In this interview, focused on the John S. Park neighborhood of Las Vegas, Arne Rosencrantz discusses his childhood growing up in Las Vegas. He talks about local businesses, including his father's furniture store, as well as schools and churches in the neighborhood.
Arne Rosencrantz remembers living on Beverly Way from 1954 to 1970. Like so many others from that era, he attended Fifth Street School, John S. Park Elementary School, John C. Fremont Middle School and graduated from Las Vegas High School. As a Jew, he was in a small minority, but fondly recalls growing up in the dense Mormon population of John S. Park Neighborhood. As a youngster, life in Las Vegas was filled with fun. The desert provided opportunity to hunt lizards and rabbits. Kids walked to school without concern. They played ball and found the Strip casinos welcoming to locals. He tells how the social issue of segregation of the 1960s did not affect him personally, but how local movie theatre owner Lloyd Katz fought to make his Huntridge and Fremont theatres integrated. He also reminisces about his father opening Hollywood Furniture and later Garrett's Furniture, which Arne operated until retiring in 2001. During the interview, he lists other furniture companies and the strong assortment of other retailers and restaurants that served the neighborhood.
In this interview, members of Midbar Kodesh discuss how they each became involved in the synagogue, and how the congregation formed in the mid-1990s. Some of the narrators grew up in Las Vegas and talk about the growth of the town and being former members of Temple Beth Sholom.
On February 25, 1980, Don Scott Kaye interviewed genealogist Pauleen Foutz (born November 26, 1906 in Provo, Utah) at her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Foutz relocated to Nevada with her husband, who was a dentist, and raised her children in Las Vegas. Her children attended the Fifth Street School and later Las Vegas High School. She mentions that while her children attended middle school and high school in Las Vegas there was no problem with segregation. She also describes how Strip orchestras would provide entertainment for the children in the Las Vegas community by playing for their dances, such as junior proms and senior hops. During the interview, Mrs. Foutz discusses the history of Southern Nevada, social and religious activities in Las Vegas, her interests, extracurricular activities for local youth, and home and family life. While living in Las Vegas, professions she has held include schoolteacher, businessperson, and genealogist. She was involved with the Bicentennial celebrations in Las Vegas in 1967 and was very involved with the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, genealogical library in Las Vegas. At the time this interview was conducted, Mrs. Foutz was the president of the Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America for Nevada.
Gladys Neville's story begins in Crowley, Louisiana, in 1915. She grew up as one of eleven children, graduated from high school in 1933, and entered nursing school at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. After earning her RN in 1937, she continued to work at Charity for four years, then joined the Army and served in the European Theater for three years. Gladys details her experience in nursing school, explaining that students were given on-the-job training. With that training and four years of nursing after that, she was well qualified to join the 24th General Hospital overseas deployment in WWII. It was during her stay in Florence, Italy, that she was married and not too long after that, the war ended and she and her husband were transferred back to the States. Her husband's work for Bank of America took them to Laguna Beach, Salt Lake City, and Idaho Falls. Their children were bom during this period and Gladys took a 20 year hiatus from nursing. In 1962 they moved to Las Vegas and in 1964 Gladys decided to take a refresher course at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital (now University Medical Center). After that refresher course, Gladys was hired for a full-time day shift at UMC. She and the interviewer share many details about the hospital's physical appearance, the staffing, location of surgeries and burn units, and how the RN's encouraged LPN's to continue their training and become nurses. Gladys concludes her interview with further recollections of her military nursing experience. She also gives more details about her war-time wedding. Among her final comments, she mentions the stress of working full time when her husband was ill.