Transcript of interview with Linda Falba McSweeney by Judy Harrell, May 23, 2014

Linda Falba McSweeney’s memories read like a Las Vegas history book. Arriving in town as a five-year-old in 1950, Linda’s family lived in the Huntridge area of town. Her father was a casino manager in various properties Downtown and on the Strip and even worked in Cuba during the Batista era. She and her two siblings attended St. Joseph’s Catholic School, St. Anne’s School, and Bishop Gorman High School. They marched in the city’s Helldorado Parades, and she was a BGHS cheerleader. Through it all their parents (even Dad, who worked graveyard shifts and seldom took a day off) enthusiastically supported all their endeavors and attended all their events. Linda tells of playing at Maryland Parkway’s circle park and earning a black eye from the cutest boy in the neighborhood; she recalls making forts in the bamboo forest near Fifteenth Street and Oakey Boulevard (until two schoolmates, who didn’t know how to stub out their illicit cigarettes, burned the bamboo forest down). Linda knows most of Nevada’s movers and shakers because she played with them or with their children.