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Transcript of interview with Suzie Chenin by Barbara Tabach, September 29, 2015

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2015-09-25

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In this interview, Suzie discusses growing up in Las Vegas, with a strong community of friends, particularly within Temple Beth Sholom. She also talks about her real estate career, both in residential and commercial properties, highlighting some of the successes and challenges. She describes her working relationship with Milton Schwartz, as well her time working with the Greenspuns while selling advertising at the Las Vegas Sun.

Suzie Chenin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in August of 1949. The next year, her parents, Joseph and Irene Chenin, moved the family to Las Vegas. Her father, a dentist, was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, becoming the first Jewish dentist in the state ? and only the thirtieth overall. After graduating from Las Vegas High School, Suzie attended Arizona State University. However, she quit school and moved to Los Angeles where she got a job with a large real estate developer. This was her first foray into the industry. A few years later, back in Las Vegas, Suzie got her real estate license, eventually starting her own brokerage firm, Chenin and Associates.

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OH_02693_book
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    Suzie Chenin oral history interview, 2015 September 29. OH-02693. [Transcript]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1ms3p37h

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    AN INTERVIEW WITH SUZIE CHENIN 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, Stefani Evans 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 Suzie Chenin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in August of 1949. The next year, her parents, Joseph and Irene Chenin, moved the family to Las Vegas. Her father, a dentist, was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, becoming the first Jewish dentist in the state ? and only the thirtieth overall. After graduating from Las Vegas High School, Suzie attended Arizona State University. However, she quit school and moved to Los Angeles where she got a job with a large real estate developer. This was her first foray into the industry. A few years later, back in Las Vegas, Suzie got her real estate license, eventually starting her own brokerage firm, Chenin and Associates. In this interview, Suzie discusses growing up in Las Vegas, with a strong community of friends, particularly within Temple Beth Sholom. She also talks about her real estate career, both in residential and commercial properties, highlighting some of the successes and challenges. She describes her working relationship with Milton Schwartz, as well her time working with the Greenspuns while selling advertising at the Las Vegas Sun. v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Suzie Chenin on September 29, 2015 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface?????????????????????????????????..?..iv Talks about family ancestry; how her parents met; parents? decision to move from Cleveland, Ohio to Las Vegas. Reflects upon father?s career as dentist, first with military and then own practice; additional business in land development. Describes mother and her creativity. Shares memories of childhood, including schools attended, entertainment options; childhood sweetheart. Mentions quitting college and moving to Los Angeles; getting job with developer??????..??1-5 Describes first husband, Tony; how they met; divorcing when their daughter, Aimee, was two-years-old. Talks about selling advertising at Las Vegas Sun; relationship with the Greenspuns. Discusses role Temple Beth Sholom played in her life as well as daughter?s. Shares family photos, mother?s art with interviewer???????????????????..?????.6-10 Mentions briefly living in Boston (1972), Hawaii (1981). Returns to Las Vegas and gets real estate license. Talks about her career as a real estate broker, both residential and commercial; working extensively with Milton Schwartz, both in real estate as well as advertising in taxicabs; selling property in Regency Towers, Turnberry, commercial lots on Tonopah????????...11-15 Talks about involvement with Jewish Family Services, working at its food bank. Shares her love for hiking. Mentions playing football in high school. Discusses strong network of friends and community growing up in Las Vegas; entertainment on Strip; outdoor outings??...??...16-18 Index........................................................................................................................................19-20 1 This is Barbara Tabach and I'm sitting with Suzie Chenin. Today is September 29, 2015. Suzie, I'm going to ask you to spell your name. Suzie Chenin. I appreciate you sitting down and sharing some history with me for the UNLV Libraries? Jewish Heritage project. I want to start with what you know about your family's Jewish ancestry. You started to tell me your mother's maiden name? Her maiden name was Wiener and I believe her grandfather was also Wiener. She met my Grandfather Nagel and Nagel was German. My mother's ancestry was Ashkenazi. My mother used to talk about it and I had a book I gave my son that had all the answers; it was from my great?great Aunt Esther, who lived in California, and who lived to be a hundred. She was always giving advice. Every family needs one of those, right? She was wonderful. Aunt Esther came from Poland and Austria. So my father's family is Polish, Austrian and Russian. My mother's family is German. Do you know how your parents met? It was a blind date. She wore a purple dress and he fell in love with her when he saw her. How sweet. Where were they living? Cleveland, Ohio. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. So were they, for that matter. My father's parents owned a bakery. And my grandmother died of breast cancer about fifty?three years old. My mother's side had breast cancer, too, and heart problems. My cousins put together a family history and I'll find that for you. How did they decide to move from Cleveland? Do you know how your parents got to Las Vegas? My mother flew out with me and she was newly pregnant with my brother. He was born here. 2 My father was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in the Air Force. He was a dentist. He came here. He was the thirtieth dentist in the state and nineteenth in Las Vegas. The nineteenth dentist in Las Vegas. So the population must have been pretty small at that time. What year was that? 1950. When he left the military, he opened up an office on Fremont Street and did really well. He and two men built a building together on Maryland Parkway near Fremont Street and they were very successful there for a long time. Were his partners Jewish as well? No. Then he found another partner, Dr. Merkin, who was Jewish. They were good together. They bought land together. They built the building where Steinberg Diagnostic is on Maryland Parkway. I sold it for them. I was in real estate. Wow. What kind of specialty or what kind of dentist was he? He did a lot of caps and crowns. He was a very good dentist. Did a lot of your friends go to him? Everybody went to him. All the Jews went to him. When he took the exam, they didn't know he was Jewish and they passed him. Do you think it would have made a difference if they had known? Oh, yes. He was the first Jewish dentist in the state and there were no more until he was elected to the Board of Governors for Dentistry. So he felt that he was just lucky to get through. Yes. Tell me about your mom. My mom was wonderful. She was beautiful inside and out. We started with an apartment on Paradise 3 near Oakey. Then they bought a house?2100 Santa Ynez, over there off Oakey and Maryland Parkway. Then they built a house on Sixth Street, 1408 South Sixth Street, and it was gorgeous. My mother really outdid herself. She was such a creative person. She was an artist and she sold her paintings at what was then Valley Bank. It's a Bank of America now. I sold a painting there for forty dollars. So you were an artist as well? Yes. What kind of paintings did you like to do? Free form, and I sculpted. I did calligraphy. I did those iron things with the little suns in them on pots and things. I used to do that for Macy's when it was Broadway. Then, in 1967, I was in a near-fatal car accident and spent the next two years in a hospital bed at home in a full-body cast. Oh, my goodness. That's pretty devastating. It was. It was right after I graduated. So you moved here when you were an infant or you were born here? I was one-year-old. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, August 28, 1949. My brother was born here August 24, 1951. What school did you attend? John S. Park Elementary School. Your father got out of the service when? I think 1953 or four. So you were a little girl. Then he had a private practice for as long as you could remember? Yes. Talk about what it was like to attend John S. Park? What are your memories of grammar school? Someone called me a "dirty Jew." I told them, "No, I'm not dirty; I take a shower every night." 4 So you felt a little anti?Semitism then? Oh, yes. But John S. Park was great. I loved it. Great teachers. My mother would pick us up every day. It was really an old?time classroom and the teachers actually cared. Who were some of your classmates? Ruth Urban. Vicky Doway, but her maiden name was Grafman. Dianne Guinn; she's not Jewish. Gordon Sager. Ruth is the one who introduced us. So you go back a long way with her. I do. To elementary school. Wow. So you were in the John S. Park neighborhood growing up? Yes. I lived right on South Sixth Street, a beautiful, big home, on a third of an acre. That was a nice neighborhood. One of the early oral history projects we did a few years ago was on that whole neighborhood. Then what middle school did you go to? John C. Fremont. I liked it. I worked in the cafeteria. Did you? What did you do? Cashier, waitress, everything. We cooked, we served, we put them together, wrapped everything up, did the whole thing. Then what high school did you go to? Las Vegas High School on Bridger and Seventh. The original Las Vegas High School. The original. It was great. I had wonderful teachers, great friends. And you graduated what year? Nineteen sixty?seven. 5 What was 1967 Las Vegas like? There was the Teen Beat Club, a skating rink, and not much else to do. It was great. We did cotillion at the temple. After Hebrew school we'd go for pizza. There was a place in Charleston Plaza Mall and we'd go there. So what was it like to be a teenage Jewish girl in the sixties? I was dating a boy all through high school, Gary Russell. We had a lot of fun. There was just not a lot to do, but we made fun of it and we had parties and people came. It was a very small town where most people knew each other. I would run into my dad's clients all the time on the street. Gary and I went together until we graduated then we broke up. He moved to Phoenix, and then I went to Arizona State University. We saw each other for a little while there, but it just wasn't working. It was broken irrevocably. Did you graduate from ASU? I didn't. I studied psychology, economy, and sociology. I wasn't sure what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be good at whatever I decided. I was hired right out of that class. I was the only female in the class. I was hired right out of class by the Norton Simon campaign when he ran for governor of the State of California. How was that experience? That was great. I quit school. I drove in my Mustang to Los Angeles, got an apartment. My friend, who is a gay Jewish man, moved around the corner from me. We were in Hollywood, baby. [Laughing] When you say that what does that mean? What was Hollywood like? In the sixties. Tie?dyed shirts and loud music. That was fun, though. I worked for them and then I went to work for Larwin, which was a big builder at the time, on his new computer machine, MTST. No one knew how to use it. I knew how to use it. And so they hired me from a temporary agency. 6 What did they hire you to do? To do all their stuff for the SEC reports, to coordinate, put it together. They were a real estate developer. They did commercial and housing tracts. That was a big responsible for a young person. I did it really well. Then I came home one weekend for my dad's fiftieth birthday and I met my first husband. He wasn't Jewish; he was Italian. He was a cheater, a thief, a liar and a bookmaker. [Laughing] I divorced him when my daughter was four. He connected to Judaism before we got married. What was his occupation? He worked as a dealer in one of the casinos or a pit boss. He often was the pit boss. He moved around a lot. Back in that era, was that intermarriage okay with your parents? It was the first one in the family. Did your parents approve? My dad loved Tony. Tony had been a patient of my father's and that's how I met him. For my father's birthday we went to the old Tropicana, where they had that Gourmet Room, and Tony picked up the bill for my dad. I walked outside to Tony, in the casino, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "Thank you." And that was it for him. He was on me like a fly. [Laughing] We got married about seven months later. Then I found out about him when I was pregnant. By the time Aimee was two we were divorced. That's too bad. But you remained here in Las Vegas. Yes. He converted to Judaism when we got married. That was significant. I just recently lost my fianc? of twenty?six years. I'm sorry. 7 He had a heart attack and died at the health club. So I'm going through a really hard time. But I'll find more pictures for you and I'll get it together. All right. We can do the photos a second time. So you were a young mother and? Twenty?four. Twenty?four. Were you working at this time? I went to work immediately after we got divorced at the Las Vegas Sun selling advertising, and then I became a hotel/casino marketing coordinator. Talk about that. That must have been an interesting job. It was great. I loved it. I made a lot of money. I didn't have to worry. I'd go to the old Broadway and pick out a bunch of shoes and just not worry. What was your typical day like as in sales of advertising? I would put together the ads for them. Then I would take it to them for their approval, get approvals, and sell more ads at the same time while I was there. I'd go back to the office and execute what they wanted in their ads. I didn't get home until seven, eight, nine o'clock at night. I had a great babysitter for Aimee. When I could get up early, I escaped. Working with Hank, Barbara, and Ruthe Deskin was a wonderful experience. I am assuming the staff at the newspaper was smaller than we think about, because it was still a small town. Oh, yes. So you had interactions with the Greenspuns? Yes. I knew them for years. They were neighbors from around the corner. Janie, their daughter, and I were friends. We were all part of a group that all got together. Most of us were Jewish. The two boys, 8 Brian and Danny. Just a load of Jewish kids. We would go to temple every Sunday and play in the back lot after. This is when you were young? Yes. Talk about temple. It was Temple Beth Sholom and it was located on Oakey Street where the Methodist Church is now with the stained glass window. I literally grew up there. Can you share some memories of that? It was a lot of fun. Cotillion, so we learned how to dance. I have not heard about the cotillion. What age would you have been during the cotillion? Thirteen to fifteen, maybe sixteen. It was every Sunday night. The cotillion was a reason to get together and dance and socialize. Right. It was great. Temple did a good job. Did you have a bat mitzvah? No, I didn't, but I was confirmed. It seems like girls weren't? Not in those days. It just wasn?t done then. Going back to working at the Las Vegas Sun, describe the personalities of the people you worked with. I didn't like the other salesmen. They were low?life. I just pretty much kept to myself and worked as hard as I could and kept getting promoted because I was working so hard, not because of any relationship with the Greenspuns. I earned it. What were your promotions? 9 I did tabloids and did tabloids on the Boulevard Mall and all kinds of things. We did so many things. It was always a pleasure, though. I loved meeting people. So that was a great thing. I never dated anyone I met through it and I should have. [Laughing] But it was a good time. During that time as a young mother working at the paper, were you involved with one of the synagogues then in raising your daughter? Beth Sholom. She went to school there for two years. Then we moved to Hawaii. I got engaged to a man who was a large contractor there, water proofing. Aimee went to Jewish school there. We went to temple services and the whole nine yards. The rabbi was Chinese. Really? Don't find that often, I'm sure. No. It was very interesting. But the early days of Las Vegas, I remember downtown. There was a store that had everything, and next to it was a market. We'd go to the market and do all our shopping, and then we'd go next door and buy our clothes or stamps or toys or whatever. They had everything. You showed me a photo of your parents. There was a street named after them, Chenin Street. Where is that? Craig Road and El Capitan. How does one get a street named after them? Put up a lot of money. [Laughing] Explain that a little bit more. He was an investor in that group of homes and they needed street names. They were using the partners' names as street names. I often wondered, as a person who's lived here just a couple of decades, where the names of the streets came from. The city grew so fast. 10 Yes. This is my grandfather and an aunt of mine. Did they live in Ohio? Yes. That's a great photo. This is a picture of my mother's brother, Nagel. This is Sylvia Simms, Henrietta Farber, Irene Chenin. How cute. And here they are; my mother right there, my aunt Henrietta, and my uncle Morry. Very nice. Now, you said your mom was an artist. Yes. I can show you some. She did this one. Now, is that ink? That's in ink. That's beautiful. She only did fifty of them. And this is one of hers. Really soft colors. That's pretty. She was great. That's one of hers. Landscaping. So she had a variety of arts that she liked to do as well. She sold the paintings, you said? Yes. She had a show at the Sands one year. Wow. Good for her. This is all my stuff regarding John's death. I've got so much to clean up, it's overwhelming. This is another one. This is my grandfather on my father's side up at Mount Charleston in about 1953. He had come 11 from Cleveland. This is my grandmother, his wife, Regina Bookbinder; that was her maiden name. Then it was Chenchinsky before they all changed it to Chenin. Ah, it's a little easier to pronounce and spell. Oh, yes. They chose to change it themselves? Yes. And this is an aunt of mine from Chicago. Wow. That's a fascinating...How is she dressed here? I don't know. It's really beautiful, isn't it? It is. I love it. Yes. It has almost like some sort of a tribal costume-y feeling to it. It does, definitely. That's all her hair? Yes. Wow. That's amazing. These are great. I love old photos. You have a lot of history in those. I know. Reflect on how you came back to Las Vegas?you went to Hawaii. So you lived there how long? A year, in 1981. What brought you back? I lived in Boston for a year, in 1972. I worked for IBM. I was in sales and I also was in developmental research. I was paid very well. How long were you in Boston? About a year and a half. I couldn't take the snow. 12 Yes, it does accumulate there for sure. So you came back to Vegas? No. I moved home to Las Vegas and then I met Tony, my first husband, and got married. The whole six months was leading up to this anticlimactic thing. [Laughing] And you remained in Vegas since then? No. In 1981, I moved to Hawaii and I worked for the largest waterproofing company on all the islands. It was owned by Chuck Kahenback. I did mostly computer work. My daughter went to school there. We were there through the hurricane. The temple there was beautiful, built into the mountains with greenery all around it. It was gorgeous. We went to temple almost every Friday night. Tell me about how you decided to come back and stay and make your life in Las Vegas. When I left Hawaii after the hurricane, I knew I was coming home and I did. I got my real estate license, which my father practically forced me into. I didn't want to do it. I did it for the next twenty?eight years. Even owned our own company, Chenin and Associates, and we had associates. Talk about your real estate company here and your real estate career. That's a long time to be in real estate. It is. So what years would that have been? Nineteen eighty?seven to 2005. So you were in real estate as the city really started to break open. Yes. I sold real estate, a lot of it, in the Las Vegas Country Club. That was my favorite hangout. I also had Milton Schwartz. He owned Yellow Checker and Star Cab. I had all of Milton's real estate business. He had me go over his taxes. He had me go over all the things. I had all of his land in the medical district 13 listed and pieces started selling off. We did really well one year. So you did commercial as well as residential? Yes. Commercial leases and everything. Wow. So Milton Schwartz was one of your clients. What was he like? Wonderful. I went with him from 1987 to 1988. When I got divorced, I met him almost within the first three or four months and we hit it off. It was great and wonderful until it was over in about 1988, and I met John, my one who just passed away. I've known John for years, but I actually met him for?I had a magazine that I put together for the cabs and it had all kinds of coupons and things in it, advertisers. I was the editor for Schwartz. It was a very popular little book. It ran fifteen minutes, standard time there in the taxi, and it was great, mostly ads and some stories. Milton was really pleased with it. Milton and I at this point had separated, but we were still friends and I was still doing the magazine for him. We loved each other a lot. But the advertising in cabs then was some sort of a magazine. It was a small magazine. So you would sell ads to the hotel/casinos. Hotels, dress shops, shoe stores, hair places. What did they pay for an ad, do you remember? They paid dearly. They paid thirty dollars an inch. Then you would set it based upon how many people were going to be in the cab, impressions that they would get from it. Right. I said to him, "We have to do this and you have to take credit cards in the cabs. People need that as well as having tracers in the cars." He implemented that. He implemented a lot of my ideas. When they did start taking credit cards in the cabs? 14 I was with John twenty?six years. So it was like thirty?two years ago. What was one of your more memorable transactions that you did in real estate? They were all great. I sold the penthouse in Regency Towers and the people that had it for sale were very wealthy. They had another unit in the building. They had just bought that because it was a penthouse, in case they ever wanted to redo it. But they lived on the East Coast. The buyer was an Indian man with his family. I had a big brass and silver Etagere in what would have been the study and they wanted as a mantel for their prayers. They loved it and they paid top dollar for it. That was a joyous one. The buyers were very interesting, and the sellers were equally interesting. The transaction went very smoothly and I loved it. I loved putting people and things together; that was my thing. Even with the commercial thing, it was basically the same, helping them get their zoning, get their permits. I did all that and I didn't have to, but it made it go faster and easier. What was one of the more challenging commercial sales that you went through? Seven fourteen South Tonopah, seven twelve, seven ten and seven eight; all four of those on Tonopah off of Charleston. We had an office there in the medical district. I sold a big old house that used to be a neighborhood of horses and houses. We used it for our office. I sold that first and that went very easy. The following day an offer came in for the rest of the land that we had where we were going to move the office. It was an okay offer. We countered and ended up very close to what Milton Schwartz wanted to get. So he was pleased. But it was an up?and?down ride through the zoning for a parking garage. Yes, that's what they do. So is that what's there now, a parking garage? Yes, a big one. Then 701 Shadow Lane; that was an easy sale. 15 What made it so easy? I was both the seller and buyer's agent on that one, dual agency. I showed it to the prospective buyer. I said, "You could put a building on this. We have plans for a building and parking. If you want those, you can have those." He said, "No. I'm going to do something different. I'm going to leave it as a parking lot for a while. It's only getting better in value. And then I'm going to do something different with it." I said, "Okay." We closed in forty?five days. What did he eventually do with it? It's still a parking lot. Is it really? Because that's by the hospital, UMC, right? Yes. I did a lot of work over there. That would be a good area. Milton Schwartz owned so much land in that area; the market was good and I knew all the owners. As soon as something came up, somebody would call me to list it. They built a three?story legal center on that street where that house was. I sold a lot over there. I liked it. I liked Regency Towers, too, because the prices were so high. All it took is one sale a month and you were good. How was it that people finally came to go from a single?family dwelling into the high?rise? Most of the people in that high?rise had lived in high?rises in other places. For a lot of them it was a second home. People came from New York, San Francisco. It was heavily Jewish. And I liked that. I had great times. When you say you "liked that," what was the reason that you say that? Putting people and places together that they were happy with. It was just such a high charge. 16 Sales can be fun. If you're selling the right product and you know about it, you know what's wrong with it and you know what's not wrong with it. In my places, I always brought in Patch and Match. He's a handyman and he would fix everything. We'd fix everything before we even put it on the market. A lot of the owners didn't like it. But, hey, you want it to sell? Make it sellable. I had staging. I had furniture. I had all kinds of knickknacks. I enjoyed Regency Towers. I enjoyed the Jewish people I met in there. A lot of them are older. They weren't all older. My penthouse people weren't that old. The people that bought it had three children. So the real estate market in Las Vegas then started to change. Did you sense a change coming? Yes, high?rises. I had clients that bought in Hughes Tower. I also sold three Turnberries. Turnberries were a little more difficult because they had so many plumbing problems. Now, you live here, in Sunrise Villas. This is a gated community. Excuse all the clutter. There are nine different communities in this area of Sunrise Hills. How did you decide to get out of real estate? My mother died in 2004. I had a breakdown and I spent two weeks in a rehab kind of place. I couldn't concentrate enough on my clients to drive them long distances or anything. I sold one house in 2005; that was it, and I knew I had to get out of the business. The costs were eating me alive. I retired in 2007. Were you involved in other things within the community besides your career? Yes. I worked at Jewish Family Services in the food bank for as long as they had a food bank there, which was about five years. How did you get involved in that? My stepmother suggested it to me because I was home all day trying to stay under control. Then I went 17 there one week on a Friday morning and it was so much fun I just kept going back. What did you do? Talk about the food bank. Distribution of food. Putting together boxes and bags of food and then distributing it to the people, helping them out the door, helping them load it. It's nice. It's for people who can't afford to buy food. It gives them at least a week's worth of food. And do they have to be Jewish in order to come into Jewish Family Services? No. So people of need can come in. Yes. That's great. They don't operate that any longer? No. Christina Primack decided that it wasn't needed, but there's a definite need. We'd have thirty?five to forty families on a Friday. What else were you involved in, anything that we should talk about? Hiking with John. We?d go to Sunrise Mountain. We'd take the dogs and go hiking. There were four of them originally. We had a house in?I have it now?in Ivins, Utah, which is a little town outside of St. George. When we moved there they had no streetlights, no sidewalks. They do now. It's a very popular place to live. But I have to sell it. I can't go up there. I went up for four days right after John died. I came home after two days. It was just too depressing to me. Yes, it has to be hard adjusting to that. Are there any stories about Las Vegas history that you'd like to share with me today? Oh, so many. I went to Las Vegas High School. I was in football and was a quarterback. They had female football. Really? In the sixties. 18 In the sixties. I got nailed by a woman named Baker and that was the end of my short career. Well, you're a tiny person. It's hard to imagine. Growing up here was wonderful. We had a strong sense of community through the temple. All of us went to the same school. We'd see each other and we were really friendly. We did a lot of things together. As young people we'd go for pizza at the Pizza Inn and whatever the shaved ice desert was. That was always good. We had a lot of fun together. The town was small. Downtown...I mean the building that's the white building with the red tile roof, that long one that had been Fifth Street School. Vicky Doway?s father owned Kay's Fabric on Fremont Street and they lived around the corner. Did you go down to the Strip for fun? Yes, my father knew everybody because he did their teeth. We saw Eddie Cantor, Engelbert Humperdinck, all the shows except the nude shows. We went out to dinner four or five nights a week to the Fremont downtown. They had Chinese food. The town was growing so fast. We lived off Oakey and St. Louis, Oakey and Sixth Street, and they were all custom built homes in the sixties. But they were building housing tracts like crazy in the sixties. The town started filling up and drivers started coming here and the air started getting bad and a lot of things that shouldn't happen to it did happen. But it was a great town to grow up in. We hiked a lot, always. We went to the lake and swam. It was clear. You could actually see the bottom. There was so much to do. We'd go up to Mount Charleston and have a picnic, or we'd just go to the lodge. We stayed up there a couple of times, which was nice, the lower one, not the higher one. Great stuff. There was a lot more to the community than people realize even then. There was a strong sense of community. Everyone watched out for everyone. Nobody locked doors. It's hard to imagine. 19 It is hard to imagine. It was wonderful. I wouldn't trade it for anything, Barbara. That's good to know. No regrets on that. Well, I'm going to thank you for today and then we'll set up a time to come back and do the photos, okay? Okay. [End of recorded interview] 20 INDEX A Arizona State University, 5 Austria, 1 B Board of Governors for Dentistry, 2 Boston, Massachusetts, 11 Boulevard Mall, 8 C California, 1, 5 Cantor, Eddie, 18 Charleston Plaza Mall, 5 Chenin, Irene Nagel (mother), 2, 10 Chenin, Joseph (father), 1, 3, 6, 10, 12, 18 Cleveland, Ohio, 1, 3, 10 D Deskin, Ruthe, 7 Doway, Vicky, 4, 18 G Greenspun, Barbara, 1, 7 Greenspun, Hank, 7 Guinn, Dianne, 4 H Hawaii, 9, 11, 12 Hughes Tower, 16 Humperdinck, Engelbert, 18 I IBM, 11 Ivins, Utah, 17 J Jewish Family Services, 16 John C. Fremont Middle School, 4 John S. Park Elementary School, 3, 4 K Kahenback, Chuck, 12 Kay's Fabric, 18 L Las Vegas Country Club, 12 Las Vegas High School, 4, 17 Las Vegas Sun, 7, 8 Los Angeles, California, 5 M Mount Charleston, 10, 18 N Nel