Mary Carol Melton interview, March 5, 1981: transcript

UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 1 An Interview with Mary Carol Melton An Oral History Conducted by Kathy Ricks 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 Mary Carol Melton 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2020 UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 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 Mary Carol Melton 4 Abstract On March 5, 1981, collector Kathy Ricks interviewed Mary Carol Melton (b. April 4th, 1900 in Rockville, Missouri) about her life in Nevada and the development of the United Methodist Church in Las Vegas. Melton speaks about moving to Las Vegas, Nevada because of her husband’s health, her time working with attorney offices and in the Las Vegas Courthouse, and the different homes in which her family lived. Moreover, Melton talks extensively about starting the first Sunday school in North Las Vegas in a garage as well as the church she and her husband built. Melton discusses the programs and minstrels performed in the church, the crafts sold to make money for the church and the organ they purchased. Lastly, Melton talks about going to the Hoover Dam nearly every week to see new developments, her participation in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and watching the above ground atomic tests. UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 5 Kathy Ricks and I'll be interviewing on the fifth of March, 1981 at 630 South Seventh Street. The person I will be interviewing is— Mary Carol Melton. Okay. Mrs. Melton, how old are you? I'm eighty plus. Okay. And where were you born in Southern Nevada? Were you born in Southern Nevada? No. Where were you born? In Missouri, near Rockville. Okay. When did you and your husband come to Southern Nevada? Nineteen twenty-nine, in September. And why did you decide to come to Nevada? Well, because of my husband's health. He had bad pains in his hip and the doctors couldn't do anything about it. And they were having his teeth pulled and his tonsils out, everything they could think of. And so they told him to get to a dry climate. So he came here? Uh-huh. Were you educated at all in Nevada? No. Okay. Did you ever work in Nevada? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 6 Yes. I first worked in different attorneys’ office, especially in the summertime when their regular secretary was gone. And I could’ve worked for a long time in one but I found out that people were asking my husband, “where is she working?” raising their eyebrows. So, I quit. Okay. And then I worked in the courthouse. First, I started— Unknown speaker: (Unintelligible) Yes. First—don’t ask me again. First, I worked in the recorder’s office, and I worked there for a long time. We had to record all the papers, type them then. Mm-hmm. And then I went to, upstairs to the (unintelligible)—upstairs to the clerk’s office. Mm-hmm. And marriages were such a novelty then that when you saw anybody coming up the street, up the walk to the courthouse, two people, a man and a wife, a woman, we all rushed to the window to see what they look like. It was such a novelty. (Laughs) Okay. And then they’d come up there to get their license. Okay. Did you guys ever live at a different address besides the one that you live at now? Yes. We lived in a mortuary Downtown (unintelligible) and my husband helped with the mortician work for his room. We had a nice little apartment there. And then it got to be so busy that they were taking him night and day, and he was working in the state grocer so he couldn't be late. So, we moved to 530 South Third (unintelligible) and lived there in an apartment that wasn't, it was in the rear but there was a driveway back to it. We wasn't behind anybody. And I worked and we walked to work then. Then later we got a car. And then in March of ‘31 we UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 7 moved to North Las Vegas. The owner was raising the rent from twenty-five to thirty and we didn't want to pay that, it wasn’t worth it. (Laughs) So, we had a small house put up very quickly. We did the painting and the papering and putting in the shelves and everything. I helped ‘em with that. And it was very comfortable, but it was small. But we used to have groups of sixteen people come and play cards, we’d put three in the living room and one at our kitchen table and everybody said they had more fun at our house. We (unintelligible) stand up at the same time or sit down. (Laughs) A few of ‘em had babies. We couldn't put the bed down because it was a (unintelligible) bed. We’d put pillows and covers in the bathtub and put ‘em in there. Okay. Now I'd like to talk some about the church activity that went on in Las Vegas. Were you ever involved in any church activity? Immediately. The first Sunday in Missouri, when the state fair came, you dressed in your fall clothes. And you all had new clothes, (unintelligible) gloves, hats and everything. And I came out here with my fall clothes, I had my summer ones packed. So, of course, I went to church. We always went to church first Sunday, and— This was in Nevada now? Yes. Okay. All dressed up in that kind of clothes. And here people, they didn't have an air conditioning. They had the fan or so in the ceiling. And everybody was fanning with these paper fans just as UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 8 hard as they could go. But I sat there and never blinked an eye. But I was perspiring all down my clothes. (Laughs) (Laughs) Well the next Sunday, I came to church in my summer clothes. And a few of the old timers still remember that, how funny it was to them. And we always had an active part, Albert was quite soon the superintendent, I was a secretary and— Of the church? Yes. And which church is this? The First Methodist. First Methodist. It's now the United Methodist Church. Third and Bridger. And it's a different building, because the old one got termites and they had to tear it down and they built a little further over on the lot. And then we were going there and we went to North Las Vegas and we kept coming up there to Sunday school and church for about six months. And young people in North Las Vegas would see us go. First one child did, ten or twelve, and she came and said, “Didn’t you go to Sunday school in church?” “Yes, we always go.” “Will you take me next Sunday?” “Oh, we'd be glad to.” And she told two or three of her friends and they went. And the next Sunday some more went. Finally one Sunday, the police stopped us and we had seventeen with us in a little jump seat car. Oh my gosh. And he said, “Well, what are you doing, Mr. Melton?” He said, “Well, going to church.” “What are doing with all these children?” “Well, they aren't ours but they’re children in North Las UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 9 Vegas who want to go and we're taking them. They don't have any way to go.” “Well, go on today but don't do it anymore.” So, we put out some little flyers and notified people we were going to start doing Sunday school in the homes. And they quick set up a double garage, in one side of the garage, well, we had Sunday school. And the last time we were there, we had ninety-six. There's no room for us to stand—to sit down, we had to stand up. And—but we always went to the different homes for the classes. All around there, they’d take us in. And so then, (unintelligible) at that time the school had put up a two-room schoolhouse. And we asked the school board, Albert went before them and asked. They’d never done it before but they said since he was trying to get something started towards church, why they could let us do it. Well, for a while, we didn't (unintelligible) we didn't have church. My husband had in Missouri gone out to (unintelligible) schools, in the country, in the afternoon several of ‘em, they’d have singing and church and stuff there. He knew something about it alright. But anyway, Parson Tom, from Boulder City, their church was the same as ours. They didn't have any father church or mother church over them. Mm-hmm. And they were used to having offerings for all space locations. And they would give us those offerings and being a (unintelligible) store, we could get things wholesale. And people had just flocked here by the hundreds, practically, and no place to live. And they lived either in a old bent-up car or under a piece of canvas stretched out and lay under that or out under the stars. Mm-hmm. All on a forty acre park just north of the cemetery. Why did all these people come to Las Vegas? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 10 Because of the dam. To work on the dam. Of course, there wasn't that much work. And they couldn't get back home so they had to stay and the city couldn't help people unless they lived here six months. So we took this food, like beans and potatoes and staple things, and we put them in sacks in our garage. And they’d come twice a week and get it. They had no thought of what time of day they came, they'd always come at mealtime. And, of course, I'd have to leave my meals. And by the time I was forty, I had broken health. I was sick for quite a little while, ‘til I got built up. (Unintelligible) it was just like a sub Red Cross but the Red Cross had nothing to do with it. And you were in charge of all this? Yes. That’s great. And Albert helped (unintelligible). And this went on for quite a while. Albert’s your husband, right? Uh-huh. (Laughs) And then we had gotten in the schoolhouse. Well, we were there about two and a half years. And that brought us up to thirty-four, thirty-five. At that time, we had one room of our church started. Mr. Melton had worked at odd hours at night. He was good at building, he'd always been incredibly good at that and he found the hours. And then different people in the neighborhood would help. And so we got up this one room, it had a bathroom and a kitchen. That was more than one room too. And it had a little room too (unintelligible). And that was for our nursery class, I had the nursery class at that time. Had ‘em all around the room, sitting on whatever they could. (Laughs) So you and Mr. Melton were responsible for the first upcoming in, not the first but one of the first— UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 11 It was the first. It was? First church in North Las Vegas. There wasn't much there then. There was a filling station and one grocery store but it was foreign people, not very many people went there. ‘Most everybody went to town. And then (unintelligible) well anyway, the church just thrived. Women came then. Nobody would stay for church hardly because they had to get home and fix meals for their husbands— Mm-hmm. They worked and were building them houses. But the children always came and the women. And then finally the men got to coming. And (unintelligible) schoolhouse. And then we had to build more rooms. We built another room on the south, larger than this first one. And then in another couple years we had to build even larger rooms south of that. Because you kept getting more people? Yes. And we had a stage in there, not very high (unintelligible). But we had programs and we used to even in the first part of the building, we'd have programs. We never had dancing but we'd have children do anything that they wanted to except dance. Give readings and sing and things like that. (Unintelligible) And the fathers and mothers would come because to hear their child do whatever they did. It was very interesting. And then when we got to this bigger room, of course, we could hold many more. And the PTAs would meet there sometimes. And then we outgrew those three rooms and so we built an even bigger room on the back of the first two buildings. And—quite a long and it UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 12 had a high stage. And at that time there wasn’t any negros around and we'd have colored minstrels. And we’d all black up and do our stuff, you know, and sing. (Laughs) Have more fun and—and then one time, Albert and I (unintelligible) about the country store. And just as we could think of things that we used to know in country stores—the cracker barrel, the cheese. And we bought a half a round of cheese and took—we thought we'd take it back, it was very expensive—and the people in the play would cut ‘em off a piece like they used to and put it between crackers and eat it. But people—after the show was over, they’d come over, it looks so good they'd come in, so we didn't have anything to take back. (Laughs) (Laughs) It was just a free show, you know, so we were out that. But we had it fixed on the stage so that one was behind a counter and she was the storekeeper, over on the right hand side of, her left hand side (unintelligible), was another little square fix, and she was the postmaster. And we had lots of things written up on postal cards and so she’d read all that out to the other people. And then in front of the store, there was a counter for shoes. Just a place to sit and try your shoes. Mm-hmm. And the one that was a shoe keeper and had shoes to try on. They’d try ‘em on and take them off and try them on. And then over on the stage away, we had a stove. And (unintelligible) the men used to sit around the stove and spit and spew. (Unintelligible) They did though. And so, some of our women dressed up and put beards on and old clothes and funny hats and caps and sat there and carried on like that. (Laughs) UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 13 Just (unintelligible). And then we had a telephone. We got a telephone from the telephone company, one of the kind that you used to have to ring up (unintelligible). Mm-hmm. And the storekeeper did that. We’d talk to people, of course, there wasn't anybody talking back but she’d talk and act like it was and take orders. This is all for entertainment for the church? Just for the neighborhood. Mm-hmm. And (unintelligible). Where was this located in (unintelligible)? On Glider, in North Las Vegas. The second block of this church is still there. The whole neighborhood is taken over by colored people now, black people. And they have the church. The lady I used to have work for me goes there. And then they built (unintelligible) before we left there. And so it was a real wealth—oh! Then finally before we left, why we outgrew the room we were using for church so we were going to build out in the front, put a steeple up there, we thought it wouldn't look too bad. And at that time a very wealthy couple had come from up on Lake Ontario. Mm-hmm. Some town close there. And they would go to Palm Springs for the winters but they got tired of staying there so they came to Las Vegas and built a house, bought a house. And they had a maid, but they wouldn't buy only just staple things to keep. They ate every day, he and his wife would go to the store and buy meat and fresh fruit, things like that, fresh vegetables and things that they had. So, they'd have someplace to go and almost every day they'd stop here. First time they came by here on a Saturday and asked me if I knew where a Congregational Church was. And that's UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 14 what our church was (unintelligible). At first, it was Immanuel Community Church and—because Immanuel— Mm-hmm. God is love. And then we put Immanuel Community Church—Congregational Church, and so they were very good to help. We never asked ‘em for any money, never thought of asking ‘em for any money. But they hear us talking about going to build something, to build the big room in the back when they were here. And here they'd come with each a five hundred dollar check. Oh. And then when we doing the church, he said, “Oh, don't build out there to make it look built on. The way it looks, it looks so nice. You've got a lot over there, build on that.” Well, we'd sold part of that when we needed some money and a man wanted to buy it and build a park on his house, but his wife and he got divorced and he never built it. So it just sat there, we never thought anything about it. But he said—we said, “We can't do that. It belongs to this man.” He said, “Maybe you can buy it back.” So we asked him back, he said “Well, yes you can have it. I’m a go ahead and give it back to you.” He’d paid them fifteen hundred dollars I believe it was for it. A lot of money. That was a lot of money then, they had. Really? Oh, it helped us to do a lot of things on the church. Really. (Laughs) And so he gave it back to us. He wasn’t a religious man, but he could sit in his house and hear the services going on (unintelligible). Did he like that? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 15 Oh yes. And (unintelligible) new sanctuary, it was a large building. And families gave in memory of, or in honor of, their family. Stained glass windows, we went to Los Angeles to pick them out. Beautiful windows, nobody else had that even in Las Vegas. And they were just beautiful. And then for the pews, they would give pews the same way, in honor or memory of somebody, and we’d put their names, you know, we’d just put ‘em on little seals and put their names on ‘em. And then the pulpit, this man that gave us the lot back, he had the pulpit—it cost three hundred and fifty dollars—in honor of his father and mother. And we had made up our mind that when we died—we thought we'd always be there—we would give an organ to the church, whoever was left to give it. Well, when they got the new sanctuary we thought it would be nice to have it then. It wasn’t a pipe organ, but it was a very well-known organ (unintelligible). We went to St. Louis to pick it out. My husband and I, we had relatives there and we went there and visited and went down to the city and picked it out. And they shipped it by the way of the Panama. And then shipped it up from Los Angeles. It cost more to ship it from Los Angeles than it did around the Panama. Really? Yes. I thought that was interesting. And then they brought it, it comes much earlier than we thought that we had it here in our dining room for a while. Mm. So we got (unintelligible) and they thought it wouldn't be here until the next summer. And so Alberta had organ lessons. And Alberta is your daughter? Yes. And she could play the organ. And she had gone down to the First Methodist Church, but then they were very particular about the organ. It was a nice organ, pipe organ, and they didn't UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 16 want anybody playing it unless they knew how or some older person with ‘em. So I always went down with her after school. And it was cold, no heat, they didn’t have heat in the building. And she would practice. Well, it didn't take much practice for her on the organ because she was a wonderful pianist at that time. She began taking lessons when she was four because she began playing by ear when she was four. And we thought she oughta know notes and not always play by ear. I guess she still can, I don’t know if that’s (unintelligible) or not. But then she played from the church from the time she was nine on the piano, because the pianist was always late. And then when she finally came, well she'd slip over and sit in the pew and she would play. And then when they moved ‘em to church, well she played the organ all the time. And she and a friend of hers started the youth choir. And then a lady took it over and then they took it back when she went out of town. (Unintelligible) well she started, I guess, and then they took it over when she was gone, that’s it. And (unintelligible) Mm-hmm. Shouldn't talk so much. (Laughs) (Laughs) It’s okay. Just finish that. It's okay. Well, and so, it was well equipped, the church, because people donated things to make it work. And we had a room for the infants, the double plate glass windows so the mothers could sit in there and see the service, but their babies wouldn't be heard. And they had a room for the robes and room for them to get their robes on. So you guys were pretty well set up there? It was real nice. We had, somebody gave us twenty-five song books, and we bought more. And somebody that we used to know gave ‘em to us. And well, it was a nice group service and we UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 17 had choir sitting on both sides at the front of the church, up on the platform. And the organ was up there. And my husband stood up there, on the steps to get up there. And he was the Reverend of it? Oh yes, he was ordained in 1940 to the Congregational Church. And we had a piano too. And finally, one of the young girls could play the piano. And so she played with Alberta. Played duets, made it very nice. And we had the ladies and men that could sing real well that came in so our choir was real nice. And over in the church, we used to have dinners. All the ladies sewed like a (unintelligible). They made the only double apron I ever saw. That—on the one side it was plain material and (unintelligible) had the piping and the belt and the pocket. Where like the other side was some figured material. And the other side would be figured and trimmed in the plane. And we'd sell those and we’d (unintelligible) or other places that we would have them. And people would buy ‘em between times, we could sell as many between times as other times. So, you guys made money that way too? Yes, to help with church to keep going and buy our materials. Mm-hmm. Didn't have any money, otherwise. They didn't pay us anything. We had to standby, we had to have a pattern so we had to have something to (unintelligible). Did you and your husband think of that, those ideas to—? I found the pattern for that and then others helped make it. And I have to thank this little saying, maybe a salesperson might come to your door and you think “oh, I’ve been baking. I’ve got flour all over me.” Then you think “’course it wouldn't be nice to turn it over on your dress” but I said that “you’d turn it over and then you’d look neat as anything” and they say, “my girl could clean this morning.” UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 18 (Laughs) (Laughs) It’s a good idea. And they just sold like hotcakes almost as fast as we could keep ‘em made. That’s great. And then we made beautiful pillowcases in those times. Everybody embroidered or made, crocheted or made tatting or something. So people bought those too? Oh yes. They didn't make very pretty ones in town then. They got so they did to keep up with us. But our people were very good and were such good cooks. Oh, they were good cooks. And we thought of the idea that, when it was election time, the politicians could go down and treat people to drinks to get a vote. And they could bring ‘em down there for a dinner if they wanted to. They didn't get to talk their politics— What politicians are you talking about? Democrats and Republicans, for this city county offices. They’d run for offices, you know. Mm-hmm. And so—we had a courthouse in Las Vegas. And so then they’d run for the state, that was up at Carson City. When you say politicians, did any past presidents come to Las Vegas at all? Roosevelt came when the dam was finished. It was dedicated in ’35. And everybody from near and far came and they had let the water build up. Did you go see this? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 19 Oh, of course. We were at the dam many times. Almost every week we’d go out to see what the new developments were. And we had gone down the river when it was the Colorado River in a boat and, you know, you paid to ride down. And then the river, oh, it would backup something terrible when the rains were— Mm-hmm. And people lived along there and they were just barely out of the water. How dangerous. Horrible. If you had any small children you could drown. (Unintelligible) had a tent there and lived there, and so then they drained all the water out and then they put up something to hold the wetness backwards a little bit there, kind of a lake (unintelligible) back behind it. And then they had men that scaled down on the rocks. They were fastened up above and went down on ropes and had to— To work on the dam? They cleaned it off so they could put the dam there. Ohhh. See, they had to get to— Did you know people that did this? Well, we didn't know very many of those fellas. It was just a few of them that did that, that knew how to clean down the rocks. They had to have some kind of equipment that they could scale it off, you know, but it was very dangerous. One time, one man fell and a man looked up and saw him, that was scaling, and he swung out just as it got to him and caught him and saved his life. Did, did you hear about this? Or did you—? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 20 Oh yes, we heard about it. Of course, word got to us right away here. Being in the store, you know. And my husband worked there and I helped out sometimes, write their letters and stuff on my typewriter. I had a— For people who worked at the dam? No, for the store. Oh. For the store. Wrote their letters. But those fellas would come in and trade when they come to town and buy stuff to take out, you know. They would trade with things that they had? No, I mean they would buy. They’d get their pay and they'd come in and spend some money and gamble some, I suppose. (Laughs) There was a (unintelligible) company out there, a big building where they slept when they were on the job, and some of them lived out there in Boulder City—what was going to be Boulder City. And then they went down in the morning in big vans. Just— To work? Uh-huh. They were larger than trucks. To work, they’d take them back and forth. And it's quite a ways down there and the road wasn't very good then. (Unintelligible) it's kind of dangerous now, you're awfully close to the edge as you go down. Yes. Have you been down there? Mm-hmm. I’ve, I seen the dam. When, when you said that the men gambled, do you know this for a fact? Like, was gamble, was gambling legal then— No. In Las Vegas? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 21 Well, it finally was but it wasn’t at first. Do you know when it became legal? (Unintelligible) Thirty-one or ’32, I believe it did. I'm not positive. How did it come about? Did they just—? Oh, they had to vote on it. They voted? Of course. The state had to allow them to. But before that they’d be gambling behind closed doors. (Laughs) I’ve heard that, I didn't see it done. Oh, you heard about that? Well, everybody knew it. Like from people that would come into the store, they told you? Well, just everybody knew they were doing it. You just heard. So when gambling first started, how did it become so big? Well, it was just Downtown then. Mm-hmm. And then finally— On Fremont, over there? Yes. Uh-huh. It was two or three good sized gambling places then. And then, of course, they’ve gotten much more as years went on. And then they built one, wish I could think of the (unintelligible)—it burned later. There’s nothing there now. Was, when gambling, when they first wanted to get it legalized, was it a big issue in Las Vegas? Like did a lot of people want it legalized or did—? Well, yes, they thought it'd be good for Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 22 To bring more people in and bring—? Yes. And it has, I suppose. Mm-hmm. But those of us that live here we never see that side of town. We don't go down there. Mm-hmm. We don’t know what goes on. People said, “Why would you raise your child here?” Well, we didn't take her down that part of town. Our church wasn't there. It's closer this way and when we went to North Las Vegas it wasn't close to it. Now it would be ‘cause there's a big one down there close to it, but it wasn’t then. But anyway, we just didn't go to that kind of thing, that wasn’t our style of life. Do you remember when Carole Lombard’s plane crashed or? Yes. Was it a big thing? Well, yes, people went out to try to help ‘em to find her. Help who now? Oh, just the officers and people that would go and climb the mountain and try to find her, you know. I don't remember who all went. Mm-hmm. But there’s lots of people went out to help. But (unintelligible) no, I don't believe they ever found her. Did they? I don’t—I’m not sure. Oh. Did—do you remember anything about Clark Gable? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 23 Yes, I should say. He was such a well-known actress [actor] and he was married several times. And one of his wives that was getting a divorce lived across the street here from us on Garces, we live on Seventh and Garces and they lived on—we live at 630, he lived at Seven and Garces. Clark Gable did? No, his wife. His wife. Okay. And friends of hers. They used to have wild parties there, it was very interesting to watch. (Laughs) ‘Cause we were so mild, you know. (Laughs) But they lived there. It took six months I believe then. What? To get—? Divorced. Oh. It takes six weeks, I believe, now. Unknown speaker: (Unintelligible) I don’t know. Less time anyway. Okay. Now, have you, were you ever involved in politics? Like you were saying how the gambling was getting legal and all that, like— Well, I've worked in the courthouse and written up all the names for the county. What, what party are you? I’m democrat but I vote for the big, the final election for the person I think's going to be right. Either party I think it is, the man. Or now it could be a woman. But it wasn't then. (Laughs) Are you involved in any other social clubs around town? Were you back then or mostly the church? UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 24 Well, the Mesquite Club. Mesquite Club was here for a long time. I think it was here about fifteen years before we came. And I belonged to that profile but then I got very ill and couldn’t go for a long time. Couldn't even drive the car and so I dropped out. And I just never went back, never had time. And then I belonged to the DAR. What’s that? Daughters of [the] American Revolution. Had to have ancestors that go back to the Revolutionary War. And then— What did you do in that? What was the reason to have the DAR? Well, it's kind of a nice thing to have answers just go back so far. And I haven't gotten farther than that, but that's how far they had to go when you signed up these papers. And I could have been the organizing region, the region from Reno. Wanted me to so she wouldn’t have to come down. But my sister and I, all we had to do to fix our papers was to attach our father and mother's name and our name and we were ready to go because we've had papers handed down to us. And so this regent from Reno came down, and she saw that our papers where in order, and so she appointed us to sign for the people here, or else they'd have to wait and have them sent all in and back and forth international. And we didn't have to have our (unintelligible) until afterwards. And you had to get twenty-five members before you could start a chapter. Well, we got those. People just came, they were anxious. There was a piece put in the paper how we knew that was gonna be here. Skip Garside was with his father in the Review Journal then. He was called Skip and now he's called (unintelligible) can’t think of his real name. Unknown speaker: (Unintelligible) No, that’s his father. Unknown speaker: (Unintelligible) UNLV University Libraries Mary Carol Melton 25 Uh-huh. I just can't think right now. Anyway, why he wrote a little piece in the paper, anyone that belonged to the DAR, why contact him and h