Transcript of interview with Rita Golub by Alisa Fife, March 14, 1981

UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 1 An Interview with Rita Golub An Oral History Conducted by Alisa Fife Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2018 UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 3 The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as 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. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 4 Abstract On March 14, 1981, Alisa Fife interviewed her friend’s grandmother, telephone operator and housewife, Rita Golub (born May 1st, 1920 in New York City, New York) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The interview covers Rita Golub’s life in Las Vegas and includes discussion in regards to Queen Mother. Rita also discusses the Strip, night entertainment and social and religious activities in Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 5 March 14th, 9 P.M. at my home, 2010 Balboa Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. My name is Lisa Fife. I live at 4995 South Maryland Parkway, Apartment 70. And this is the Oral History 117, Section 1. This is a cassette oral report. Rita, first of all I would like to ask you, your birthplace. New York City, New York. And what year was it when you moved to Nevada? 1957. And could you tell me why you moved to Nevada? My husband was employed here. He came out from New York to open the Tropicana Hotel. He’s a musician trumpet player. A trumpet player. Did—was it special invitation, that they invited him by? The entire band from the Waldorf Astoria came out. And the name of the band was? Nat Brandywine. Oh, I see. When you—could you tell us something—this is when the Tropicana first opened— Yes. Could you tell us something about it? Well, he came out to the early (unintelligible) for rehearsals. And they had a grand opening—Eddy Fisher was the star. And then, I really—you know, I wasn’t involved in the rehearsals and all that. So then I’m not sure about that one. Well, could you give us a little layout on what the Tropicana—what it was when it first opened? UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 6 Well, it’s the same as it was now except that it had—it just had a fountain. It didn’t have all the lights or anything. It just had a fountain that had water and they had like blue lights on it and it was cool, particularly as the Strip. Because it wasn’t gaudy. Oh. I see. This was the first of its kind on the Strip, then? Right. Mm-hmm. It was—it had a feel. It didn’t have all these lights. It just said Hotel Tropicana and you had this plain fountain. Not—not like Caesars Palace is or anything like that. It was just like a sphere, like in the water. It just flowed down from it. It didn’t shoot up in the air. Yes. That’s what they called it, the tipping of the Strip. So? And it started originally with the name acts. They had, oh, Carol Channing was there and Eddie Fisher and Jane Mansfield and these names. But then they came and (unintelligible) and that’s been going ever since then. About a year and—I guess it was a year, year and a half after the Strip opened. After the Tropicana opened up then they went to the Folies. Oh. And did away with the names, acts. Was the Tropicana known as the social place to be in Las Vegas, then? Well, they all had the same things but it seemed like it just supposedly catered to a higher class of people, you know. Is this in tourists or of the people that lived here, too? No. I mean the tourists that came in and that, mm-hmm. Yes. Okay. And you’ve lived in Las Vegas for the past twenty-four years, right? Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 7 Yes. You mentioned that you were a telephone operator. Would you expand on that for me? Well. I started to work for the telephone company in 1962 after my children were grown and married. And I went out and moved down there. I hadn’t worked as a telephone operator before and it was rather a little bit (unintelligible) it was called—I can’t remember the name for it—Southern Nevada Telephone Company, I believe it was. That was before Centel took it over. And they had the old boards where you plugged in and— Could you tell me what year this was? 1962. 1962. Okay. And they went upstairs. They went up to the new building and had the automatics at that—1964, I guess, about (unintelligible). Okay. By the automatic, could you explain what you mean by that? Well, it was—you didn’t have any coeds at all. It’s just buttons, the same as you have on your telephone is all. Oh. The one board had, you didn’t have to plug in anything at all. You would train downstairs on the old things, on the old boards. And then, they took it upstairs and you would be going down and going back to the forth and they’d take you up one and train you up there and teach you that and put you back downstairs and then you’d work the both boards in the meantime. Sometimes they would schedule you to work on the new boards up there. And the next week you might be working on the old boards and it kept going (Laughs). And it kept going like that until all the other operators were trained that they could take over. And then, they switched over to the dam. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 8 Oh. When they had the two different types of machines, was the regular plug-in for just a specific area in Las Vegas? No, no. That went through the same as the other ones did. But you had to—you know, put the plug into those little holes, where it was upstairs. I say upstairs because (Laughs) that’s how we get—“You’re gonna work upstairs tonight” or “You’re gonna work downstairs” And that’s what he’d say. You’d get in the habit of that. Yes. That’s quite alright. And they—and, the downstairs, it’s just the same as you have it now when you dial, you get that, that—musical tone on there, that’s what happens upstairs. Mm-hmm. And you, downstairs when you worked, and you had the flip boards, if you had a call, you had to dial to Las Angeles, you would have to go on the L.A. circuit. You know, you would plug into a L.A. circuit. Oh. And you would dial, they always had that dial, you know, the area code. But there—people didn’t direct dial, so only the operators did that. Oh. If you wanted to get on the same—If you wanted to go to L.A. and there was no open circuit on L.A. you would go on the San Bernardino trunk. But you would have to dial. Mm-hmm. But you would have to dial the 213, you know it? Yes. The area. And then the number, the same as you do now. The operator that always dials an area code. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 9 Mm-hmm. But they can—customers didn’t do it until they starting dialing, direct dialing itself, see. How much was it then, for a telephone? Mm. Could you give me a little—? What do you mean? How much was the bill? Yes. Yes. How much—or, and how much was the rental of the telephone then? Was it—? Oh. I don’t know. I didn’t know what—I didn’t think it was fairly expensive. I think it was maybe about (unintelligible). I’ll take a guess and say maybe about five dollars or four fifty a month or something like that. So, it was—? It was better. Inflation really shows now? Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. But even so, really for what you’re getting, it was that. But now that you can buy the telephone—the difference is, if you had a telephone in those days and you had an extension, I don’t know what the extension was. Because I got a, you know, a discount on the extension. Yes. See. Yes. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 10 See, I paid, for my regular telephone, we never got any, we got a, you know, discount on our regular bill, but we had to pay the same as anybody else for long distance, probably, calls, we didn’t get anything off on them. Mm-hmm. But the extension line was a dollar sixty-five, you pay, whatever that was, say six dollars for the main telephone and a dollar sixty-five for the extension. Oh. But now they have these jacks, you know, and you can call them up when you pay for the first telephone, and you pay that so its six fifty a month, and you buy the telephone. And then, you come out—they charge, I don’t know what it is now but when we had done it last year sometime, we had jacks put it. They charge nine fifty for a jack! And you could buy anytime, if you could get three jacks you can have five free telephones, and you don’t pay any more for them. You just pay for when you get the service put up. Oh my goodness. Just see it, so if you had ten jacks, you could buy ten telephones and you still wouldn’t have to pay for them. You’d paid for the telephone, you bought it. And, but you could plug them in all over. They don’t charge you for them, anymore. And how long did you work at the telephone company? Quite a while, I assume? Well, I worked, officially, I worked twelve years, 1970—from 1962 to 1974. But I had three heart attacks (Laughs). And after the third one, the doctor didn’t want me to go back. You were telling me earlier about some of the casinos that were already here. Could you tell me some of the ones that we see now but that we know that you saw being built? Oh. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 11 Besides the ones recently, you know? Yes. Well, the Circus Circus and the Caesars Palace, The Castaways. When was The Castaways built? Do you remember? That was sometime after the Caesars. It was a little after—it was around the same time. No but I mean Caesars opened first. I don’t, if I’m not mistaken. It was shortly after, two of them opened right within a week or so of each other as far as I can remember. Mm-hmm. Was there any particular year that you remember that Las Vegas expanded the most when it came to, you know, casinos? No. I think the really big thing was that Caesars when it came through. And I’m not sure what year—‘cause I didn’t pay too much attention, I mean, I don’t remember the year. Circus Circus was in—? Nineteen—October the—1968. Sixty-eight. I know what else—tell me something about gambling, when you first came down here. Well. What was the—? They had keno tickets. I believe it was like about seventy cents a ticket. And if you got one, eight out of eight, I don’t know. But the biggest payoff was twenty-five thousand dollars. Twenty-five thousand dollars on a keno ticket? On a keno ticket, right. Keno ticket. And do you right off hand know how much a slot machine a big payoff was for a slot machine? UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 12 Well, we had experienced—my husband was playing nickel slots where you would put, I’m not sure whether it was three or five, I wasn’t with him when it happened—but he lined up five nickels and got the five sevens and got five hundred dollars on it. Oh my goodness. And then, they don’t say you must but they ask you when you win a jackpot on their machines to take it off. But don’t worry, they’ll let you put some nickels in and pull the handle again. So, the winning will show, you know that (Laughs). Yes. And he did—and he put in another three nickels or something like that one won, immediately after the five hundred, and won two fifty, two hundred and fifty, and won seven hundred and fifty dollars. Oh my goodness! I bet he was really excited. And he started with about—he started with about two dollars. He used to buy—get two dollars-worth of nickels at the store (Laughs), and you know, in a roll. Tell me something about the night entertainment. You were talking to me about that earlier. Oh. When we first picked out here, you would go—if you wanted to go to a dinner show, maybe anywhere between five to seven dollars, depending upon what you ate. But we used to go out in the evening. My husband was a musician and we used to go out, if anybody came, we’d take ‘em to the midnight—I would take ‘em to the midnight show. Because we would meet my husband when he got through. Yes. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 13 See. We would go maybe to the lounges. The lounges were open all night. But it was three dollars which had floated a star at any of the hotels. It was all the same and then it included three drinks. Oh my goodness. And you mentioned that there was a party after this? Oh no. That—that was just the stars that were playing would have a party at the end of their— Run? Run. Yes. If they were there for a month. At the end, up at the (unintelligible) their closing night, they would have a party for the band and everybody that was in on the show. Mm-hmm. I bet that was really exciting. Oh yes. It was really nice and they used to have, you know, wives and girlfriends, the musicians and just had a nice time. Just like the closing party? That’s what it was. You mentioned something about the showboat? It was—just started? Yes. It wasn’t very—maybe it was about eight, ten months old. I know it was a new place, when I first came down. I don’t know just when it was. Maybe twenty-five years now and I’m here twenty-four. But we used to go there and when my husband get through work, you know, we’d go as I say to the light show. It was from midnight till about ten after one or something in the morning. And then we would meet him, no matter what show we went to, they all got out around the same time. And then we would meet him and then we would go to a lounge or something. But before we came home, no matter (Laughs) what time it was, we always made it to the, The Showboat. Because they had breakfast, for forty-nine cents you could get ham, bacon, or sausage with eggs and toast and hash browns (unintelligible) with coffee (Laughs). UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 14 For what now they charge ninety-eight cents? Yes. I guess. Well, even that’s good. Yes. Most of the places don’t even have that. I think they have a—you can get it like from two in the morning till six or something like that, you know. Yes. In the late hours, probably. Let me see, you mentioned that The Thunderbird recently changed to The Silverbird. Now that just happened? Yes. It— Two years. Two years or so. Yes. Yes. But you said, The Thunderbird was the first privately owned casino? No. I said, The Thunderbird was what they said was the first hotel and casino to be completely paid off. No. Yes. That people ended up paying for it. It was paid for. Oh. That— That’s what they say. That is a very big accomplishment, then. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 15 Tell me something—we talked earlier about the Aladdin, you want to expand on that now, please? Yes. Well, when the Aladdin first opened up, it opens with no gambling. It was to be—they wanted to show that you—they could have a hotel that was just a hotel and it could make money, without gambling. In Las Vegas, they wanted it? In Las Vegas, yes. It was—The Aladdin was called The Tally Ho. (Laughs) The Tally Ho? The Tally Ho. And I—I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think it even lasted six months and they were out of business. And then it was— Mm-hmm. Oh, it had two or three of the (unintelligible) it’s true, you know, and they all tried to same thing and they, it never made any money till they got the gambling in. People weren’t interested in it. Yes. They just didn’t—they just didn’t want to come to a hotel (Laughs) to sleep in one place and have to go some, walk around to gamble someplace else. Yes. And would be a little confusing I think. You, we were talk—I meant to ask you this earlier but, when you first moved down here, you were only planning to spend six months? Six months, yes. Could you explain now why you decided to stay in Las Vegas? Well, we—we loved it. We really did. My—the children, my children were all teenagers at that time and I thought it was really a nice place for them to grow up. It was clean. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 16 There was no—they had, every night on television it would say, “That it’s a perfect time, do you know where your children are?” And if the children were out and they were picked up, they were taken to the juvenile hall. The parents had to go down and get them. So there was nothing like they had now, you know. There was no drugs or anything like that here. There really wasn’t anything like that. And I never had any problems with my children. They—even if they went to the movies on a Saturday night. They went to movies, they would—the police would come into the theaters and get them out of there if they weren’t out by curfew time. You had to get, I had to come down to—they only had the two theaters (Laughs) down to, on Fremont Street, come down there and pick them up and bring them home. Yes. You were telling me, when you first moved here that they only had a couple of movie theater. That’s so, just a— One was on Fremont Street and one was— The two of them were on Fremont. They were El Portal and The Fremont. They were on Fremont Street down there and they had the Huntridge, which was on Maryland Parkway and Charleston Boulevard. And they had a drive-in but that was out—way out on the way out to Nellis, on the—I guess it was Lake Mead Boulevard or something. Mm. I see. When we were talking earlier, also, you mentioned that—was it on a Sunday afternoon, y’all would pile in a go out, and—? Oh yes. We used to—look in the—we had some friends, musician friends and he—they had a big station wagon and we used to watch in the papers, they always had a write up about someplace that was nice to go, not far from a day’s trip, you know, back and forth. Yes. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 17 Like Valley of Fire, Keyhole Canyon, all these places and we used go, you know, make a trip. We’d take picnic baskets and soda and you know, and we’d go and have a nice day and come back and then the fellas would have to go to work, you know. So we’d have to (unintelligible) we’d go out maybe about ten in the morning, get back about four in the afternoon. Yes. So the fellas would make their stops. And there’s just so much places, you know. The places that you went to, I know you haven’t been there for some time but were there—I know there weren’t any dumps like there are now or anything out there. But— Oh, yes, yes. Could you, you know, did you go bottle hunting or? No. We used to just—we used to go to these ghost towns, you know, and they’d have some houses, old houses, abandoned houses, and you’d find all these pretty colored purple bottles and you know, different colors and we used to pick them up and (unintelligible) caps, some type names you’ve never heard. You know, the names of like even beer or (unintelligible) water (Laughs) or something, with these names that you’d never heard. Did you ever find a fortune when you went there? Oh no. Nothing, no. (Laughs) Oh God, I wouldn’t have that kind of luck. (Laughs) (Laughs) Oh, you wouldn’t? (Laughs) No. But we really had—it was really pleasant. And it was—we were exploring. Because we were new, we were from the east, too, you know it was all knew to us. In fact, I was just amazed that we were living in the desert. I couldn’t believe it was a desert. I said to my husband—I told—he came out here before us, you know. Mm-hmm. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 18 And, when we came out (Laughs) we wanted him to take us and show—we wanted him to take us and show us the desert. (Laughs) Because I couldn’t believe it. It was all—you know. You being from the east and coming to the desert. Yes. I imagine that would be a pretty big change. When we first came, when we first came here, the very first day, was the first—I got here around the 30th of June. And I got here about eleven o’clock at night and he was still working. But he had already had a house and everything, you know. So, we came in late and he came home. We went and got up there the next morning. And we went up to Twin Lakes, which is now—I can’t think of the name of it. It used to be Twin Lakes that had horseback riding and they had these ducks and geese and weeping willow trees and all that stuff and we sat there and, was the only place you could get a breeze. I think it was about a hundred and sixty on the first of fall. Oh mercy, it was. The fall day that we came. And we went up there and we fed the ducks. (Laughs) (Laughs) And—oh I’m trying to think of that name. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I can’t think of the name but they have changed now. But that’s where the children used to go all the time. It was, you know, they had a swimming pool and everything. Recreation. Yes. Mm-hmm. When we were talking earlier also you mentioned something about Pop’s had the first telephone from his house to his offices? UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 19 Oh, Poppy Sawyer’s, yes, yes. Well, I, you know, I—that was before my time. But I heard about it when I worked at the telephone company that he was the first one to have a telephone in Las Vegas. He had a business and he had a telephone line from his home to his place of business, so he could call to his wife, back and forth. Wow. But they were the first ones that had a telephone. They had pictures of it, down at the telephone company, too, with the line strung up, you know. Of both of theirs? Yes. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about—when we were talking earlier you were telling me how much Las Vegas had changed some of the—? Oh yes, the roads were small. Maryland Parkway, my daughter went to, to UNLV, when it just—that was only a year or two old, too, at that time. It was one building, but the—it had a little lane like two (unintelligible) but it was like going on a—a rollercoaster (Laughs). Just the streets were up and down, up and down, up and down. (Laughs) And the same thing with Paradise Road. My husband used to take that back—back road they used to call ‘em to the Tropicana Hotel. Because (Laughs) there was no traffic on it. And the convention center wasn’t here, then. It didn’t get built till a few years later. And you know they had a, a theater that showed, what do you call that, at the cinema, you know? Previews? (Unintelligible)? Yes. The (Unintelligible). They used to have those. (Unintelligible)? UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 20 And that’s—that’s so (unintelligible). They didn’t have (unintelligible). It’s so citified now. That’s the only way I could put it (Laughs) where it used to be like country, you know. Yes. It used to be like a village and now it’s a city. Yes. I know you’re very religious. Could you, let’s ah, get into that? I’m not very religious. But— Well, I. I practice by the religion. Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Could you tell me since you been down here some of the changes that have taken place in the church? Well, I don’t know, too much about, you know, other religions, but as I say, I’m Roman Catholic and of course you know about that. Yes. When we came down, when we came here, they had maybe about four, maybe four, let’s see, Christopher’s, (Unintelligible), St. (Unintelligible), that’s right, when I first came here I did go to St. (Unintelligible). And then, I moved up to West Charleston Boulevard up there, and I was up there for the opening of Our Lady of Las Vegas Church. They had midnight mass and the pews weren’t nailed down yet (Laughs) and (unintelligible) wasn’t even in there. That church started there. That was in 1958. But oh, I was pretty involved in that when I lived up there. And I got involved in the Catholic Charities and I was vice-chairman for the start of the St. Vincent Depot. That’s the thrift shop there. We went around (Laughs)—we went around getting (unintelligible) UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 21 from everybody and washing clothes and pressing the things that people had given to us. We opened a little store on Bonanza and started the St. Vincent Depot although it has turned into—has turned into a big thing now. And they do a lot of work with that. They had a program where they had girls from the state of Nevada that had gotten in trouble in Las Vegas and things like that. They had (unintelligible) and pay for that, like if she came from Reno, they would have her down here and if you were a Las Vegas girl they would send you up there, you know to try to keep the—and if you were lucky you got chosen to go, if somebody was gonna adopt a baby, you got chosen to fly up and bring the baby back to the parents. Awe. And things like that, you know. I know that has helped (unintelligible). The church just started this thrift shop to make a little extra money for your church? Well. And charity? For the church—well, it wasn’t for the church. It was for the, you know, for the, the people, the needy. Yes. I know. You didn’t have to just be Catholic. If you needed it, it was there, you know. Yes. But that isn’t, that’s a nationwide, a worldwide thing, St. Vincent Depot. Yes. Yes. Yes. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 22 That’s (unintelligible). There are, a lot of new churches have gone up. A lot of new Catholic Churches that have gone up and now that I know that they have the Mormons out here, there’s been a couple of temples. That’s what they’re called. Yes. And (unintelligible) as obviously a church. And— End of side one. (Tape one ends) My name is Rita Golub. I live at 2010 Balboa Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. This is March 14th, 9 P.M. I’m Alisa Fife. I live at 4995 South Maryland Parkway, Apartment #70, Las Vegas. This is an oral history cassette tape for History 117. We were—when we were talking earlier, you mentioned something to me about the Queen Mother. Could you expand on that? How’d you meet her? Well, I told you that we used to go out in this station wagon and go visiting points of interests that were in the paper. You know, we were all from the east and we were anxious to find out a little bit about the west, a new home. And this time we heard about the Wall Street Mine, which was one of the biggest gold mines in Nevada, and it gave directions. It was out at Nelson, Nevada. It—the way they said it was via Searchlight. (Laughs) That was the way to go. Well, we went out this day, to find Wall Street Mine. And we thought we took the right road. But we didn’t see anything, it was just so desolate. And we decided we would go back the way we had come and see if we could find someone. And on our way back, which we thought we were going back, but we got lost. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 23 (Laughs) (Laughs) And we couldn’t find the road back. And we saw this little shack, and someone said, “Well, maybe—maybe there would be somebody there who could tell us which way to go.” And I couldn’t see how anybody would, living in that place. It just looked so desolate out there. But as we passed by we saw some laundry on a line. Hm. And we realized that somebody was there. So, our friend Tony, my husband’s friend—he is a musician, he worked with my husband—he got out and went to the door and knocked at it, knocked at the door and this little lady came out and she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, white hair, but as (unintelligible) she was just delighted to have company. She lives out there. She had been living out there since the 1920s. Nineteen twenties. She lived out there. 1920s she came out. She lived out there with her husband who worked as a miner. He had a crane at this mine? Yes. He had cranes on that mine. And they—this shack that she was living in used to be the cook shack. The cook shack? Where they cooked for the miners. Oh my goodness. And when the mine—when the mine closed up, she and her husband stayed there, and in 1940 or so, he became paralyzed. And she lived there just by herself, with him. And people came, UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 24 visiting her, occasionally and that. After he died she continued to stay there by herself and her nearest neighbor was seven miles away. Seven miles away and she was there all by herself? All by herself. In the middle of the desert? And she had—at the middle of the desert is right. There wasn’t anything there but cactus and rocks and (Laughs) and at any rate, she—the mailman would come to bring her the mail and he would—she would give him a list of what she needed from the store and the next day when he brought the mail, he would bring her groceries. (Laughs) Oh my goodness. And he used to do her shopping for her. But everybody had heard of her. And at seventy years of age, she decided she was gonna learn to paint, and she started taking lessons and painting. Mm. And I was fortunate enough to (unintelligible) when we bought this house, she gave me two of her paintings. Mm. As a present. Awe. And, oh, she was really—she told us some stories about Nelson. Nelson land and how they flooded, that her husband, a donkey that he was riding drowned. He just about had him out of the— Right where the mine was at it rained and it was— No. This was down further. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 25 Oh. Nelson rain. It was down further, that’s where she was. But he prospected down there. Mm. So. I see. And yes, it was, the mine closed, after they stopped working on the mine and things like that. I don’t know just what it was but she told us all the thing s that they used to do, you know. And they would go, they, she, they came over to Las Vegas to go to church—when they had, you know, well, she came. Her husband was already deceased. But she came into Las Vegas to go to church and go to the doctors or something like that. Mm. She had a lot of friends. Here in Las Vegas? Pioneers, you know. Yes. And they just—she didn’t drive like that, they, somebody used to come and get her and they’d bring her. She would stay a week, stay the weekend with someone in Vegas. Well, when her husband was paralyzed and they were out here—? She was by herself with him. She took care of him. Did he ever go for medical attention to see if there was anything that they could do, or? I—no. I don’t know what it was that she told me but I just don’t remember what it was she told us, not just me. But—what it was that happened to him, but he, I imagined he did come in. UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 26 Somebody probably came and took him, you know, to the doctors, or else the doctor came to visit him. In those days I guess doctors made house calls. (Laughs) Yes. They don’t anymore as we all know. So, but she stayed out there all by herself and her family wanted her to come back. They just hated for her to be by herself. But she would tell you how she—she’d beat up rattlesnakes. (Laughs) Rattlesnakes in the grass? Rattlesnakes, with broken bottles. She’d hit them with bottles and (Laughs) and she had no worry. They had coyotes come out and everything. (Laughs) She would—they had, she had no running water. She used to have big rain barrels of the top of the shed like and that caught the rain and she would take a basin of water and wash herself then wash her hair and then she would wash the kitchen floor. Oh my goodness. With the same basin of water (Laughs). She learned to economize as far as the water was concerned. She learned to rationalize it. Yes. Yes. Yes. And—oh, and she was immaculate and no matter what time we went there she’d have these little stick, (unintelligible) little house dresses on, you know. Mm-hmm. Her hair was always raised (Laughs) no matter what time you went there. And whenever we went—whenever we went to visit her we always used to bring couple of gallons of water or UNLV University Libraries Rita Golub 27 something. That was—that was really like bringing her a bouquet of flowers or a five pound box of candy (Laughs) you know, she loved it. Did she ever mention a year, you know, before people started to, you know, really—did she ever have a ti