Adele Baratz Papers (MS-00701)

Adele Baratz grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada during the Great Depression, worked at Las Vegas Army Airfield (now Nellis Air Force Base) during World War II, and was a nurse in Las Vegas for many years. She was born Adele Salton in New Jersey on August 11, 1926 and her family moved to Las Vegas when she was two years old. Her father Al sold bootlegger supplies and later owned and operated Al’s Bar, a popular place to drink among Union Pacific Railroad workers. For two summers Baratz worked as a messenger and in the rationing department of the Gunnery School at the Las Vegas Army Airfield. She graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1944, and then went to nursing school at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, from which she graduated in 1947. That same year she returned to Las Vegas, but postponed working because her father got sick and subsequently passed away. Beginning in 1948 she was a nurse at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital on the postoperative floor for one year, and then lived and worked in Los Angeles for several years. While visiting a friend in Philadelphia, Baratz met her husband. The couple had children and lived in Philadelphia for a few years. They divorced and Adele returned to Las Vegas with her children. After her daughter graduated Valley High School in 1974, Baratz decided that she wanted to go back to work as a nurse. When she found out that the required refresher course was not offered in Las Vegas, she convinced the community college to establish one and then served as a member of the steering committee for it. Baratz worked at Sunrise Hospital for 17 years, retiring in 1991.

Sources:

Baratz, Adele. Interview, 1979 March 04. OH-00075. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Baratz, Adele. Interview, 2007 March 19. OH-00076. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.