Transcript of interview with Gertrude Rudiak by Claytee White, January 11, 2007

i AN INTERVIEW WITH GERTRUDE RUDIAK An Oral History Conducted by Claytee White Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish 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, Amanda Hammar 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 Gertrude (n?e Rightman) Rudiak was born in 1915 in North Dakota to Russian immigrants. She grew up in Wisconsin until 1924. That was the year the family drove to California via the Yellowstone Trail, a dusty, undeveloped road marked by yellow stones. In Los Angeles, her father practiced chiropractic, a holistic approach to well-being for which there was little knowledge at the time. Gertrude earned her music degree at University of California at Berkeley; a decision that did not lead to a career. She then attended a business college and got a job as a social worker in Northern California. In 1941, she met and soon married George Rudiak. It was the advent of World War II. George enlisted in the service and was assigned to Las Vegas Gunnery School (Nellis Air Force Base.) Since he had a law degree from University of California at Berkeley and passed the Nevada Bar exam, he found supplemental employment with local attorneys. Las Vegas became the Rudiaks? permanent home where they raised their five children. In this interview Gertrude recalls the stories of coming to live in Las Vegas of the 1940?s: their phone number was 1-2-3; the neighborhood they lived in longest being Scotch 80s and being part of the secular and Jewish communities. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Gertrude Rudiak January 11th, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee White Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv Gertrude opens up with stories of her early life in 1900s Wisconsin; her father went to chiropractor school; she shares their journey across America in the 1920?s with no road signs or motels to get to California; she talks about camping on the side of the road along the way; shares stories she learned of California before she arrived; Gertrude shares the hardships her family had in Los Angeles because of the little knowledge of chiropractic medicine in the west; she talks about the paper route she had as a child; picking peaches in her uncles orchard??????????.1-3 She tells of her adventure to San Diego and encountering a pendulum for the first time; her father bought the machine and used it to diagnose people with it; She talks about her college education and moving to Berkeley to become a music major; She did not like playing anything but classical music so she transitioned to business college and began work as a social worker as soon as she was out in Northern California; shares stories of working in social services; and moving in with his cousin and new wife in Berkeley; Meeting her husband in Griffith Park; she talks about how much a salary was in those days; she threatened to move to Iowa if he didn?t marry her?...?.3-9 Gertrude shares the enlistment of her husband into the service for World War II; the birth of her first child; moving to Las Vegas; reminisces about living on Stuart Ave; George becoming an attorney in Las Vegas; talks about the hardship of getting a phone, it being a 6 month wait; reminisces about early downtown Las Vegas; shares a small story of Mormons and anti-Semitism in early las Vegas; talks about the anti-Semitism and racism her husband endured as state legislature; belonging to any and all organizations?????????????????.9-17 Speaks about cases her husband talked about at home; Richard, her son shares additional stories of clients his father had; speaks of North Las Vegas; talks about UNLV; shares her thoughts on major changes in Las Vegas since 1946; remembers shows and restaurants they would go to; talks about her children and Jewish education; talks about the death of her husband; Jewish school in Summerlin, Milton Schwartz and Adelson High; Richard talks about how integrated Jewish school is better; talks about the Jewish community and history with mob involvement; modern value of the land; shares thoughts on the future; Richard gives his opinion the intrusion of Red Rock and the lack of stars as the city grows; Gertrude talks about family BBQs; speaks about the Helldorado Parade and Lake Mead; Talks about what is was like a children growing up in the desert with much more of a western flavor; dirt roads with no traffic at all?????????????..?17-27 vi 1 The date is January 11th, 2007. And I'm in the home of Mrs. Rudiak here in Las Vegas. How are you today? I've been around. Okay. And would you pronounce your full name, please. Gertrude Rudiak. So first I'm going to just start -- we're going to talk about your early life. So just tell me where you grew up, what your family was like. Well, let's see. I was born in North Dakota. And my father, when I was six months old, went to Davenport, Iowa, to go to the chiropractic college there. And I think I was six months old when I had my first adjustment. I was a colic baby?I was crying all the time it seemed, according to my mother's story. And Phillip said, "I can't stand her crying anymore." And he gave me an adjustment. And that was the end of the colic. That's true. It's a true story. I don't know how long dad was there. He must have been there at least a year till he got his degree. Then he went to Wausau, Wisconsin. He actually went to New York first. I don't really know the background exactly. All I know is he went to Wisconsin and I lived there until I was nine years old. And he also had to explain to people, you know, to try to get patients because who knew about chiropractic back in the (early) 1900s?in 1915, 1917. We lived there until 1924 when he decided to move to California and he sold his practice. We got in the car and we drove in 1924 all the way to California. I think it took us a couple of months. Well, they didn't have motels then. They didn't have road signs. Actually, we were following what was called the Yellowstone Trail. Well, the reason it was called the Yellowstone Trail is because the road was marked by a stone that was painted yellow with an arrow on it. And if you missed the stone, you missed the road. So we followed the Yellowstone Trail. We also got into one of the parks. Well, cars back in 1924 aren't what they are now. They didn't have motels in those days. So we had a tent and we had dishes and beds and bedding and clothes and everything. We had a trunk put on the back of the car. There was a trunk and all the things were put into that. And at night he had to put the tent up and put the beds up and the bedding so that we could have a place to sleep. It wasn't like it is these days. Plus the fact that we had to watch the yellow stone in order to get where we were going. We went through Wyoming and all the northern states. And then we came into California. 2 We had been told that it never rains in California. And when we were in Oregon, it was pouring. We get to the California line?so help me you couldn't believe it?it was pouring in Oregon and it was dry in California. And I said, "Well, I guess it's true that it doesn't rain in California." Wonderful. That's a great story. Which year were you born? 1915. And how many people were in the car? Six. My mother; my father; my brother, who was 15 months older than I; my sister, who was six years my junior; and an aunt of my mother's. She was from Russia. She immigrated to the United States. So there were six of us in the car. Imagine having to have bedding and tents. See, the car was made so that the front seat folded back and it became a bed at night. They were able to use the car as a bed. So my folks slept in the car and we slept in the tent. We had a double cot, an army cot, on either side of the posts. And the rest of us slept in the tent. So was it a Ford? No. It was a Nash. I don't remember what he paid for it, but nothing compared to what you pay for a car now. Right. So where in California did you settle? We went originally into Los Angeles. The reason we went there is because my mother had cousins there and they were the ones who had evidently talked to her and said, you know, come to California. My dad had a real good practice in Wisconsin. He was making a real nice living. But when he came to California, it was a different story because people didn't know that much about chiropractic (medicine)?I think he charged a dollar and a half for an adjustment, but a lot of them didn't pay. He would send me out to try to collect for the adjustments and they would say doctors are all rich, you know. We don't have the money to pay. So I said, "Well, if everybody pays like you, how are we going to pay our bills?" Now, how did you feel about going out collecting as a young girl? I didn't like it, but I don't know why he sent me instead of my brother. My brother was older than me. But he had a paper route. And I was envious. I always wanted to be a boy. Whatever my brother did I had to do. He bought a bicycle for the paper route. By God, within two days I was riding that bike. He 3 had a paper route; I had a paper route. It wasn't a big one. It was just two blocks. I used to carry the paper and throw them. I don't remember what it was that they charged in those days for a paper, but by the month, I think it was a couple of bucks is all it was. But I did the paper route. My uncle had a peach orchard. So in the summertime, we had to go into Ontario, California, and we had to pick the peaches. Fruit in those days sold for about 25 cents a lug. A lug is 25 pounds. That's what it sold for, 25 cents a lug. So is that more than a bushel? I don't know how much is a bushel? I don't know. Well, I'm just thinking of a bushel basket. So as I say it was 25 cents. So he wasn't making any money, you know, and he was going broke in his home. So he decided to dry his peaches. So we ended up in the summertime being out in the orchard. First we had to pick the peaches. And then we had to sit down at a table and cut them and put them on trays and put them into a drying area. I don't remember. He went into the cattle business afterwards; then he began to make a living. But with a peach orchard, a penny a pound, you know, you don't make very much money at that. Did you earn any money helping to dry the peaches? Oh, no. When we worked for him, it was for free. The only thing we did get was something to eat at noon, you know. But other than that, no, we didn't get paid for it. It was family and that was it. So tell me about your father's practice. How did he finally get it to grow? Well, he did get some leaflets that we took around and put on everybody's mailbox to notify them. But I really don't know. He had a real rough time. First of all, they didn't know too much about chiropractic. Second of all, when they did go, they didn't have the money to pay for it because all doctors were rich, you see. What happened was one day he said to me there's a doctor in San Diego, he said, that diagnoses with a pendulum. And since I wasn't working at the time -- I can't remember. My job had ended. I was doing social work. And when the crops were ready to be picked, they used to close the office down and tell the people go out and pick the fruit. So my job ended as a social worker. He said there was this doctor in San Diego that diagnosed with a pendulum. And he said since you're not working go with me. So I said okay. So we drove down to San Diego. My folks lived in Ontario, California, which is just out of Los Angeles. 4 And the doctor was sitting there at the desk and he had a pendulum in his hand. It was going this way and it was going this way and it was standing still. And we looked at it. It looks kind of crazy. And he turned around and he pointed at me. He said, I'm very sensitive to vibrations and you would be good at it. So I thought, well, so I'll be good at it, you know. Well, we went out to lunch. And we came back and the pendulum was lying on the table. And I picked it up and held it over my hand and it went counterclockwise like this. So I said, "Look, dad, it's going counterclockwise." He said, "Hold it over my hand." So I did and it went clockwise, the other direction. So when the doctor came in, I said, "I picked up the pendulum. It goes this way for me and this way for dad. Why?" You know why? No. Because I'm a female and he's a male. Those are the natural vibrations. Who would know? That's right. So my dad bought the machine and began to work on it. He figured if it worked for me, it wasn't just a fraud, you know. And he worked on it until he finally got it to working for him. And he was able to diagnosis with it. Then he started doing diets with it. With the diets particularly?most people don't think about how complicated it can be?but there's a color scheme that goes with it. Like milk in those days, this was in the 30s, back in those days, milk was raw and the cream used to come to the top. Even if they pasteurized it, the cream came to the top. Well, if you bothered to diagnose milk, the milk turns to cheese. The cream is butter fat. It becomes butter and sour cream or whatever. So what happened was: the mailman came to my dad's office and he was saying that he had a son who was six years old. He said, "He can't eat anything." That's when my dad began to check and he discovered how complicated it can be. It also follows a color scheme sometimes. For example, carrots are orange. Well, apricots are orange. And orange is orange. Well, if the carrots won't check, neither will any of the orange products check. People don't think about it that way. And then do you eat it raw? Do you eat it fried? Do you eat it cooked? You know what I'm saying? It becomes a real project trying to figure out whether or not you should eat certain products. You want me to show you how it works? Yes. That would be great. Give me your hand. This is your energy level. It's pretty good. So what is this stone that you're using? It doesn't matter. It's just a weight. That's your energy level. Now, name two foods, but don't tell me, one that you like and one that you don't. 5 Blueberries, milk. One at a time? Blueberries. Okay. Now, what's another one? Milk. Milk checks and blueberries doesn't. Is that right? I don't like milk. I do like blueberries. RICHARD RUDIAK (son): It's the other way around for her. It's the other way around for you. Blueberries don't check. You see it's standing still. But milk checks. So if you do diets, the thing is that it becomes really complicated. Do you eat it raw? Do you eat it cooked? Do you eat it fried? You know what I'm saying? I did do them for a while. But I would tell people, I said, I don't mind doing it. It takes me all day. But if I do a diet, I want to know that you're going to use it. So a friend of mine asked me one time, she said, "When I eat meat, I don't feel well." And she said she likes her steaks, you know. So I checked and I said, "It doesn't check for you." So she stopped eating it. And then she went on a trip and she called me up when she came back. She said, "I didn't eat meat for quite a while. But on the trip I decided to eat something and I threw up." So she said, "I don't eat it anymore." She went back to the diet after that. So it can be very -- well, it takes forever to do one. But it's amazingly accurate. Oh, that's interesting. Now, tell me about your education. Well, I had piano lessons for quite a while. Then a friend of ours was a violin teacher. So I took violin, but I wasn't very good at it. At school they had a pipe organ. When you were a senior in high school, you could play on the pipe organ. So I waited until I got to be a senior?I was dying to get on the pipe organ...I used to play for the church in the city on Sundays; that was in high school. Then I went to junior college also in Ontario, California. And then from there I went to Los Angeles to the junior college there. I can't remember the name of it. Was it Los Angeles City College? I don't recall. I just went one semester there. And then my cousin was going up to Berkeley. So I went up to Berkeley and I went there. My folks talked me into being a music major, which is what I did, which was a big mistake. Because what do you do with a music major? You either teach it or you play, right? I 6 was a piano player and I didn't play jazz. I used to play classical. And you couldn't get work particularly with that, either. So then I went to business college, shorthand and whatnot. And I got a job just like that after I got out of business college as a social worker in Northern California. I don't remember what city. But there again it was in a farmers' area?so when the crops began to (come) due, they closed the office and said go work out in the field. So then that lost me there. Then I got a job later (I don't remember what city it was in) as a social worker. And I interviewed people to see whether or not they were entitled to having welfare. I did that for quite a while. I used to take civil service exams all the time. So as one job ended, I would get another job. But always in social services? Yes. The last job I got actually was with the City of Los Angeles at the Assessor's Office working on a keypunch machine. You ever hear of a keypunch machine? It not only typed, but it punched holes. I got to where I could read the holes as much as I could read the printing on the cards. And I worked for the Assessor's Office. That was the forerunner of our computers today; those punch cards. Yes. So I worked up there until I got married. So tell me about that. How did you meet your husband? I had a cousin by the name of David Rightman, R-i-g-h-t-m-a-n. When I was going to school at Cal, he was up there also. We were just really good friends. And wherever I wanted to go, he always took me. Then he met a girl and they got married. So I moved in with them. They had an apartment and I moved in with them. That was up in the Berkeley area. Then when he came down into Los Angeles, he got a house there. So I moved in with him because I was working in Los Angeles at the Assessor's Office. He worked for the state in the employment for people looking for work. He was there about a week when they had a picnic in Griffith Park and I went along?I was sitting and watching people playing cards and whatever they were doing. I was sitting on a bench and George came along and sat?He sat at the other end of the bench and we began talking. He discovered I was working for the Assessor's Office and he was working for the employment department of the state. So he said that the work he was doing was analyzing the job ?So Big Dave came by?that was my cousin. We called him the Big Dave because I had a 7 brother (also) by the name of David. They were named after the same person. So the way it was my brother was always about an inch taller than me. And I was always trying to catch up with him. I was very -- Very competitive. I couldn't stand the fact that he was an inch taller. And when he bought a bicycle, I had to learn to ride one. He had a paper route. I had to have a paper route. So we called him the Little Dave. And the cousin, who was also David Rightman, was the Big Dave because he was let's say five-foot-ten and at age 13 he was five-ten. He never grew any larger. He was full-size at a young age. So my cousin became the Big Dave and my brother was the Little Dave. Well, my brother grew to be six-three and a half and Big Dave stayed at five-ten. So one was the big Little Dave and one was the little Big Dave. And they both went to Cal -- to UCLA I should say, not Cal. They had problems there, too. They were given numbers to separate them because their address was the same and their name was the same. It was really funny. ?And George came and sat on the same bench and we got to talking about (his job) and I said I worked on a keypunch machine. So he said, well, if I come up, will you show it to me and explain it to me? I said sure. So he could analyze it and put it in. Then Big Dave came and said we're going to go look at a house?do you want to go with us? And George said, ?I'll take her home. It's okay.? So Big Dave left and George took me back to the house. Then he asked me for a date. I can't remember what the reason was, but it had to do with his work. And he said we'll go out to dinner. I never forgot the dinner because it was a bowl of split pea soup and we paid ten cents for it. That was all he had. He had 20 cents on him. Well, you know, in those days the wage was five dollars a day. That was a good wage then. So it came to about $100 a month. Were women earning as much as men? Yes. I had usually civil service jobs. So I didn't have a problem. What it was like in the private industry I really don't know. But I think he was also making a hundred dollars in the office that he was working in. But anyway, we began dating. On the second date I said I was going to marry him. And he said, well, now I know what you're after. He was protecting himself. He said I'm going to be aware, you know. But he still kept dating me. And I kept saying let's get married. He kept saying no. ? So I said 8 okay then, I don't want to see you anymore and I'm going to go back to Davenport. I'm going to quit my job and go back to Davenport and take up chiropractic medicine and become a doctor like my daddy. Davenport? Iowa. Davenport, Iowa. That's where the Palmer College of Chiropractic is. So you were going to go back to school? I was going to go back to school there and become a doctor. I figured I'd quit my job. So he kept calling me. And I said have you changed your mind? And he said no. So I'd hang up. And I told him I was going to go back to Davenport and I was going to quit my job. So then one night about ten o'clock he knocked on the door... I opened the door and he said, okay, let's get married. That's a great story. But he was afraid to tell his mother. Why? Because she didn't want him to get married. Was he supporting her? Yes. His father had died. His father died maybe a month before I met him. He was only 59 years old when he died, so I never met him. But I understand he was a very nice man. Anyway, when he picked me up after work and I went home with him, I said, "Did you tell your mother?" He said, "No. You tell her." He was afraid to. So what did she say to you? She said, "What's the rush?" I said, "What do you mean?" He was 27. I was 27. She said, "He can wait till he's 40." So I said, "And how old were you when you got married?" She was 23. Well, she said, "What does that got to do with it?" Great on your part, though. Good argument. So actually what we did was we drove down to Arizona because in California you had to have a physical. I don't know what all the exams were. It took two or three weeks before you could get a license to even get married. But in Arizona it was just like coming to Nevada. You could come in and sign up and you were married. And I figured he would change his mind. So I said, "Okay, next week it's Labor Day. We're going to go and get married." So my folks drove me down, and he drove his mother's car with his sister and his mother. And we got married in Arizona. Then my folks took his mother back and George 9 and I had the car. So we had a one-day honeymoon. And that was Monday, Labor Day. So which city in Arizona? That I don't remember. And I don't even have my wedding license because when he went into the service he had to show that he was married and he took the marriage license. We didn't make a copy or anything. See, we were already married maybe a month or two?it was 1942, which is when World War II started. We got into it close to 1942 because it was December 1941. Yes. So anyway, we were only married a short while, maybe a month or two, when he got a notice from the service that they were going to draft him. We were worried about him being drafted because we figured if he were drafted they would ship him overseas. So, instead of waiting to be drafted, he enlisted. First week he was a private. And then next week he was a private first class and then he became a corporal and then after the corporal he became a sergeant and then he became a staff sergeant within a period of maybe three weeks because they put him to work doing exactly the same thing that he had done when he was a private citizen. The point was is that at least he wasn't shipped; we were worried about him being shipped overseas and this way he wasn't shipped overseas. They did send us to Orange, California, out of Los Angeles, about 30 miles out of L.A. And that's where he worked. The entire time in Orange? No, not the entire time. For about a year. And when I was in Orange, that's when Geri was born was in Orange?My daughter. G-e-r-i, Geri. She's now 63. So he was a staff sergeant and he decided to apply for officer. So he did. He applied. He figured why live on $90 a month when we can have $200 or $300 a month to live on? Well, when he applied to become an officer, they decided to check him out. And they discovered he was born in Russia. He was five years old when he came to this country, but he was born in Russia. So, therefore, obviously he was not a true American citizen. And he was very -- what's the word?he was very liberal. So they shipped us to Las Vegas because he applied to become an officer. And he never did become an officer. And they shipped us to Las Vegas because they didn't want him working in Santa Ana, which had to do with the military, of course. And he never got over being a staff sergeant. That was what he was. Wow. Because, you know, the Russians were on our side at that point. That's right. But he's Jewish and he was Russian and he was born out of the country. And that's what 10 they did. That's interesting. They wouldn't promote him. Let's go back for one second. I forgot to ask something. Could you name your brothers and sisters and give me your parents' names? Sure. My father was Nachman, N-a-c-h-m-a-n, Nachman Rightman, R-i-g-h-t-m-a-n. My mother was Molly; actually her Jewish name was Molke, M-o-l-k-e, and they Anglicized it to Molly. And my sister was Sarah, Sarah Lee. And my brother was David, David Ruben. His middle name was Ruben. He died -- how many years ago is it now? I was trying to remember what happened. RICHARD: Ten years ago. He was in a car wreck. He got hit by a drunk driver. Oh, that's what it was. Yes, he was on his way home and he was going across the street and a drunken kid, a 19-year-old kid, rammed him. And he died the same night. Oh, that's sad. So let's get back to your story. So you were stationed -- they sent you to Las Vegas? They shipped us to Las Vegas. The way we got our first apartment -- well, it wasn't even an apartment; it was a little shack, actually -- was someone told us the thing to do is go to the power company and see who was turning off the power. So we went to the power company and they told us there was a little house on 12th Street -- no -- on Stuart. They were turning off the power next week. And they gave us the name of the owner. And we went to him and told him that we understood people were moving and could we have the house? And we paid $40 a month. There was no such thing as air-conditioning. There were water coolers. And the house was a big house. It had a living room and a kitchen, a bath and a sleeping porch. It wasn't even a bedroom. It was a sleeping porch. It was screened in, no windows. It was just big enough for a double bed. It was screened in. It was just big enough for a double bed and I think a chair or something. That was it. I just remember it was screened. But the weather was different then. It wasn't as cold in the wintertime. We didn't have a problem. And it was on Stuart just off of 14th. And we were delighted to get it. And, of course, we had a water cooler so that we could cool the house in the summertime. 11 So did you ever work outside the home at that point as your children -- Well, by that time?we had Geri. He got a job with an attorney. [Joe] McNamee was the attorney. Your husband got a job with an attorney? So he was an attorney, but he never practiced law. [Note: George earned his law degree in 1940 from University of California at Berkeley]. So when we were shipped here, he took the bar and he passed. We figured that it was much wiser to?well, here they had I think 40 attorneys maybe in town?of course, Los Angeles probably had 4,000 attorneys. Actually, what happened was the bar was, let's say, in September. And September the 1st he was transferred back to Santa Ana. So they had to ship the test to Santa Ana. And they did. They shipped the test to Santa Ana where he took it and passed the bar. In the meantime I went back and stayed with my folks in Ontario with Geri. After he passed the bar -- I guess the war ended by that time. The thing was that he didn't get shipped out, which is what we were concerned about. But when he was working in the military, they had him doing job analysis, exactly what he had been doing when he was a private citizen. So they would send him to different cities, different military places to analyze the work. So you had to get your own housing when he was in the military? Yes. The first place got was we rented a bedroom in somebody's home. I told you they said go to the power company. So we got this house on Stuart just off of 12th. And we were delighted to have it. So now, wasn't it the beginnings of Nellis at that time? That was the air force, wasn't it? That was the air force then, the gunnery range. And they had him doing exactly the same thing, shipping him around, you know. Then he was shipped back to Santa Ana. And shortly after we were shipped back to California was when the war ended. So about 1945. And then you decided to come back. Why didn't you stay -- Well, see, when he was there that's when they sent him the exam to see if he would pass it. And he did pass it. And that was the Nevada Bar. Yes. So we talked it over and we decided that it would be easier for him to get started to make a living here than it would be in Los Angeles. Which did you like better, Southern California or Las Vegas? 12 You know I never thought about it. I think I probably liked Las Vegas better because it got me away from my mother-in-law. She really had a hand on us. Was he still supporting her? No. Because when he was in the service, he didn't earn enough to support her. So she had to go to work. And she had a sister that had a five-and-dime store. So she went to work in the five-and-dime. And his sister, Ernestine -- he had a sister, who is I think 11 years younger than he. Anyway, she was in Los Angeles with her mother. The thing was he was transferred back to Santa Ana. And Nevada sent the Nevada Bar exam to Santa Ana for him to take it. Well, so he came back here and he went to work for an attorney called McNamee. So what did Las Vegas look like? This is 1945. So you've been here twice now. There were about 20,000 people. This was all desert then. When we bought this lot, it was out in the middle of no place. It's an acre and a half. And we're talking about right here on Rancho [in the Scotch 80s division]. Rancho was a dirt road. It ended up one block. We were out in the