Transcript of interview with Lynn Leshgold Rosencrantz by Barbara Tabach, January 7, 2016

AN INTERVIEW WITH LYNN LESHGOLD ROSENCRANTZ An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Maggie Bukowski, Shannon McNutt iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes 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. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE In 1949, Lynn Leshgold Rosencrantz was born in Portland, Oregon, and spent her childhood there as a member of a vibrant Jewish community. Twenty-five years later, Rosencrantz married Arne Rosencrantz, and relocated to Las Vegas to join her husband who was working at Garrett?s Furniture, a company they would later own. Her first job in the city was teaching hearing impaired students at Ruby Thomas Elementary School. Rosencrantz received a master?s degree in marriage and family counseling from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and later, became the buyer for all Garrett?s non-furniture merchandise after a store fire. She now uses her creativity as a jewelry designer, while also working as a spiritual therapist. Rosencrantz?s community service experiences had included leadership roles with the Jewish Federation?s Young Leadership Program, Junior League, ORT, Jewish Family Service and University Medical Center. In this interview, Rosencrantz discusses at length her involvement as a founder of the city?s Jewish Federation?s Young Leadership Program, including other local leaders she worked with to promote Jewish community engagement in Las Vegas. She also talks about her spiritual journey as an adult, leading to her participation at Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Lynn Leshgold Rosencrantz on January 7, 2016 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface?????????????????????????????????..?..iv Talks about family background; growing up in Portland, Oregon and being a part of the Jewish community there; meeting husband, Arne. Reflects upon moving to Las Vegas; how she became interested in working with hearing impaired students. Talks at length about involvement with Jewish Federation?s Young Leadership Program; other people involved; serving as Federation co-chair with Roberta Sabbath??????.??????????????????....1-5 Recalls powerful Auschwitz simulation organized for Federation fundraising event. Reflects upon Jewish community in 1970s, compares to current dynamics; children?s Jewish youth experiences and role of United Synagogue Youth. Talks about Garrett?s Furniture; developing merchandise buying expertise, later jewelry design skills??????????????.6-12 Shares about her spiritual journey; joining Stillpoint Center for Spiritual Development. More about the growth of the Jewish community over the years and changes it has brought. Mentions some of the Jewish women pioneers for Las Vegas. Talks about attending UNLV for master?s degree in mid-1970s; other organizations served with, including ORT, Junior League, University Medical Center, Jewish Family Services???????????????????..?13-17 Mentions relationship with Rabbi Sanford Akselrad given his similar interest in spirituality. Considers reasons for current lack of affiliation within Jewish community???...???.18-20 Index........................................................................................................................................21-22 vi 1 Today is January 7, 2016. I am in the Rosencrantz home. Lynn, if you would state your name and spell it for us that would be great. My name is Lynn Leshgold Rosencrantz. Great. I usually like to start this project's interviews by asking what you know about your family heritage. Getting to the roots of family stories is always fun. Where is your ancestral roots? My paternal grandmother was born in Saint Jo, Missouri, but her family came from Russia. My mother's parents were first generation and they also came from Russia. I have information going back only as far as my great?grandparents. However, we hired a videographer, and my sisters and I have an hour?and?a?half CD of my parents talking about everything that they remember. I have been unable to watch it because they made it for posterity and I'm not ready for that because I'm still blessed with their presence. If I watched it, I'm sure that I would learn more, back further than my grandparents. How wonderful that they did that. That's a treasure that not many families can say they have. So they settled in Portland, where you were born? Or how did everybody get into Portland? My grandmother on my father's side moved to Seattle because her husband and his brothers came to the Pacific Northwest from Russia. He was the only one that settled in Seattle; the rest settled in Vancouver, B.C. My mother's family had cousins in Portland. I was born and raised in Portland along with two sisters; my mother was born and raised in Portland along with two sisters; and my father was born in Seattle. So you were a Northwestern gal by upbringing. What was the Jewish community like in that part of the country? Very much like it is today. Portland's Jewish population waivers slightly; it's probably around twenty?five thousand. The community is extremely rooted. Every agency that you can think of Jewishly has a presence in Portland. Nearly all of my friends from preschool through high school graduation married and 2 remain in Portland. It's a wonderful Jewish community. People care about the community. I don't think there's an agency that my parents don't contribute to. Your family still lives in Portland? They still live in Portland in the summer; in the winter, they live in Palm Desert. There's a wonderful museum in Portland, the Portland Jewish Museum. They just did an exhibit of Jews and their automobiles. There is a darling picture of my mother standing in front of she and Daddy's first car and it's really cute. The Portland Jewish Museum has active exhibits that change every couple of months. It's a rooted, close community. That's great. That sounds like it must have been significant in your upbringing? Very. Went to the Jewish community center all the time. I am talking about Reform, Conservative and Orthodox. We were always all together and the old?timers know all of the old?timers. The synagogues, the Jewish Family Service Agency, the Jewish Community Center, everything has its building, everything has its place and they do tons of work. So you and Arne married in Portland? We did because Arne's parents were from Portland and, as I said, it's a very rooted close community. Our parents were friends. I was living in San Francisco at the time. I was teaching at the school for the deaf and blind in Berkeley and I had made some friends. We wanted to come to Las Vegas for a weekend. Our parents fixed us up. Most kids wouldn't let that happen. True. But it worked. But that was forty?three years ago. Isn't that marvelous? 3 Yes. That's great. Everybody knows the story of how their parents met and that's a good one. What was the motivation to relocate to Vegas? Arne lived here, so I didn't have much of a choice. He was worried that I wouldn't make a lot of friends. He insisted that I either go back to school and get a master's degree or continue teaching. I taught at Ruby Thomas Elementary School. They had a program for the deaf. I also went back to school, and got a master's degree in marriage and family counseling at UNLV. Where is Ruby Thomas? It's not in a great area right now. As a matter of fact, they create more phone books for that area than they do for most of the others because it's so transient. It's behind the Boulevard Mall. Okay. How many students did you have at that time? This was kindergarten through eighth grade. I taught in the lower school. I usually had about fourteen or fifteen students plus an aide. It was a great program at the time. Mainstreaming had not been heard of and there was a lot of pride surrounding the program for the deaf because it was a great program. When you say there wasn't mainstreaming, these students were in their own separate class and then you taught them all subjects? I taught them several subjects, but we rotated for some of them. All of the children that were deaf from kindergarten through eighth grade were in a building that was attached to the main school, but it was built with deafness in mind. Just like you would do for somebody in a wheelchair, it was outfitted for deaf children. In junior high, the deaf kids were in one location and high school. It was wonderful for them because their social group was built in. Now that they're mainstreamed; they're divided. Some deaf kids aren't with any other deaf kids. They travel from class to class with an interpreter. It's unfortunate. Some of the so?called improvements in education aren't always the best, are they? 4 This one certainly was not a good decision. How did you get interested in teaching that subject? I think I was in about the eighth grade, and my mother told all of us that we had to select an area of voluntarism. I worked at a place?it's not politically correct now, but it was called Crippled Children's Division of the University of Oregon Medical School. I volunteered there once a week and I fell in love with the deaf kids. It was just an affinity that I had. So that's when I got my degree in education of the deaf at Lewis and Clark College. I had wanted to teach at the school for the deaf in Berkeley since I had heard about it in the eighth grade. As a child I wrote letters, I remember, to Dr. Schunhoff telling him I was going to come there and teach someday. It was the only place I applied. I loved it. It was really wonderful. And San Francisco was a great place to be a single Jewish girl. Oh, really? Federation was really active with the young adult division and they had wonderful activities. Monthly they'd have a big deal and weekly they had small things in bars. My roommate was Jewish. We went to all of these activities and had a great time. It was really fun living there. That's neat. So what did the Jewish community seem like to you when you first moved to Vegas? First of all, we got married in August. So when I got off the plane, I thought I had made a big mistake because it was so hot. I couldn't believe it. What was the Jewish community like then? It was really wonderful. Arne and I were in Young Leadership and all of our friends were Young Leadership couples. We were so close. We did so much together. A lot of those people are still my friends today. I was just going to say, let's just make kind of a laundry list of Young Leadership people that you met at that time. We were very good friends with Dennis and Roberta Sabbath, Gene and Melanie Greenberg, Stuart and 5 Flora Mason. There were so many couples that we were involved with. It was really wonderful. I'm still really good friends with Melanie and Roberta, and Flora is like my sister. We brought in wonderful speakers. We were extremely cohesive. Our kids all went to Albert Einstein and then the Hebrew Academy, and they've remained friends. My son and Adam actually went to medical school together. It was just a really nice time here. What is Young Leadership to somebody who wouldn't know what that meant? How would you describe that? We were a group of people that were being groomed to become active in the Jewish community, not totally fundraisers, but to be educated, involved, and to care about Israel and to care about the Jewish community locally. We had lots of activities together. It was like a chavurah. Jerry Countess was the director at the time and brought in wonderful speakers. Dennis Prager did a series of lessons; he would fly in and did those at our house. Who is Dennis Prager? Dennis Prager is a fabulous person in the Jewish community. He's written lots of books. He lives in Los Angeles. We went on missions. It was a nice time. It was a wholesome time. Then the kids all went into USY. We had lots of USY activities at our home and other parents did at their homes. They wanted all go to services on Friday night. Those of us that had kids did some Young Leadership activities with us. It was really nice. It was cohesive. What are some of the stories that you can remember, maybe challenges that you had in some of the activities that you were organizing that you overcame? Can you think of any anecdotes? No. We all sort of grew from Young Leadership to Federation, which was the point. Some of us became very active in the Federation. Roberta and I were co?chairs together and then went on to be presidents individually. We did really neat activities together when we were co?chairs. Have you interviewed 6 Roberta? Yes. Did she tell you about the activity we did down at the warehouse? I don't remember if she told me that story. Tell me. We always caucused our own board before we went out to ask other people for donations. So we did a luncheon at our home before we moved and everybody came assuming it was going to be a luncheon and caucus. But we had hired people from UNLV Theater Department, and we rented a bus and they dressed as Nazis. People were marched out through the side of our house. We took away their handbags and put them on this bus. Joan Snyder used to live here. She was really influential in starting the first small theater here with Arlene Blut. Joan did a narrative on the bus and we went down to a warehouse where a soundtrack was playing of train tracks. There were posters that were up and the train was on the other side of the open doors to simulate Auschwitz. Lillian Kronberg was there. Have you met Henry? I've met Henry, yes. Lillian was so lovely and she was a survivor. She always wore long sleeves. Nobody had ever heard her talk about the Holocaust. She'd never shown anybody her numbers on her tattooed arm, and that day she did. It was really moving. Then we came back to our house, had lunch, and talked about how people were affected by the experience. It was really quite something. It was really moving. I can only imagine. Because those that came had no idea. Carolyn was president, and Roberta and I were co?chairs, and we planned the event together. It was chilling. I was more nervous than most because I didn't know how people were going to react. How did they react? One person said she had to go to the bathroom and she hid her jewelry and her money in her body, in her bra and pockets. She was the only one that resisted. She said that she never knew when she would need 7 something valuable to bribe her way out of a situation and there was no way anybody was going to take her things away from her. There were people in tears, but nobody was angry. I don't know if it's something that I would do again today. It was really gutsy. Yes. What a great exercise. You can't forget that. Lillian was the star. It was unbelievable how forthcoming and open and bare she was for us. It was so chilling because the actors on the bus were so mean. The windows were blacked out. They were so cruel and so mean in telling people to shut up and hitting their fake unloaded rifle on the ground. I think people were pretty scared. I was scared even doing it. Even though you knew that it was just... And then Joan Snyder talking...She read a script from somebody who had survived and it was just a really moving experience. Did Lillian talk about her surviving after this experience? Was she more forthcoming after that experience? Yes, she was, and Henry for sure. He's a wonderful man. Yes. I really enjoyed getting to know him. He's pretty special. And his wife, I've heard her name mentioned a lot with endearing terms. Lillian was wonderful and she was a great fundraiser because nobody would say no to her. She was just fabulous. She was a wonderful, elegant, beautiful woman. Very cool. So you made a lot of good friends that we know of. Your face comes up in some of the photographs that we've been given. You'll have to help us identify; there's some unnamed people in photographs for this project. Any other things like that you can share with me? I can't think of anything specifically and it could be the hydrocodone that I'm taking for my back. Our husbands were really involved, too, in Young Leadership and the community meant so much to us. 8 Everything was very easy here then. There was not a lot of red tape that we had to go through to get things done. When I was president for the Lion event, I just picked up the phone. I remember Barbara Greenspun offered to call Phyllis McGuire. She did and asked if Phyllis McGuire would take these large donors, these women, in her plane to Newport Beach, and she said she would. Then we asked Joyce Mack, who had a large boat, if she would take the ladies on a boat ride and give them lunch and hear a speaker, and she said yes. Everything was easy. There was just no red tape, not a lot of channels to go through. We just made a few phone calls. Everybody was family because it was small and people were eager to do things for the community as well as be together. So a smaller, tighter community. In the 1970s, how many congregations were there at that time? I was going to tell you for years Stuart and Flora Mason and Arne and myself had a Rosh Hashanah party. After services we invited people to our homes?we alternated?just for dessert and a glass of wine or a cup of coffee because everybody was so happy that night. It was almost, as it seemed now, the whole congregation. We just invited everybody that we knew. People would come in and out even though it was after eight. It was lovely. There weren't twenty?two or twenty?three synagogues; there were just three. It was so tight?knit and easy. At that time the three congregations would have been Temple Beth Sholom...? Ner Tamid and there was an Orthodox shul. What's the name of it? I cannot remember. I was hoping you'd remember. Anyway, we would tell people approximately what time our services would be over and people would just come in and out whenever their services were over. It was really wonderful because everybody was so cheerful and happy, and our community was small. There were no socioeconomic lines. Everybody just came. What was the Jewish education of your children like at that time? 9 Marcus and Amy both went to the Hebrew Academy. It was way before Adelson. Then they both transferred to public school, but they didn't have to go to Sunday school because they went to the Hebrew Academy. Their lives were USY. They were so involved in USY, schlepping from one meeting to the next meeting to the next activity and having kids come here from out of town and having them go to other people's houses out of town. My son's wedding bridal party was mostly [people he met] from USY in California. He's still really good friends with them, and so is Amy. What would you say the value of USY is? I can't speak for other people's children. But for my children, USY gave them so much self?worth, so much knowledge, so many social skills, and they loved being Jewish. They just loved celebrating. I don't think it was cocoon like. I think it really helped them get into the real world with a lot of confidence. That's good. There's a lot of leadership involved in USY it seems. How about raising kids in general in Las Vegas? Your kids were born in the late seventies? Seventy?six and '79. I think that they had a fabulous childhood. Marcus wanted to play tee?ball and he wanted to play soccer. Baseball, tee?ball. He didn't go to public school so it was a problem for him to get on a team. We lived, at a time, behind Our Lady of Las Vegas, which is a Catholic church and school. So he grew up also with the Our Lady kids. They're friends to this day. The mothers, we're friends to this day. I think that they both had wholesome childhoods. Amy had a horse, and so she didn't really have a life after school. She only had time for homework, USY and her horse. That was intentional. Their lives were activities. Amy did play some tennis at the Las Vegas Country Club. She rode her horse and USY. Marcus was pretty much the same thing; sports, USY and studies. I thought it was a fabulous time to raise kids. Plus, we felt safe. We didn't live in a gated community and we didn't worry. How did you choose what neighborhood to live in? What was the process like then? The houses reminded me of the house I grew up in in Portland and I felt very much at home. There were 10 big trees, lots of green. I knew a couple of people that lived there. That's where I wanted to live. Do you know what that area is called? It's called Rancho Nevada Estates and it's gated now. I don't know if you interviewed David Straus. Heidi? Yes. David. Yes, I did. So Neil and Joyce Straus were my kids' godparents and our best friends and we just lived a few doors down the street. So I never watched...My kids would walk down to their house; their kids came to our house, all the time. We're still like family, but I can't tell you how much we miss Neil and Joyce. I knew Joyce and Neil. I wanted to live in that neighborhood. I loved it. It reminded me so much of Portland. That's a great neighborhood, yes. It was a great neighborhood. It wasn't gated at the time. It didn't really matter school?wise because my kids were going to the Hebrew Academy at the time. It was easy for Arne to get to work from there, too. It was really close to our store. The store that we're talking about is Garrett's Furniture. And so did you work immediately? No. You taught first. I taught. Then I did a year of marriage and family counseling at UNLV. I was given rape victims and it was very unsettling for me, like I couldn't sleep at night. I had too much information drilled into me. So I quit doing that. All along I was in Young Leadership and doing volunteer work. In 1984, maybe, our store burned down and we relocated and I went to work at the store buying everything but furniture. I bought all the accessories, lamps, area rugs. I continued doing volunteer work, but I really loved doing that. 11 How did you learn to be a buyer? I have no idea because you have to buy things that are not in your taste for people who would like it. But I always went to market with Arne. Buying is fun. You must have an innate flair for fashion and design. Thinking about what you're doing today? You sure wouldn't know now, but anyway. Your home is lovely. Thank you. You have great design work. I've seen it online. Thank you. How did the story of that part of your life evolve? Working at the store. It was nice because I had my own days and my own hours, and if something came up that I wanted to do, I could do it because I knew the boss. So that was great. If I wanted to take a vacation, I could take a vacation. It was a very cushy job. How did you eventually become a designer of jewelry and...You said handbags, too? Yes. Why don't you turn that off for a second and let me show you something? [Pause in recording] I really felt [that] even with all of my Young Leadership, our Jewish friends and our Jewish life, I was feeling incomplete and I really wanted God to be a part of my life, but I didn't feel an authentic connection. I didn't have the words. I had a lot of Catholic friends that I used to say, "Pray out loud; I want to hear what you're saying." One day I called Vicki Fertitta and said, "I want to have lunch with you." We met for lunch and she brought this bag filled with papers. I said to Vicki, "I know how prayerful you are and I've got this big hole and I can't fill it and I don't know what to do and I just don't feel complete." She said "It's so 12 amazing. God works so fast. I'm starting a spiritual center." She gave me the papers right then and there. It was about twelve years ago. I joined a prayer group at Stillpoint and I just loved it. Then I heard about the program that they were going to start training spiritual directors. I was receiving spiritual direction at the time. So in going through this program, which was really intense?you had to practically turn yourself inside out for this program?we were doing a meditation and I fell asleep and had a dream about making these things. That was it. I've never done anything artsy in my life. I was sharing it with a girlfriend of mine and she said, "Go for it; try it." So I did and that was it. I'm kind of at a place where I want it to be really successful. I am pleased. But whatever it is, it is, because I think it was just a gift and part of a holy journey. All the bumps that come with it are part of the journey. So you started out with making the cuffs. Cuffs, and then handbags, and then I started making frames and boxes. Then I saw something that I wanted, a bronze bust with these beautiful stones hanging from it, and it was twenty?two thousand dollars. I knew that Arne wasn't going to buy it for me so I decided I'd make one. I started making those and coasters and journals and it's just grown and grown. Do you retail these in stores or how do you distribute these? I'm in a store in Red Rock Hotel called Talulah G and they sell my handbags. I'm in the Encore in a clothing store with my handbags and I'm in the home store with my home accessories. They keep me busy. I'm very grateful. So you're in the local market. I'm in a few stores in California, also. I'm in Pebble Beach, Carmel, Newport Beach, and Laguna. Does it ever feel like work? When I get a big order, like I do, I'm grateful, but it's more fun to do it when I just want to do it and an 13 idea comes to me and I want to make it. I love everything organic. I didn't know that. And part of it's the spiritual direction thing. I think you're more aware of nature and the world and everything that God has created as a spiritual director. Green isn't just green to me anymore. Green is magnificent and alive. I think that happens as a director; you have more appreciation for God. I pray every day and I journal every day so I can keep not just connected but keep this awareness in my life during my waking hours. That's wonderful. This may be too personal, but to being Jewish, that spiritual part of it wasn't satisfying enough? I'm not even sure what I'm trying to ask. I understand. I didn't know how to pray on my own and that's not Judaism's fault. I just couldn't connect on my own. Every synagogue I've belonged to, we always pray as a community and I didn't want to pray as a community. I wanted to talk to God with my own words, not the Amidah, not the prayer in the book. I wanted to talk to Him. And I felt funny talking to Him. I felt like a child, like I wasn't doing it right. I just didn't have the confidence. I didn't know that there were three different kinds of prayers and I felt selfish just doing solicitations and asking for myself for something. I have an overactive brain and this is very peaceful and very calming to just sit in God's presence for twenty minutes every day. This spiritual center, who did you say started it? The Fertitta family; that's Stations Casinos. Are you a member of that? I am a member. How does that work? I belong to a prayer group and I make donations. I think they have from four to six hundred members. I might have an extra brochure. They have workshops every week. My prayer group was today, but I couldn't go. They bring in wonderful speakers. It's open to the world and it addresses the full human being in terms of singing bowls and yoga and dance. They have workshops about prayer, about Judaism, 14 and about what's going on in the Muslim world. Their goal is peace on Earth and for everyone to be connected to God because if we are we'll live with peace in our hearts. It's sort of the ecumenical God? I'm the only Jewish person. The people in my prayer group are very respectful of my faith tradition. But Christ is mentioned often and that's fine with me because I need to learn about it, too. I want to be a peaceful member in this world. I went to a whole workshop on Jesus. I didn't have much information. I want to know how my brothers and sisters believe. It's not a place of conversion. It's a place of embracing and inclusion. Very nice. When you look at the Jewish community spiritually?and we've touched upon that there are so many synagogues now; there's twenty something?what was that like to watch that growth from somebody who was in Jewish leadership and with this group that was so instrumental in the foundation, pioneers here? It's so funny. We used to go places and know so many people, and now we go places and don't know anybody. I think it's wonderful that the Jewish community has grown. I really do. I miss the closeness. But part of that is also missing the people that are gone that were the patriarchs and matriarchs of our community. They're gone and they were wonderful to be around because they were wise and had stories. I think that that's part of the tribute of what we used to have here. We're so lucky because we're all pioneers and we're very lucky to be part of it. I feel like I don't know anybody anymore. I go to Jewish events and don't recognize people. But it's neat to see a core of young people that are really close and doing great things for the community. Yes. I've concentrated so much on what I call the usual suspects, the known names when you look at Temple Beth Sholom and then the other congregations that came shortly thereafter. But I'm working on an aspect of this project which is about growing up Jewish in Las Vegas. So it's 15 introducing me to new names and definitely younger people who were willing to be on panels talking about that. I'm really anxious to see what that reveals. That's the future. Yes, really neat because a lot of these kids have stayed here. My son would come back here, but his wife doesn't want to. I think Amy would come back here for the right reasons. But they don't like the bumper stickers, the bumper things on the back of taxicabs. They always comment on that and the billboards. They were here when they were growing up. But they're great people and they're great citizens and their friends that they grew up with are great citizens, also. When you think about the pioneers?you've already mentioned a couple of names?who would be some of the other women that we should always remember what they contributed to the Jewish community? My memory is so compromised right now. Barbara Greenspun and Joyce Mack. Barbara Greenspun, what was she like? She was a nice lady. Joyce Mack is still living. Edythe Katz was very active. Jean Weinberger was a doll. Jayne Marshall. Jane and Este. Sarah Salzman. Etta Hermell. That's not a name I've heard. She ran the gift shop at Temple Beth Sholom. Sarah Salzman was such a neat lady. She was Jayne Marshall's mother, and Cari's. So you knew her. Yes. She was just a neat lady. When my kids went to the Hebrew Academy, Sarah was always working in the gift shop. She would sneak them candy. She was absolutely a doll. What kind of personality was Edythe Katz to be around? 16 Edythe was very focused and very strong and she got the job done. She never had qualms about calling people or asking for things for the community. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to her before her memory started fading. Barbara Greenspun, the Greenspun family is engrained in the history of Las Vegas. And the Mack family. T