In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.
On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.
The Mollie Gregory Collection of Oral Histories contains audio interviews and brief transcripts that focus on welfare, family, and women's issues in Nevada from 1970 to 1974. Gregory interviewed Nevada residents including Maya Miller, Ruby Duncan, and Mary Wesley, who described their lives during the anti-poverty and women's rights campaigns in the early 1970s. The collection documents views on welfare; the Equal Rights Amendment; race, discrimination, and civil rights; and political campaigns.
The International Food Service Executive Association (IFSEA) Records contain the organizational records from the IFSEA dating from 1916 to 2010. Included are meeting programs and minutes, menus, conference reports and proceedings, financial reports, newsletters, award certificates, scrapbooks, and stewards and caterers records focusing on the hospitality and food service industry. Materials are from both national and regional branches of the organization and include records from the United States military, with whom IFSEA has partnered with since the 1960s. Club artifacts and trophies are also contained in the collection.
The Lori Lipman Brown Papers date from 1975 to 2009 and document former Nevada State Senator Lori Lipman Brown's political career. It includes correspondence and materials from Brown's service as a Nevada State Senator from 1992 to 1994, case files from her defamation lawsuit against Nevada State Senator Kathy Augustine, and papers from her work opposing the Nevada Question 2 ballot measure on same-sex marriage in 2000. The collection also contains photocopies of biographical materials and personal and publicity photographs of Brown, as well as material from her time working with local high school and commmunity theatre programs.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal Photograph Collection depicts several events in Las Vegas, Nevada from 1935 to 1983 that were documented by Nevada’s largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The photographs depict the fire at the Las Vegas School in 1935, the fire at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in 1980, an exhibition at the Lost City Museum in 1973, a memorial event honoring the first permanent school in Las Vegas in 1980, and an exhibition at the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society in 1983. The collection also contains photographs of some denizens of Las Vegas, including people at the Hughes Bar in Las Vegas, the last Union Pacific passenger train in Las Vegas, and schoolchildren at the Las Vegas School.
The Frontier Hotel and Casino Collection documents the history, entertainers, and events at the Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada from 1942 to 1988. The collection includes promotional material, photographs, correspondence, invoices, legal documents, and newspaper clippings.
The records of Temple Beth Sholom date from 1945 to 2015 and include scrapbooks, photographs, bulletins, meeting minutes, by-laws, correspondence, and publications. The collection contains documentation of the Board of Directors, the Sisterhood, the Men's Club, the history of the congregation, events held by the temple, and construction of the temple building in Summerlin in Las Vegas, Nevada.