Interviewed by Catherine Bellver. Velma Haselton was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1914. She worked as an assistant bookkeeper for Hart, Schaffner and Marx and rose to Assistant Credit Manager. Velma worked at various jobs after she married for the second time and her son was born. She also represented the San Francisco CPA firm Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery (now Coopers Lybrand) in various capacities, both in California and St. Louis, eventually attaining the position of controller. Velma moved to Las Vegas for the first time in the 1950s, where she and her husband Don ran a coffee shop at the Park Lane Motel on South Fifth Street. Family requirements necessitated a move back to California. In 1971, Velma and her third husband, Charles Haselton, "retired" to Las Vegas. Velma immediately went to work as a cost accountant for United Pipeline, and later as an accountant for Kafoury Armstrong, a CPA firm. She eventually ran her own accounting business. Velma also held memberships and offices in various women's service groups.

In 1943, Cleophis Hill Williams was a teenager visiting her mother who had moved to Las Vegas. For most of her young life she had lived with her parents in Muskogee, Oklahoma and Paul Spur/Douglas, Arizona. The same year that she visited Las Vegas, she met her future husband Tom Williams, with whom she had nine children, all born and raised on the Westside. Tom worked construction and built their first home on G Street. For Cleophis, she focused her life on raising her children and, whenever possible, finding some precious time to read.