Transcript of interview with Emilie Wanderer by Joanne Goodwin, 2000

KF W W W 3 f U 6 F ?A Thousand to One: ? the story o f Emilie N. Wanderer the first woman to practice law in Las Vegas. Emilie N. Wanderer and Joanne L. Goodwin Las Vegas (Nevada) Women Oral History Project Women?s Research Institute of Nevada University of Nevada, Las Vegas 2005 ?Joanne L. Goodwin, W om en? s Research Institute o f Nevada, U N L Y , NSHE, 2005 Use o f this material shall comply with copyright law and properly cite the publication as Emilie N. Wanderer and Joanne L. Goodwin, ?A Thousand to One: ? the story ofEmilie N. Wanderer the first woman to practice law in Las Vegas, Las Vegas (Nevada) W omen Oral History Project, W om en? s Research Institute o f Nevada, University o f Nevada, Las Vegas, 2005. P R E F A C E Emilie Norma Cohen first discovered her interest in the field o f law as a high school student when she heard Clarence Darrow speak. His views on equality, civil liberties, and modem legal theory intrigued her as a young woman and motivated her as a young attorney. She left the Boston area to study law at Fordham University School o f Law in N ew Y ork on the eve o f the Great Depression. Forced to leave school in 1931 because o f financial hardships, she nevertheless passed the N ew York State Bar exam. She volunteered with a distinguished group o f female attorneys in the N ew Y o rk City Magistrate? s Court and began her professional association with the National Association o f Women Lawyers. W hile in N ew York, she met and married Henry Wanderer and gave birth to three sons. Seventy years later, Wanderer remembered the difficulties that had accompanied her legal education. G iving back to the community in which she made her home, Emilie Wanderer made a major gift to the University o f Nevada, Las Vegas o f one-half million dollars, most o f which created an endowment for law student scholarships. In 1946, Wanderer and her three sons set o ff on a cross-country trip with the intention to m ove to Arizona where the dry climate had been recommended for her son Philip? s asthma. They stopped in Las Vegas on the way and the town o f 20,000 became the family? s home. With only 26 attorneys in town at the time, Emilie Wanderer believed that room existed for a woman attorney. She also recalled that some residents bet ? a thousand to one? that she would fail and be gone in six months. Instead, Wanderer passed the Nevada state bar with two other women, N elle Price and Charlotte Hunter Arley, and was among the first 25 women admitted to the state bar. She was the first woman to IV establish a law practice in Las Vegas when she opened her first office in 1947.1 She raised her three sons on her own as her husband remained in N ew Y ork City. Pioneering a field is rarely glamorous and although her practice flourished, she encountered numerous challenges in the small desert town. A s she told a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun in 1999, ? What chance did a Jewish woman from N ew Y ork with no law degree and three young sons have in succeeding as a lawyer in Las Vegas in 1947? ? In those days, women weren? t welcome in the bar association,? confirmed W ayne Blevins, executive director o f the Nevada Bar Association in 1999. The small number o f female attorneys in practice reflected the traditions and prejudices o f those days. Yet, Wanderer was clear that her efforts paved the way for others. ? I never thought o f m yself as a pioneer, but you never know what is going to happen in life.? 2 Wanderer accepted a variety o f cases including criminal, inheritance, divorce, and child custody. Her first case in Nevada made headlines when the accused murderer claimed that God had told him to get ? Lady Wanderer? to represent him. She served the Las Vegas chapter o f the N A A C P as legal counsel and president between 1948 and 1950. She worked to expand the ? rights o f the child? through the creation o f the fam ily court, particularly through her national organization ties. The president o f the National Association o f W omen Lawyers appointed Wanderer to the organization? s fam ily life committee to investigate the creation o f fam ily courts in states where they did not exist, which included Nevada. During the 1950s, Wanderer worked with others to secure a family court in the state with a social worker and marriage counselor on staff. ? It is the responsibility o f the community as a whole to preserve the sanctity o f the home? she told a reporter in 1955.3 She ran for judgeships a number o f times, but failed to secure a place v at the bench. She also served as president o f the Nevada Chapter o f the Federal Bar Association for the 1970-1971 term. Emilie Wanderer and John Wanderer became the first mother-son team to practice law in Nevada when John joined the practice in 1974. A fter graduating from U N L V in 1971, he attended law school at Arizona State University in Phoenix and graduated cum laude in 1974. He was admitted to the Nevada State Bar October 10, 1974.4 John continued the firm that his mother started when she retired from the practice in 1981. Her first son David died in 1978 at the age o f 45. Philip is a businessman in Boulder City. Emilie Wanderer passed away March 3, 2005.5 Although it took decades, Nevada women began the process o f integrating the field o f law: entering and completing law school, opening law practices, and getting elected to judicial positions. Many o f those women who worked in the field during that time knew Emilie Wanderer. She served as a mentor to many o f them. The follow ing narrative evolved from a series o f interviews with Em ilie Wanderer at her home in Las Vegas in February 2000. Although preliminary background research had been conducted and an interview outline constmcted, no personal or professional archives from Mrs. Wanderer were available at the time. Consequently, the interviews did not follow an explicit chronological trajectory. Some subjects were covered with slightly different commentary in subsequent interviews. Several areas needed supplementary research from traditional historical sources. Specifically, a substantial amount o f attention was dedicated to filling out the interview with archival research in newspaper files. In vi addition, John Wanderer generously provided his personal collection o f newspaper clippings, photos, and other documents later in the process. He assisted me by providing names, dates and other important details to the best o f his knowledge. The interview that follows combines Emilie Wanderer? s account in an edited narrative with additional documentary sources added. These sources have been placed in notes to disrupt as little as possible the original account given. As such it is unlike other contributions to the series on oral histories o f women in Las Vegas because the transcript has been considerably reorganized. Vll Em ilie Wanderer with her three sons around the time o f their arrival in Las Vegas. Courtesy of John Wanderer The Formative Years I was b om in Boston A pril 8, 1910. There was no record o f it, there was no birth certificate. M y mother had a m idw ife and sometimes they neglected to file the birth certificate. W hen I got a passport, they figured out my age from other members o f the family. I was the youngest o f eight children and one o f my sisters sort o f took me over. She was the one that took me to nursery school. She talked them into admitting me; they didn? t think that I was old enough. She gave them an age that she thought. [Chuckles] No one really ever knew. She had married at an early age and so she adopted me ? she would do everything for me. M y mother, Sara [Ginsburg] Cohen, was bom in Germany, Hanover, I think. She came over to the United States as a young girl. She had relatives that were friends and relatives o f my father? s. They met at a fam ily function and he fell in love with her. She was very beautiful. M y mother? s fam ily had many rabbis in it. For nine generations without interruption, the men had been rabbis. In fact, one o f my mother? s cousins, the man after whom I was named, had studied to be a rabbi, and he went to London and he married Lady Asquith. They had a school where he taught Hebrew and his w ife taught English. That was one o f the professions that they invaded, too. They? re a cultural people. M y mother had a very big family in Boston. One o f her cousins became the first Jewish man elected to the upper courts in Boston, Judge Lurie. H e? s very well known. They are nice people. They had prominent doctors and lawyers - that was the badge o f merit in those 1 days. M y father, Philip, was bom in Poland on the border with Germany. When he found that he was going to have to go in the army, he left. He worked his way over to the United States. I don t remember much about his family. I knew that his nephew became a very successful doctor and they had relatives that were in the professions. Yes. Many o f our early settlers were from the people o f the soil, but in our family, they were destined to be professional people. Both o f my brothers were patent attorneys and lawyers and had been assistants in the United States Patent O ffice. M y father didn? t enlarge upon his abilities, but he was a very self-sufficient person. He had modest skills, manual skills. M y children are like that; the three o f them used to read mechanical publications the same way kids would read comic books. I didn?t let them have comic books. O f course, they had been brought up in a home where copies o f cultural publications were scattered all over the place. M y mother had eight children, but she didn? t raise eight. The first child passed away, died from a convulsion. There was one after me that didn? t survive. But I was the last one. She raised six o f us, and it wasn? t canned food. She used to plant and grow things and everything was homemade. And she sewed. She was very active in household things and crafts and things like that. Our home was in the country. W e had a lot o f trees and gardens and there were sheds in back, or bams, or places for our animals; w e had horses and all kinds o f animals. W e lived very close to the Dutch land Farms. They were famous for their Holstein cattle. Y o u ? ve heard o f Fred Fields Holstein Company? They were our next-door neighbor a couple o f miles down the road. 2 M y father manufactured soft drinks. He knew the Kennedys. One reason he moved away from the city was that he couldn? t stand the political air. Joe Kennedy, he was very p olitically active. They came from South Boston, which was not the elegant part o f Boston. They had a lot o f money and a lot o f political clout. M y father got into liquor distribution before I was bom. They limited the number o f licenses they would issue and they told him that i f he wanted a license, he had to give them $20,000. So he remembered the words o f Patrick Henry and he said ? Millions for defense and not one cent for tribute.? And he said ? to hell with you and your license,? and he moved from Boston out to an adjoining county, where he found this house, a big yard, and he set up his business there. He went on to manufacture soft drinks and he had a very good business going. He started out like C oca C ola Company, but it was called Philips Beverages. I don? t remember much about my school. It wasn? t a big place, but it wasn? t too country. W e had to walk across a ravine on our way to school and there was a bridge there. Sometimes the kids would fall in the water, sometimes they would play instead o f going to school. There was a great big estate that I remember where we used to play on the lawn. It was a nice life. L o ve for education was in your genes. I guess we took it for granted that you were going to go on and study and apply yourself.7 I had three sisters. There would have been five, but the first girl died. So there were four girls and two boys, because another boy had not survived. M y brothers became lawyers. They first studied engineering at M .I.T. and then they went to law school and became patent attorneys. M y brother Carl was the first patent attorney for R C A . He was the one that negotiated the patent with the inventor o f the bulbs. They were assistant commissioners o f patents in Washington, D.C. And that? s how they went into patent law. 3 And my brother Harry was the partial inventor and patent attorney on the machine known as Technicon, and that was the machine that they used in the hospitals ? with one drop o f blood, they could do 40 tests. And the government recently got an action against a big hospital because they had charged separately for each blood test when they were supposed to have done it collectively. M y sisters married and had cultural projects that they did. M y older sister wanted to be a doctor and she was aiming for that one until my father got sick. Everybody else in the family had marital obligations. A n d so she passed up her chance for an education and stayed home to help take care o f my father until the time o f his death. She had one child. W e fortunately had an employee who had worked in the family, a Negro man (and he used to fool us and tell us that he was half white because he showed us the inside o f his hands were not brown). Jack worked with her ? helped ? took care o f her son. She gave up her studies and stayed home with my father. In high school I had taken the cultural course ? languages and sciences and things like that. I had a pretty good course in physics, things like that. Those were the things to which I gravitated. M y fam ily never tried to influence me to do one thing or another. I was old for my age. And I took myself very seriously. I wore flat heels and combed my hair back, and I wore glasses when I didn? t need them, because I wanted to be taken seriously. Then my sister got hold o f me It was an era when people?s minds were being broadened. Narrowness was being relegated to the ash heap and they were adopting new thoughts . . . 4 and started to remake me - to get me to be a little more socially attractive. Meanwhile, I had laid a foundation intellectually. I took m yself very seriously and others took me very seriously. 1 considered it a distinct honor to be on the debating team with the dean o f the law school at Harvard University (I forgot his name at the moment). So those were the things that interested me the most. I had a relative, the nephew o f an aunt to whom I was very much attached, who used to hang around with his family. H e thought I was cute and he used to like to do things with me. W e used to talk about books and things like that. When he went to Harvard, he used to take me ? I was in high school then ? he would take me to hear some o f the lectures. I went with him on several occasions to hear Clarence Darrow speak. I remembered D arrow ? s ideology o f fair play; that everybody is entitled to the extent o f the benefits that have been prescribed by the existing enactments and that people shouldn?t be carried away by the lesser demand, but should keep those goals before them. I thought he was great and his ideas about decent conduct, his interest in the community as a whole, and his dedication to people who needed help. H e challenged the cultural notion that women should have different protections from the court because o f their sex. . Some attorneys tried to make the case that their female client deserved different treatment because she was in fact a mere woman. ? What can you expect o f a woman? She? s defenseless in the world o f humanity as it is presently constituted,? they might argue. Darrow came out and said, ? Forget all that hogwash. N o one has such fury as a woman scorned.? I f she commits the crime she bears the burden o f the punishment. It was an era when people? s minds were being broadened. Narrowness was being relegated to the ash heap and they were adopting new thoughts, because people like 5 Darrow were propounding certain things. I thought, ? W ell, this is what a lawyer should be like. What difference does it make i f you are a man or a woman? That? s what law really is. He probably did more to plant the seed o f being a lawyer in my mind, but I wasn t quite old enough to get into a preparatory program. M y parents values also shaped m y commitment to social justice issues. M y parents were very open-minded. They treated people according to what they were worth as people. I don t mean their financial worth, but their character, their morality, their aims in life, their relationships with other people. An d they treated them in accordance with the niche that they belonged in, and not to relegate them to their race, color, creed, or religion. M y father had started on a religious note and abandoned it for business because he had a fam ily to support. A n d m y mother was a very sweet person and very friendly to everybody; everybody loved her. Her greatest pleasure was when the fam ily would bring their friends home and she would have an opportunity to extend her hospitality to them. So when you? re brought up in that environment with that kind o f people, the pettiness that some people engage in becomes excess baggage. A fter high school I went to Massachusetts Normal Arts School for a couple o f years and studied design ? costume design. I f I had wanted to follow through on that subject, I would have had to go to N e w Y o rk City. The garment industry was located in N ew York. But I was young and the fam ily wouldn? t hear o f it. So, I stayed home as a good child and I decided to go to law school. I went to Northeastern for a year o f law school because they didn? t require a degree ? anybody could go there. I finished the year and passed the exams, but when I got to N ew Y ork and I wanted to matriculate at Fordham, I found out that they wouldn? t give me credit for that year, and I had to take it 6 over again. A n d I said, "?So what?? I found it comparatively easy the first year, because I had a pretty good year o f training at Northeastern. I don? t know when Northeastern became recognized, but it later became Portia Law School.8 I didn?t keep in touch with Northeastern, because naturally I wasn? t in love with it after I had spent a year paying tuition that I had earned and worked m y ow n w ay through, I had to take it over again. W ell, I came to N e w Y o rk in 1929 to attend Fordham? s Law School. I was still single. I lived at hom e and commuted, because m y whole fam ily came to N ew York. The boys had finished their education and they were on their way, and there were the three sisters. One had a jo b in N ew Y o rk that she got, a good job. And another one was married and had a husband and she designed millinery. And then the one that was studying medicine gave that up to concentrate on taking care o f my father. In those days, girls didn? t expect to liv e in apartments by themselves. I stayed at home until I was married. W e lived in an apartment house up near the George Washington Bridge overlooking the Hudson River. W e had a big apartment for the whole fam ily less the boys who were in Washington. It was a 20-minute ride on the subway. Sometimes I used to go down on the bus if I got up early enough. But i f I had to hurry I would go in the subway.9 I attended Fordham from 1928 to 1930. There were seven women in school at the time and about 150 students. But I was too busy to have much social life. I used to dash across the street to go to work as soon as the lecture was over. And there was no social life because the social life o f Fordham was at the university before the people got to law school.10 O f course, 1929 was the year o f the bank closures. The political scene was being modified. Franklin Delano R oosevelt was Governor o f N ew Y ork and about to campaign for President. There were developments all around. O f course, I didn?t have too much 7 opportunity to becom e a political student; I had enough to do to work and go back and forth, and obligations at home, too. It was an amazing time. The professors that I had at Fordham were all outstanding people. One was John Lahr, who later became an appellate court judge. Professor W em er was a disabled professor with a speech impediment and a hearing problem who taught contracts. He gave the most wonderful course in contracts. I used to love to hear him because he was so careful to enunciate properly when it was an effort for him. And he was so brilliant. They were a very wonderful group o f people. In fact, I get a lump in my throat because I feel so grateful and so inadequate, and it was such a privilege to have had them. I had m y first jo b in the legal field with the U.S. Attorney. I think that if I hadn? t been going to school with this wonderful group o f people who were known to the people in the United States Attorney? s o ffice [U.S. Attorney for the Southern District o f N .Y .], they wouldn? t have wanted me. I think that they just felt that they would benefit from the exposure that I was getting, being taught by these people. I would dash across the street from the W oolw orth Building to the district attorney? s office. I was supposed to work until 6:00; sometimes I ? d work until 7 :0 0 .1 never watched the clock. It depended on what I was doing. I never was a clock-watcher, except to get to the office on time, because I was so afraid that they might find it wasn? t a profitable arrangement. I didn?t realize that they really had a good deal going. They had good services for the big sum o f $35 a week. When I started in N ew York, there weren?t many professional women around., W e were all struggling, trying to get a foothold in the field o f endeavor where w e could see opportunities to do some good for the world. A fter law school, I worked with Anna Kross, the first wom an appointed to the magistrate? s court in N ew York City. She was a 8 rarity. She had this flock o f young wom en who wanted to be lawyers, still wet behind their ears as far as legal practice was concerned, and gave them an opportunity to get into court and to get a feel for the actualities o f practicing law. She organized the group to work in the Magistrate s Social Service Bureau. M ost o f the people in the women? s court were taken into custody and thrown into cells, and if they couldn?t afford a lawyer, they would get no help at all. W om en were treated like chattel and were not given the protection that the laws anticipated for them. There were prostitution cases, but also any kind o f case. I f a woman was involved, she went to the wom en? s court. I heard about the project when I was invited to attend a tea or something where Kross spoke. She was very inspiring and very definite about the need in this branch o f the jurispmdence. There were quite a few young women who were very happy to cooperate with her. And w e didn? t feel that the money was the only thing to consider, it was the need.11 She got these young girls all gung-ho about doing right by Little Nell, who had gone astray, and who would fight for their rights until it became a modus operandi for them. And eventually, there were more women who realized that it was the way it should be. When I passed the bar [in 1931], I was delighted to make my services available.12 I had one very important case o f a woman whose sister was a doctor with whom I had been friendly. The sister was a victim o f a frame-up by a doctor. He recruited the doctor? s older sister, who was looking for a companion-governess job. She was a widow and had not been trained for anything. She had no help from family, so she was very happy to go to w ork for a doctor, because her sister was a doctor and she thought that these were good people. W hen this doctor hired her as a companion to his two children, and to help with light duties, taking the children to school and so forth, she just took the 9 job and was very happy. But she didn? t know the trouble After she had been with the doctor for about the Magistrate \s Social Service Bureau . . . was invaluable, because it was something on which to cut our judicial teeth, and to it was going to get her into, a week, he and his w ife decided to go out for dinner, and they explained to her about how the children were going to be, and to take care o f them, and where they were going to be. Shortly after they left, she smelled smoke and she ran to the master bedroom and she found a fire in there. She immediately called the fire find out the workings o f these department and they started an areas, what to look investigation. The doctor insisted that fo r and what to guard ? , . ? there had been a lot o f money m one o f his against. w ife ? s garments and it had been removed. They accused her o f taking that money and accused her o f having set the fire, and they threw her in the slammer in the woman? s jail. W ho was the doctor? s sister going to call? M e. So I went down there. I figured the thing out and I thought it was a very serious thing. But I didn? t feel that I was in a position to take the responsibility entirely for this woman. So anyhow, I got her set up with a very prominent girl w ho was practicing in the community where it happened. W e got her working and it turned out that this doctor ? not m y friend, but the father o f these children ? was in serious financial trouble. H e saw a chance to have a loss in his home where he could recover money on the alleged stolen funds as well as the funds to cover the fire damage. 10 W e got her cleared with a struggle. They held it over for trial and it was a lengthy trial. I participated only as a friend and did some research on it and showed the interest in her. In other words, the lawyer that had been hired couldn? t possibly have been influenced by the prosecution to sell the client out for a plea. So, she actually went to trial and I helped during the trial and got her off. But w e needed people to do that sort o f thing. This was the reason Judge Kross had form ed the Magistrates? Social Service Bureau and gotten young w om en attorneys involved. In other words, wherever there was the necessity for legal assistance and there was no money to pay for it, w e o f the Magistrate? s Social Service Bureau were delegated. But it was something that was invaluable, because it was something on which to cut our judicial teeth, and to find out the workings o f these areas, what to look for and what to guard against. So as a result, it was a great help. These women attorneys started it, and then they started getting opportunities to put their activity where their ambition was. And then they realized that it was a political thing, and they started using political advantages to get recognition. I continued with the Magistrate? s Social Service Bureau from the time right after I was admitted to the bar until I left N ew Y o rk ? a matter o f a few years. I was a wom an but I didn? t take special privileges o f a woman. Y ou know, I went in as a businesswoman. I wore businesslike clothing ? suits, and I wore hats, and I wore gloves, and I carried a briefcase and I w ore m y ? orthopedic shoes? as I called them. And I didn? t cry-baby before the judge. I f I disagreed with him, I would let him know the basis of it and do it in what I thought was the right way to do it. I never went into court and said, ? I want you to treat me like a man? either [laughs]. A woman said that one time and the judge said, ? O K , w e ? ll give you 60 days instead o f 30 days.? W ell, that? s it. Around this time, I met m y husband, Henry Wanderer, at a wedding. A girl I knew who was a lawyer was marrying a doctor who was a friend o f my husband. And so he was the best man and I was maid o f honor. H e was a graduate o f Tulane University in N ew Orleans. W e became friends, then w ere married on M ay 5, 1931 M y husband came to the United States as a little boy with his father, [Maurice] Vandervelt. Th ey changed the name to Wanderer because people would joke with him about it, and say, ? A r e you trying to m im ic the Vanderbilts?? See, Vandervelt and Vanderbilt. So he started calling them Wanderer, the name they were known by in Germany. They were a very active fam ily, not only in Germany but in Antwerp and the satellite countries. T he fam ily manufactured automobiles and typewriters. They were like Remington Rand here. During the Second W orld War, H itler took over their factory. That? s where they manufactured the A u di and the Volkswagen, and they changed the name o f it. But when I traveled in Germany with Philip when he graduated from grammar school, I took him to Europe with me. Every place w e went, they told me they knew the family, the Wanderers. That? s the name they went under. But his grandfather on his father? s side had tried to get away from the stigma o f being accused o f changing the name from Vandervelt because they had translated it literally. His mother, Jennie [Greene] Wanderer, was one o f the first women in N ew York who was active in building and things like that. She wasn? t an architect. She had to hire the architect. She built her house on Third Street, on the East Side in N ew York [Manhattan], That was downtown. A n d that? s where she lived up to her death. She was an outstanding woman. She had been married, had six children, and then her husband died. Then she met m y husband? s father, Maurice Wanderer. H e had never been married before 12 he met Jennie. She was a cute little person, round, short, and fat; very businesslike, very smart, very self-sufficient. So he married her and they had m y husband.13 In fact, I think that is what probably attracted Henry to me was the fact that he knew that I was a professional woman, and he had been brought up by a woman who was very self-sufficient. I had been married almost tw o years when my father came to live with us [in Yonkers, N Y ], M y husband had diagnosed his condition better than the specialist that they had on it. So less than six months before my father died, he came and lived with us so my husband could take care o f him. M y mother and m y sister and her child took an apartment nearby. I spent my second anniversary in the hospital, having my first son. M y professional organization was the N A W L [National Association o f Women Lawyers]. That group made a big contribution toward the passage o f the women? s [suffrage] vote bill. I think that was in 1920. That? s when it came into prominence. Adele I. Springer was president when I was involved. She was a little older than I was. Adele sort o f took me under her wings and she brought me into these things. It was their investigation that found Nevada was one o f the only states without a fam ily court. So they appointed me chairman o f the committee on fam ily life to do something about it.14 I was still in N ew Y o rk at the time. W e were having our regional conference set for A p ril in 1945 and we had to postpone it because w e had asked Eleanor Roosevelt to be our speaker. When the President died that spring, she cancelled her functions. So w e had her speak in April o f 1946. Then in July, I left N ew York. 13 In 1 899, 18 women attorneys in N ew York City formed The W om en Lawyers? Club which became the National Association o f W om en Lawyers in 1923. In 1911, the organization began a publication, the W om en Law yers? Journal, which continues in publication today. The first professional organization for women attorneys focused on professional issues specific to women as w ell as legal issues o f concern to women in general. Laws determining divorce and marriage, property rights o f married women, and labor laws drew the support and dedication o f organization members. Similarly, the N A W L participated in the national campaigns for woman suffrage, women? s right to serve on juries, the establishment o f women judges, and for the equal rights amendment. T h e N a tion a l A sso cia tio n o f W o m en L a w yers See Selma M o id el Smith, ? T h e First Fifty Y ea rs,? reprinted in the W om en La w yers ? J o u rn a l 85:2 (Sum m er 1999), n.p. available at http://www.abanet. ore/n a w l/about h isto ry , html. 14 N e w to Las Vegas I left the first o f August and I spent 30 days traveling. I got here just before Labor Day. I had an