he had done this type of thing before in the new courthouse when they built it—put some of the elevator shafts and that. But just the (unintelligible) when they installed. He had an offer to go to work for the (unintelligible) elevator company and decided he wouldn’t do that. He got into this (unintelligible) operating engineer and (unintelligible) that in case of the other (unintelligible). Okay. Was there any organizations that you’ve ever worked with or that you are working with now? Well, I worked in Scouting about nine years altogether—started out as a den mother when my second boy, Brad, went; he was probably eight years old when he first started out, and worked two years with the Cub Scouts. That was an experience. And then later one, through the church, I was guide patrol (unintelligible) stake level for three-and-a-half years working with the adults. I’ve really seen a lot of changes in the Scouting program since first starting out as a den mother. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 11 Of course, that was a little bit different than the regular Scouting, but they had a new Scout manual since I was in there, and the program’s changed quite a bit, where they don’t have to do a lot of the hiking and stuff like they used to, which is nice in this hot weather. If they’re gonna take and earn hiking skill awards, they still have to go out and do their hiking, but I kinda like the old program, because I think the boys had to work a little bit harder to get to be a first class Scout from what they do now, but the training sessions, the Scout headquarters have really down a lot as far as the Scout training and that now. One of the primary (unintelligible), couple a years ago, I got in on a training session that they had two days at Mt. Potosi and three nights or four nights, I guess it was, over at Bonanza, that grade school on Bonanza. And that was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. It was really, really great. Of course, they had really good leadership, and I think that’s probably what made it so much fun, but there was about ninety adults that was taking those training sessions, and they just counted off one through nine. And then all the ones and twos who ever made a patrol, we had to go ahead and make a (unintelligible) and flag and everything just like if we were the boys, and we were the Fonzi Patrol; George Holt was out patrol leader, and I ended up being the only one with eight guys. We cooked outside and Dutch ovens, and that’s how we cooked out meals—and made the most delicious macaroni and cheese, and the base of it was bread, if you can imagine, bread and milk and cheese, and seasoning and that. The break took up the milk like you’d make a cream sauce, like when you cook, but it was really delicious, and that’s what we had for one meal along with raw vegetables and carrots and stuff. They did some really fun things while we were up there; each one person that went there had a staff, and we had to make a (unintelligible) to carry somebody on. And then they went up in the hills and had to carry them back with a pan of water on their stomach to keep them level so UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 12 they wouldn’t dump this pan of water on their stomach. A lot of them got wet, but it was fun. It was just really a neat experience, and if every boy could have that experience, I’m sure that Scouting would really go. It was really a good training experience. I enjoyed. Okay, now what was the next question? Have you (unintelligible) before we get out too much, could you tell us about religion you are? Oh, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. How do you think the church has helped you in your life? Well, it’s certainly helped a lot in raising my family. I don’t know what I would’ve done without having that environment for them. I think it’s really helped a lot on keeping them on the straight and narrow, more or less, and it’s certainly helped in my life, too, to be working with the youth and that in ward, and that’s been really great. That’s another thing you might be interested in, the growth of the church since we’ve been here. When we first moved down here, there was only, I think the sixth ward was the one we belonged to then, and that was down on Franklin Street, and then right shortly after, we were in the ninth ward—still living in the same house all the time—we were in the ninth ward, and we went to the old church there on Clark Street. And then the ninth, we were divided into the nineteenth, and then into the twenty-fifth, and then when we were divided into the twenty-fifth, they eventually built a new building over on Lindell, but in the meantime, we ended up going up to Alta and Jones in that building for the years that it took to get that building finished. And then from the twenty-fifth, they split and made the forty-first ward, and then the forty-first made, made, what was it, forty-fifth or forty-sixth, and then we went back into the twenty-fifth ward again where we lived at here now. But from six wards to forty-six or forty-seven, whichever it is right now, that’s a lot of people with, there’s probably UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 13 250 to 300 families in each ward, so you can see what the growth of the church has been, whether it’s all from people moving in or probably a lot of converse, too, I’m sure. But it’s been interesting to see the growth there. Anything to do with politics, like the (unintelligible), tell me how they used to be done and then how they’ve changed since? Well, I’ve worked at the polls for quite a few years now. I remember the first time I voted in Upton, Utah, and we voted by paper ballot, and it was in someone’s home, they had sheets strung up along on a wire, and we would go in there and cast out old ballot on the paper, and that was the way we did it then. And since I’ve worked on the polls down here in Las Vegas, they used those great big machines that were real backbreakers getting them getting them hauled into the schools and that where they had to set up. And now they have this little Votomatic; it’s just like a little suitcase, and it’s used for the computer cards, and that’s really, I’m sure it’s saved the taxpayers many dollars converting over to this, not having to truck those big things around. It must have taken an army to get them set up. They were huge, where they’d walk inside and have the little (unintelligible) closed, and the Votomatic just has some little shields where the, it’s like a suitcase with legs inside of it. You set them up, and the shield just kinda separates them from the other person standing next to them. And has far as the political thing there, I went to several get-togethers where they’ve had candidates come speak and tell us what they believe in, of course, to get their votes is how they do it. And (unintelligible) send out some cards and letters and a few phone things and things like that. They help candidates, but I don’t really get involved in too much. Do you remember of any presidents that were here when you were living here? UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 14 Well, I remember, one time, President Kennedy was here; I think it was in July before he was assassinated, him and (Unintelligible) Harrison were here to speak to the delegation of voters here in Nevada. And everybody was really glad to see him, and he just more or less told them it was time to get going, get the nation in order again, was about the gist of his story. But he had been here other times, too, though. He had campaigned for Adlai Stevenson and made several trips to Reno. You might be interested in some of the things that happened when he was killed. I know it was really a loss to all the Nevadans. And I remember Grant Sawyer (unintelligible) have a day from the kids not having to go to school, and they flew the flags at half-mast for thirty days, and it was quite an honor, I think, to do something like this. And let’s see, what was some other things I could remember to tell you about. The casinos closed down from seven o’clock in the morning until midnight that night, and they had a special service out to the convention center, and all of the clergy in Las Vegas met and had a prayer service that was really according to the Catholic faith, I think; it was really quite impressive. This took place in November of 1963. I remember, I was setting up my sewing machine, and I heard the news, and it was just like hearing one of your relatives were killed. Getting back to my working at the polls and that. You know, it was just a short time ago that eighteen-year-old were allowed to vote, but I found that working there, of course, there was a lot of older people living in this area—there’s a lot of youth, too—but I found that there was only maybe three, four people of eighteen-year-old age that did come out and vote. And I was a little bit disappointed in that, and I hope that in the future that young people will take advantage of their right to vote, and maybe we’ve given them these laws a little bit too soon and they really need to be at twenty-one, I don’t know, but it’s interesting to see that they didn’t really take advantage of it. UNLV University Libraries Verna Chadwick 15 (Unintelligible some recreation things that you did as a family, or by yourself, things that people don’t do anymore or anything, kind of a background on that or something? Well, we’ve done quite a few different things—mostly camping, always has been our fun thing—we’ve had campers and been out camping. I remember one year, our neighbors next door to us decided we were going to go up to Mt. Charleston, or I guess it was really considered Lee Canyon—it was kind of in between up there—just across there, a little ways from there. And it started raining on us, so we end up coming back down the mountain, we said, “Well, we’ll just go out to the lake and cook our dinner out there,” so we went out to the lake, and the wind started blowing, it was so terrible. We had sand on our potatoes and everything, and we thought, well, we’re not gonna give up, we came on him, and made our supper there. And the neighbors all with their sleeping bags on the floor, and we maybe watched TV and they spent the night over at our place with sleeping bags on the floor—(Laughs)—rather than give up, but we’ve done quite a bit of camping. Of course, with Don, when he was well drilling, a lot of the times, I’d take the kids out, and (unintelligible) take our bags, sleeping bags and stay overnight, and I belonged to a bowling league for a while, six years, I guess it was. And as far as other recreation, we used to take the children and go to the drive-ins quite a bit when they were smaller. From where we