Transcript of interview with Gene Segerblom by Layne Karafantis, February 7, 2009

This oral history has been made possible by a generous gift from Emilie N. Wanderer for the Nevada Women Oral History Program 0 $ f 111 b(o %00<] An Interview with Gene Segerblom An Oral History Conducted by Layne Karafantis Las Vegas Women Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas 2009 © NSHE, Women's Research Institute of Nevada, 2009 Produced by: Las Vegas Women Oral History Project Women's Research Institute of Nevada, UNLV Dr. Joanne L. Goodwin, Director Layne Karafantis, Interviewer Annette Amdal, Transcription This interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation. The College of Liberal Arts provides a home for the Women's Research Institute of Nevada as well as a wide variety of in-kind services. The History Department provided necessary reassignment for the director as well as graduate assistants for the project. The department, as well as the college and university administration, enabled students and faculty to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for its support that gave an idea the chance to flourish. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Joanne Goodwin, Project Director Associate Professor, Department of History University of Nevada, Las Vegas iv Genevieve "Gene" Segerblom List of Photographs Photo 1. The Segerblom family in 1950 28 Photo 2. Gene holds a 13-pound bass from Lake Mead in 1977 29 Photo 3. Gene sits with Tick and Sharon at the awards ceremony 30 Photo 4. Gene is surrounded by family at her first legislative session 30 Photo 5. In 1935, Gene's mother, Hazel Bell Wines, passed a bill that would save artifacts from women's history. However, the Governor vetoed this bill! 31 Photo 6. Gene (front and center) campaigns for her son 32 Photo 7. Gene poses in front of the Segerblom Theatre 33 Photo 8. The Boulder City Museum also houses many of Clifford's cameras 33 vi Preface Genevieve "Gene" Segerblom contributed in a multitude of ways to her home of more than fifty years—Boulder City, Nevada. A third-generation Nevadan, Gene was born on March 15, 1918 in Ruby Valley, Nevada to Hazel Bell Wines and Stanley L. Wines. Her mother's side of the family was involved in politics—her grandfather was Senator William J. "Johnny" Bell (R-Humboldt) and her mother was a Humboldt County Assemblywoman from 1935-1936. Hazel Bell Wines was particularly active in advocating for a bill that would provide for the collection, arranging, housing, and maintenance of historical relics in women's history. Gene would eventually follow in her mother and grandfather's footsteps when she was elected to the Nevada State Legislature in 1993. After her birth in Ruby Valley, Nevada, the Wines family relocated to Winnemucca. Growing up, Gene fondly recalls spending time on her maternal grandfather's mining ranch. However, her father's work necessitated that the family move to the Reno area permanently during the Depression. After graduating from high school in Winnemucca, Gene earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1940. Gene studied engineering, because she wanted to be an architect. However, she realized that her true calling would be as a writer, teacher, and community activist. Gene Wines met her future husband and artist, Clifford C. Segerblom, in Reno, where he also went to UNR. After Clifford was offered work photographing the construction of the Boulder Dam, the pair visited one of Gene's sisters who lived in Boulder City. Gene and Clifford decided to relocate to Boulder City in 1940, and they married in 1941. • • Vll Because the war allowed married women to teach in Boulder City, Gene briefly worked as a high school teacher. However, Clifford soon received a photographing assignment in Panama, so he and Gene moved to Panama, where they remained until 1948. Upon the Segerbloms return to Boulder City, Gene ran a daycare center. She had one young child, Robin, and another, Richard, on the way, so she did not return to teaching. Instead, she wrote freelance articles about the Nevada landscape, with her husband providing photographs for the magazines. This collaborative effort lasted over twenty-five years. When the children were in school, Gene returned to teaching, which she thoroughly enjoyed. To this day, she continues to run into ex-students of hers in Boulder City. She says that she can tell if she taught someone if they refer to her as "Miss Segerblom" instead of "Gene." Gene's political career started in Boulder City in 1979, when she was elected city councilwoman. She campaigned for the arts, along with other community institutions. She eventually served four terms in the State Assembly (1993-2000), encouraged by her family to represent Boulder City. She lobbied for rights in Laughlin, fishermen's rights on the Nevada side of the Colorado River, and the creation and restoration of the Boulder City Hotel and Museum. Throughout her life, she has been involved in the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the Boulder Dam Hotel and Museum, the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, and the Community Club. The Boulder Dam Museum houses the "Segerblom Theatre," to celebrate Gene's contributions to both the community and the museum itself. Gene and Clifford had two children, Robin Liggett (born July 27, 1944) and Richard 'Tick" Segerblom (born August 4, 1948). Robin went on to pursue an academic • • • Vlll career at the University of California, Los Angeles, while Tick worked as an attorney in Las Vegas and ran for the State Assembly himself in 2006. Gene campaigned fiercely for her son, knocking on doors and garnering votes at the age of 88. Her efforts paid off, and Richard "Tick" Segerblom (D) was elected to the State Assembly for Assembly District 9, in the center of the Las Vegas metropolitan area. According to Gene, campaigning "is fun!" Gene is a delight and asset to her adopted home of Boulder City. Her contributions are innumerable and she continues to be politically active and supportive of community-building institutions. She is currently member of Lend A Hand, an organization that assists older people. She also participates in fundraisers for the Grace Community Church and contributes her time to various other charity work. She has been recognized as one of Las Vegas' 25 Notable Women, and while proud of the honor, she reminds anyone who mentions the distinction that she in fact lives in Boulder City. Her story is one of a true Nevadan whose invaluable contributions continue to augment Boulder City's community-centered atmosphere. ix An Interview with Gene Segerblom An Oral History Conducted by Layne Karafantis February 7, 2009 Hello, this is Layne Karafantis. I'm here with Gene Segerblom on February 7th, 2009, and we are here to talk about Gene's life and accomplishments in southern Nevada. Thank you for giving me this interview, Gene. Thank you. So I just wanted to start talking about your family history and where you were born and your parents and brothers and sisters. Mmmm hramm. Well, I was born in Ruby Valley, but after I was born we left Ruby Valley. I had four siblings, three sisters and one brother so there were five of us. This was quite a family for two. And my father did not get the ranch. He was not the eldest boy. The eldest boy in the family got the ranch. And we had a store. And my mother told me later that I was born on the, on a table in the store. And she sent the other kids, who were older, I was about four years younger than the youngest, and she sent them out to play, and when they came back, I was born. I can't say that that's true but that's what she used to say. And then we went to Salt Lake City because my grandpa Bill, my mother's father, had a gold and silver mine out of Winnemucca, and he had quite a lot of money. And Dad had a lot of money, too, so they had heard that the streets of Salt Lake City were piled with gold. So we moved to Salt Lake City and built a beautiful apartment house on First Street between Fifth and Sixth Street. And it was called "The Belle Addition." And it was a beautiful place and fine. But then came the Depression. And the people couldn't pay their rent, so we lost the, what was "The Belle Addition." And we had to move back to Nevada, which of course, us Nevadans thought was the best thing that ever happened to you—to live in Nevada. My mother had been born in a mining camp out of Winnemucca in 1880. And my Dad, oh, well, Dad had a little problem. His mother came from Lehigh, 11 Utah to Nevada and married my grandfather. And when she had Dad, she went back to Lehigh, Utah and people saying, "Where were you born?" And they called him "Uncle Stanley". "U-tah" he would say, 'cause all of us were Nevadans. Everybody else was bom in Nevada. And then we went back to Winnemucca 'cause that's where Grandpa Bill lived. And my Dad did not want to stay in the area that my mother came from and was bom. So we moved on to Reno and stayed in Reno. And stayed there so I was, ah, but then Grandpa Bell had a, some good political people that were very good to him and he said to Mother, "You come up here and I'll get you appointed Postmaster." So she went to Winnemucca, back to Winnemucca, and took me 'cause I was the only one that was still in high school. And I graduated from high school there. But Mother did not get, oh, my Grandpa was so mad at those other Democrats that didn't appoint Mother the Postmaster 'cause the Sen[ator], the state Senator had the right to appoint who would be in those days. So she decided to just, just stay there. By this time, Grandpa had already been, before I was bom, in the legislature in 1910. And he voted against women's right to vote, so I didn't think he'd want Mother doing anything political. He said he owned the bar in the hotel there and he didn't want women "bellying up to the bar so he voted against the right to vote. But then later on when women got the right to vote, he was anxious to have Mother ran for the legislature. So, he said, "If you can t be Postmaster, stay in Winnemucca and be the Assemblyperson from there." And she did win that seat. And was down in the legislature. And that's when I was a senior in high school in Winnemucca. She let me stay there till I graduated. So we used to go, once in awhile, down to see her in Carson City. But they didn't have offices for people. She didn't have an office. She didn't have any legislator or 12 anybody helping her with anything. You sat at a desk and you owned the desk. And that's all. And so you drove down from Reno everyday and back up to Reno after it was over. And I remember when I first went to the legislature, they had Mother's desk, or a desk like she had, and for $250 you could have her name put on it. So I had Grandpa's name put on it and Mother's name. And the other day when I was up in Carson City, I had a photo taken in front of it. I wonder if I can get my name on it now I'm not in the legislature anymore? I will see about that. So then I, well, I stayed in Reno. We lived right across from UNR, right on the main street and we lived in a little house right across. So I went to UNR and graduated from UNR. But my sister, who also went to UNR, her boyfriend's grandmother wanted to come down [to Boulder City], he was working here on the dam, wanted to come down and see where he was. So they asked Meryl, my sister Meryl, if she would take a bus ride and take her down. So she said, yes, she would do that. 'Cause Mother said, "If you say you'll do something, you'll be kind and do it." And we did it. So she brought Grandma down, Lyon was her name, and they stayed in a hotel in Las Vegas 'cause there weren't any in Henderson. And there wasn't any place to stay [in Boulder City], It was a government town. The government owned everything, every house, everything. So anyway, she brought Grandma out, no, I think actually, her grandson came into town to see her. And Meryl, my sister Meryl had been going with him up in Winnemucca, and they eloped, went across the street, got a license and got married, and came back and told Grandma Lyon. She was so mad. And she, she called my Mother and said, "We got married and I'm just going to stay down here" and Mother said, "No, you are taking Mrs. Lyon back up to Winnemucca." So she said, "Okay." So she took her back on the bus and 13 they met her in Fernley, a little town out of Winn[emucca], out of Reno where the bus stopped. And they were there to greet her. And then Mother called, I had just graduated from high school in Winnemucca, and in those days up at Lake Tahoe, there were just little houses and cabins sort of. And you could rent a cabin, so four of us girls graduated at the same time, got a cabin up at Lake Tahoe and we were up there. And I got a call from my Mother that said, "Merly got married. I was so mad I cried. And how could she do that to me? She was going to be a Pi Phi with me. We were going to college together and she would take care of me. And Mother said, "She did want she wanted." Mother never bawled us out if we did something. "She did what she wanted. We're going to help her. And she'll go back down to Boulder City and live with the guy she married." We knew him from up in Reno, in Winnemucca. They had a big house in Winnemucca. So anyway, the next year, when I graduated, Meryl was here with her husband, who worked on the dam. I thought, "I'll go down and see her." And I, well, then one time I said to my boyfriend, the big football player, who they brought, oh, I'll have to tell you about that. When, in those days nobody had money at all, so they couldn't get a football player from California to come up unless they paid some kind of tuition. So what exactly are we talking about right now? My husband to be. Yeah. They brought him from California to play football [at UNR], Clifford C. Segerblom. And he came up there to play football and get his tuition paid. But they put him down as a sheepherder from Gerlach, which is a little town in northern Nevada, which made him a native. So he didn't have to pay any, and he had some important person in Reno sign [him] up. "Yes, he is from Gerlach. A sheepherder." So 14 about twenty-five years later I said to him, "Would you like to see the little town of Gerlach?" Yes, he would like to see the little town where he was a sheepherder. We had a good laugh, but we went to Gerlach, which if any of you go from down here up north, you should go to Gerlach. And then he came down here and, oh, I think my sister Meryl's husband said, "There's going to be an opening for a photographer on the dam." And so he suggested Cliff, who finished college that year. He was three years older. We brought him down and they took him down to the dam to be interviewed and they said, "What do you know about photography?" And he says, "I don't know a thing. I haven't even had a camera in my hand." "Well, how can you do this job?" And he said, "Well, I'm an artist." And they said, "That's pretty good. We'll think about that." Then I thought, "I'll go down and get a job.' Well, this is a little bit later I should say, and he got the job as photographer on the dam. They said, "We have a dark room. You can leam photography." And many of the good photographs, I'll show you one downstairs later, from, which have become an eternal campaign thing for the dam, he took. So then I graduated from college and I needed a job, and all my friends from UNR had to go out in the sticks and teach. And most of 'em got a thousand dollars a year. Well, my sister Meryl said, "Come down here [Boulder City], They pay fifteen hundred here 'cause it's a government job and everything is fine." In Boulder City? In Boulder City, yes. What did you study at UNR? 15 I wanted to be an architect and I took engineering. I took physics and chemistry and algebra and advanced trigonometry, all of those things. And then I had to take one class in drawing. I couldn't draw an apple. And there wasn't an architect school. I just was taking engineering so I could move over to an architect school. Well, if I can't draw an apple, what's the purpose of being an architect? I would be somebody's.. .I'd have a little ruler and run around and measure for them, but I wouldn't be the big architect. So I moved over to arts and science and became a teacher. And I didn't really want to be a teacher, but I thought then I could graduate and be a teacher. So I decided to move over to that. So it took me five years to do a four year course. Then my sister Meryl said, "You better come down here and see about getting a job as a teacher. And Cliff lives here already and works with the government." So I said, "Well, fine. I'll come down and be interviewed." I came down to be interviewed and he said, "You notice here on our contract you've had three years experience. You've just graduated. You haven't had any experience." I said, "I know but I've got good grades." And so finally, the same guy that had hired, same employee who had hired Cliff to work on the dam, was also head of the school board. So he finally said, "I guess we'd have to give Cliff a raise or you a job. So we'll give you a job teaching school—algebra , advanced algebra and physical education." I said, "Good. I like all those things." So I got the job and when I got the contract it said "You may not be married." I gave the contract to the museum. They thought it was so funny. You could not be married, a government school, they made the rules and they had typed that in. So I thought, "Well, I've said I'll do the job. I guess I'll take the job." So I took the job and it turned out just great. I had eighth graders, ninth graders and eleventh. There wasn't a tenth grade. They skipped a 16 year every year and took the kids from here into Las Vegas to a real high school. Las Vegas High School, in fact. But every year they were adding a year, so the year I taught here there were just eleven grades, there weren't twelve. And later on, I taught their children when I went back to teaching. So Boulder City was a great place to come and very nice. And we got married in Reno at my Mother and Dad's house, and came back down for a honeymoon. We went to San Francisco. And they had painted on the back of our car, "Just Married" and we couldn't understand why people kept looking around at us. Never thought anybody'd do that nasty trick. And we went to San Francisco and then we came down to LA and visited his family and came back here. And we met his boss in the grocery store. [There was] one store in Boulder City where you bought your clothes, you bought your groceries, you bought everything in that Manix store. And it was just great. And they knew us all well, so that was fun. So when you were going to UNR and Clifford already had a job here in Boulder City, were you still dating each other, or at what point... Oh, yes. He would come up, he had a car and he would drive up to Reno while I was up there. And then I would come down and visit Meryl, my sister. So we had places to stay, which was good. Otherwise, we couldn't have done that. Most of Cliff s brothers both went to college in California, and they would hitchhike down from Reno here. And people would pick you up because they knew if you were a hitchhiker, you were a college fella trying to get home. So we came home and we met his boss in the grocery store and he said, "I have a cable on my desk for you to go to Panama." And.. This was after you were married. 17 Yeah. We had just gotten married 'JiUuSstI hnnommpe ftrrro.mm our honeymoon. A. nd, so anyway, a fella that worked on the dam with him had gone down [to Panama], and then sent him a cable and said, "Would you like to come down?" and he had said yes. But he hadn't heard in a year so he wasn't even thinking about it. So we went out of the store, Manix store, and 1 said, "Aren't you excited?" And he said, "No, I didn't think you'd leave your mother," who lived up in Reno, not here. And I said, "Of course, I'll go to Panama." And S O . . . What year was this? We were to leave in October on a ship out of New York. And I had never been out of Nevada, California and Utah. And here we were gonna drive our little, we had a convertible, drive across the country and get the ship and I didn't even know where Panama was. And 1 had thought "It's right below us." Then I looked at the map. It's right below New York. It isn't right below California and Nevada where I expected it to be. And so we had to go to New York. So we went to New York. We took turns driving the car. And 1 remember getting stopped by a policeman in Virginia. And he said, "You're going way over the mileage here. It says 60 miles an hour and you're going 75." And I said, "This is the first good road we've had since Nevada, the first time I've been able to drive that fast." And he said, "Okay, I oughta take you back to court and make you give me one of those silver dollars." 'Cause of course, all the silver dollars came from Nevada. And we took a whole lot of them. And do you know, when you tried to give them to people in New York, they wouldn't take them? They didn't know what a silver dollar was. I got away with a lot of silver dollars that I tried to give away. 18. So, but it turns out that while we were in New York, he [Clifford] didn't have a house for me to stay in down in Panama, so you had to have a house to stay with and a job, because Panama really belonged to the Republic of Panama. We just had that little strip that had where you got your ship through easily and we ran that. And they were going to build a third set of locks because the locks were so small, a big aircraft carrier could not go through there, and you had to go down around South America to come to...and now we were fighting, now we weren't quite yet fighting Japan, but... What year was this when you went down to Panama? Uh, 1941.1 came here to teach in 1940 and we went to Panama in '41. So right after we got married. What was Clifford's job assignment in Panama exactly? Well, he was to help photograph their building of the third set of locks, because they wanted it recorded to show that they did it right. So that was to be his job. So anyway, he said, "Wait 'till I go down and I'll send you a cable with a place to stay and they'll let you get on the ship." Well, I couldn't just sit there in New York and not know anyone, so I got a job reading—when you take some kind of agreement that you will do this or that, and we had to prove that we had done it for some company, some big company. I've forgotten the name of it now, and I had that job. So then I got a cable from Cliff that here is your passport. I had a passport, of course, but here is your authority to come to Panama. I've got a house for you to stay. You're gonna stay in my boss' house, they've got two bedrooms and he has a nice wife. So I said okay. So I got on the ship and went down to Panama, which was fun. I'd never been on a ship, except in Lake Mead, of course. And so I went over there and went down and he met me, and you can't take the 19 ship over to the Pacific side. You take a little railcar, and so we went right along the side of where the big ships were and watched them, but we were in this little train that went across to the other side, and had a place to stay. And the week after I got there, the war broke out. And he lost his job. They quit building the third set of locks. But they wanted him [Clifford] to stay there so he went over and worked for Allbrook Base. And that was a good job because they didn't have anybody taking photographs or learning how to print 'em, and he had eight Panamanians that worked for him. And he liked them all very much and had a good time. And so we stayed there, and I couldn't come home to see my parents and my mother wasn't too well. And then I got pregnant and had my daughter Robin, was born in Panama. But really born in a government hospital that was Panama. And it cost nine dollars. I was an employee and you paid a dollar a day. I got to stay in the hospital for nine days with Robin. Wasn't that a nice thing to have happen? And then we stayed there till she was four. And then my mother was not well, and so we took a ship from Panama up to Los Angeles on this side. It's much shorter. If you go on that side, you got to go out around all those islands, and I had brought her [Robin] home once for them to see. But then we moved back [to the United States], And we were going to go back to college, to Reno, so he [Clifford] could finish his degree. He left. He could not do math. Artists do not do math. So I had to take care of all the books and all of that. And so we sat next to each other in an algebra class which I had already passed, but did a little cheating. I would put my paper up, and the teacher was a good friend and she knew what we were doing. But he had to have three, and then he would not take PE. He said, "If I'm playing football every day, I'm not gonna take physical education in the morning at 6:00. 20 1 m not going to do that." So, but after you're twenty-five, you don't have to have PE. Then he graduated finally. And he got his degree down here but his thing is from UNR. So, explain that to me. When he took the job working with the dam, he hadn't completed his degree at UNR? Hmmmm mmmm. So it wasn't until you returned from Panama that you returned to UNR... Yeah. ...to help him finish his degree? Yeah. We were going to go back to UNR and stay up in Reno 'cause we really didn't have anything to do here [in Boulder City], and my parents lived up there, and a couple of sisters, and my brother. So we were going to do that. And then he got a, this opportunity to, well, he had a friend, Bill Belknap, that he'd been very friendly with before we left here. And they'd gone around photographing things. Some of the photographs you'll see, they had gone to Death Valley and down and things like that. So he came down and saw him 'cause he didn't have a job. And so he came down and saw him and they went into business together. The bottom of the hotel was their darkroom. And the Chinese person that ran the food at the hotel used to come down, say "You're running your dirty water over my potatoes!" So we had a good time. Then they built a building that's still here in Boulder City. Then there was the three of them, and there are lots of pictures of 'em. Bill Belknap and Cliff and another partner built; Bill Belknap had lots of money and he put it into the building. And it's the Mexican shop right here on the middle of town. That's his, or was, their new studio. But he didn't like waiting on people so we went on our own. And I told it, sold his story, and I got a hundred and twenty-five 21 dollars from a man's magazine for a thing about bats up in the canyon up there. And it turned out that Cliff said, "Well, what does the photographer get?" It was the other fellow that had taken the photographs, not Cliff. You gotta share that with him. So I wrote to the magazine. He said, "Oh, the photographer gets seventy-five dollars and the writer gets fifty." Well, I said, "I'm not doing that! He couldn't sell that without my writing." So Cliff decided we should go on our own. So... How did you get involved in doing freelance writing? Well, I couldn't [teach], I had Robin so I couldn't go back to teaching school. I didn't want to, and I needed to have something to do. And what year was this now? This was 19...? That was 1948. We moved back to Boulder City. Actually we, by the time we got back here, it was, we came back to the United States in '47, and then decided to move back to Boulder City. Hadn't planned to do that at all, but it was the best place because it was the only place that had anything going on in Nevada. And you still had the same hotels and bars and things, but nobody was producing much but [there was] a lot of mining going on around here, a lot of mining. So what sort of things were you writing about and who were you submitting them to? I had these good photographs and I thought, "What could I do?" So I read this magazine and it had stories like that, so I sent them a letter and asked them if they'd like to see. Yes, they would and then people told me later they look at the photographs, not the writing. If the photographs are bum, they are not gonna buy it. So I had to have my good photographers, three of 'em, go. And we went out and all around Nevada, and I sold a lot of stories for Nevada Highways, as it was called then, and Arizona Highways. And then I 22 got to selling Sunset Magazine. 1 have tons of stories 1 have written. And the artists didn't make much, 1 mean the writer. The photographer got all the money. But that was my husband so that was all right now. And we had a good time together. We did. So Clifford was doing the photographs for the pieces that you were writing, and then what was his main business that he had with the partners? Nothing. It was? Just writing for me and going around the state and saving Nevada, he called it. All the villages were falling down 'cause everybody had moved out and we have paintings. And, and photographs. And we'd find this good place that was a story, then I would know I could send it to some of these magazines that had already bought. National Geographic. You just send 'em a letter, and then they'll say, "Oh, that sounds good. Send a copy of what you've done." So 1 would do that. And after awhile, they would call me. Especially In Nevada Magazine, and ask me to write a story about this or that. Oh, and how long did you do this for? Until my husband died. 1990. He got so popular as an artist that he just quit in doing photography for other people. He used to do the school, take a picture of the schoolchildren and stuff like that, something that made him have a steady income, but only photography. And then there was a nice studio here in Boulder City and they had a show every year of his things, and he, they sold like millions. So it was easy to sell. Some people, my neighbors up above, the Ravitchs, Dr. Ravitch, he has a whole wall of windows throughout the state that Cliff had painted. And I used to tell his wife, "Now 23 don t buy that window. You've got tons of win[dows]." She'd go down a day ahead and get the window. So everybody in Boulder City has a Segerblom. And he did primarily watercolors? Yes. Yes. I like them much better. But he did everything to show that a good artist could do anything. But everybody liked his watercolors best. Wow. Let's talk about how you 're involved here in the community in Boulder City with your children. Now you said you had your first child when you were in Panama, but when you came back to Boulder City... I had Tick, and there was a little hospital right over there and he was bom in that hospital. And it's still there but it isn't used as a hospital anymore. But it is there. May I tell you something kind of funny about having him? Absolutely. I didn't know that I was pregnant, so we came back to the states so I could go to work and he could get his degree, and we discovered on the way up here [to Reno] that I was pregnant with Tick. So we moved back to Boulder City. His name was Richard then, of course. And so we moved back to Boulder City and he was bom in this little, and all my friends were also having babies right then, and there weren't enough rooms at this little hospital, so we were all in the hallway lying down. And a former student from the time I taught that year before we left, said, "What are you doing here, Miss Wines?" I said, "I'm having a baby." "Oh, sorry, Miss Wines!" And a lot of peoples called me Miss Wines for a long time afterwards, knowing me then. And, a lot of the same people lived here then as when we came back from Panama, and then stayed and went to me. I taught 'em in high school later on. But when we came back, when I first moved down here to get married, 24 there wasn't any Henderson at all. And there wasn't any of those big plants or anything like that. And there