Oral history interview with Laura Sussman and Wendy Kraft conducted by Barbara Tabach on February 17, 2016 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Sussman and Kraft talk about being business partners in Kraft-Sussman Funeral Home, which caters to the Jewish community. They also talk about the local LGBT community as a lesbian couple.
The Las Vegas, Nevada Women's Softball Collection (1951-1952) contains photographic prints and negatives depicting a southern Nevada women's softball team. The team was sponsored by Wilson's Texaco Station in Boulder City, Nevada, and the women played in regional games in both southern California and southern Nevada. Photographs in the collection show the team practicing at Peterson Field in Boulder City, and celebrating and spending time together at the Mt. Charleston Lodge. The collection also contains copies of personal accounts written by team member Orpha Alveta Bowman (McBride), who recalls the prejudice some of the lesbian members faced from local community members. The originals of these handwritten accounts are held in MS-01099.
Hazel Gay was born in Fordyce, Arkansas in 1923. Hazel met her husband, Jimmy Gay, when she was about twenty years old while she was attending school in Thornton, Arkansas. Eventually, Gay and Jimmy were married secretly with no one knowing until several weeks later. Gay and her husband went on to have four children, all currently living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Before the family moved to Las Vegas, they lived in Fordyce, Arkansas.