Esther Toporek Finder is a professor of psychology and has lived in Las Vegas, Nevada since 2010. She was born May 28, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois, and moved to Washington D.C. in 1979 after graduating with her Masters from the University of Chicago. While in Washington D.C, Finder was able to jump start her career as an oral historian recording Holocaust survivor stories with the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Shoah Foundation. Esther Finder is a second generation Holocaust survivor. Her passion for Holocaust education and its representation in society has led her to many opportunities to teach, facilitate, educate, create and contribute to many survivor oriented groups such as The Generation After where she was President for 15 years, the Holocaust Era Assets Conference as representation of the American survivor community, as well as the creation of the Generations of the Shoah International group in October 2002. When Finder moved to Las Vegas, she quickly and deeply involved herself in the Las Vegas Holocaust survivor community. She has been integral with Nellis Air Force Base?s Days of Remembrance, the opening the Generations of Shoah Nevada Chapter, and partnering with the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendants to bring conferences to the Las Vegas Valley. In addition, she has been an organizer of commemoration programs for students attending UNLV and schools within the Clark County School District. Her involvement with the Governor?s Advisory Council on Education Relating to the Holocaust and the television series Eyewitness to History have highlighted the Holocaust survivors living in Las Vegas. In this interview, Finder discusses her childhood as well as the paths that led her to realize her passion for the Holocaust survivor community and her deep association with the community. She shares her experiences interviewing survivors and second generation survivors giving a deeper insight into the stories that they have shared with her over the years. In addition, she reflects on her long reach within the survivor community and brings to light the foundation of family being a survivor gives. Finder highlights the traveling, teaching and community service opportunities she has had over the years while enlightening people about the importance of countering hate through education.
Text
In this interview, Stein lovingly describes various forms and mediums of art, especially rubber stamping, which included starting and managing a related craft publication, National Stampagraphic, as well as working with polymer clay. She talks about her involvement with the local Polymer Clay Guild, of which she is president, and their various projects, including Bottles of Hope and Hearts for Heroes. Stein also discusses her teaching career at the Hebrew Academy and Adelson Educational Campus.
Text
Andrew (Drew) Levy was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his family became prominent civic and real estate leaders. His grandfather was Harry Levy, a former Las Vegas City Commissioner, and his father Alvin Levy was a former councilman. Drew is always proud to say that he never left Las Vegas and of partnering with his father in the Levy Realty Company. While growing up, Drew it was easy for a teenager to enjoy the perks that could accompany his family?s civic persona?such as casino shows, events and meeting early Las Vegas casino executives like Moe Dalitz. After graduation from Clark High School, Drew attended Arizona State University. It was in Tempe that he met Debbie Cheek, his future wife. When Debbie arrived in Las Vegas, she enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she finished her degree and started her accounting practice. She ran her business for ten years before opening Art Starts Here, an art school. In the 1990s, Debbie?s passion for art led her to be involved in the creation of First Friday, a local monthly art festival. She also teaches a summer art camp for the Adelson Educational Campus. Drew and Debbie became deeply involved in the many Jewish congregations in Las Vegas. Blossoming first at Temple Beth Sholom where they were married in 1980, Debbie sat on the preschool board and oversaw the temple board, while Drew was the advisor for the youth group. The couple later joined Congregation Ner Tamid where Drew was congregation president from 1999 to 2000 and Debbie was board treasurer in 2001. Debbie includes stories of her conversion to Judaism and keeping kosher. In this interview, Drew and Debbie Levy reflect on changes they see in Las Vegas, from when Drew was a kid to the times they raised their own daughters, Sarah and Jenna, here. Looking at the larger picture of the city, they describe booms in the real estate market and growth in the artistic and cultural aspects of Las Vegas. They provide a perspective of the growth of the local Jewish community.
Text
In this interview, Milton Schwartz discusses his life in Las Vegas and his business investments. He worked at the Flamingo Hotel right after World War II, and he started Valley Hospital as an investor in 1970. Schwartz has a Hebrew academy named after him in Israel, and owned the Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company. He was active in the Republican Party.
Milton I. Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He enlisted in the Army the day after Pearl Harbor (age 20) and did a five year stint in the Pacific as a repeater specialist. After the war he returned to his job as a refrigeration mechanic in Brooklyn and was soon offered a job out in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel, which was owned by Bugsy Siegel. After three months in Las Vegas, during which time he had several conversations over dinner with Beldon Cattleman, Milton returned to New York to work with his father in the fixture business. After ten years he sold that business and bought into Design Equipment Construction, which brought him back to Las Vegas. Milton started or bought many businesses over the years, but the one he's proudest of is Valley Hospital. He and his partners brought the first medical helicopters into Nevada and he feels that many lives were saved because of that. He also invested in Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Company, which he still owns. Two on-going concerns that are important to Milton are his involvement with the Republican Party and the Milton I. Schwartz Hebrew Academy in Israel. Of the many awards and plaques he has earned over the decades, he is proudest of the birthday acknowledgements from the Academy. He believes strongly that the most important achievements of his life revolve around his religion and the children being educated in it. Milton shares many stories, facts, descriptions, and anecdotes about Las Vegas in the decades since 1946. He built a house in the Scotch 80's, contributes to UNLV, and approves of city growth and the proposed changes in the downtown area. He has contributed much to the growth and stability of the Las Vegas valley.
Text
In this interview, Burton Cohen discusses his involvement in the Las Vegas casino industry, including booking entertainment for various hotels.
Burton Cohen's long casino executive career began in the mid-1960s when he accepted a proposition to become involved with the transformation of the Frontier Hotel. He left his south Florida roots and law practice to become a co-owner/general manager of the Frontier Hotel. Thus, began his highly regarded Las Vegas presence. For nearly four decades he served in the management of some of the Strip's most famous casinos: Flamingo, Dunes, Circus Circus, Caesar Palace, Thunderbird and the Desert Inn, which remains his favorite. In this interview, Burt reflects on the positions he held, the celebrities he hired and befriended, and offers a unique look at the behind the scenes marketing and entertainment strategies that he helmed. He shares stories of becoming entrenched in casino operations, his reflections of union experiences, and even anecdotes about moving his mother to Las Vegas.
Text
Interview with Adele Baratz by Steve McClenachan on March 3 and 4, 1979. In this interview, Baratz talks about growing up in Las Vegas and her her schooling. She graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1944, and discusses the rationing that took place during World War II. She went to Maryland for nursing school and returned to Las Vegas in 1947. She describes some of the hotels and casinos, and tells the story of her father trading property for an automobile in 1935. She also recalls the building of Hoover Dam, swimming in local pools, and going to Mount Charleston in the winter. The interviewer asks her about travel between Las Vegas and California and the impact of Atlantic City on Las Vegas tourism. Baratz then talks about her nursing career and starting a re-certification program in 1974 and the different hospitals in the area.
Text
Twentieth-century visitors to the Las Vegas Sands Hotel experienced the masonry work of Anthony A. Marnell, who removed his family from Riverside, California, to North Las Vegas in 1952 in order to build that structure. When he formed his own masonry company in 1958, he taught his namesake nine-year-old son the skills of a mason and the value of honest work. The younger Marnell learned all he could about construction from his father and completed his education by graduating USC School of Architecture in 1972, serving his apprenticeship, and becoming licensed in 1973. After designing McCarran Airport's A and B Gates, he teamed up with Lud Corrao in 1974 to form Marnell Corrao Associates, the first design-build firm in Southern Nevada. Marnell Corrao built many of Southern Nevada's most iconic hotel-casinos including the California Hotel, Maxim Hotel, and Sam's Town and Steve Wynn and Treasure Island, The Mirage, Bellagio, and New York New York as well as the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino and the M Resort Spa Casino. In this interview, the Riverside native speaks to the importance of teaching future generations about the value of work, of earning the sense of accomplishment, and of fueling one's inner spirit. His philosophy built a work environment that encouraged employee longevity from the beginning in 1974 (he is employee number one, and his assistant is employee number two). He talks of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), of entrepreneurial gamesmanship, and of casino greats Bill Boyd, Jay Sarno, Cliff Perlman, Kirk Kerkorian, and Steve Wynn. He describes the evolution of Las Vegas resorts from prioritizing casino games to fine dining to night clubs and entertainment. He credits his own Rio staff tradition of serving Chef's Table to the employees and the Rio's award-winning chef, Jean-Louis Palladin, for beginning the Las Vegas food renaissance in the late 1990s that rebranded Las Vegas as a Mecca for celebrity chefs. The nine-year-old who worked part time in his father's masonry business learned his lessons well, much to the benefit of Southern Nevada's growing skyline, its residents' growing waistlines, and its businesses' growing bottom lines.
Text
With the explosive growth of the Las Vegas Valley over the past 30 years, it is rare to find someone who has deep battle born roots that go back to the early mining days of Nevada. Nancy Cummings-Schmidt is an example of that rare kind of gem. As a fourth generation Nevadan, her family came to the state in the 1800s form Ireland and England. Looking to capitalize off of the mining boom in Virginia City, they transitioned to ranching. She spent her first years in Reno and when her father went off to fight in the Second World War, her mother moved to Herlong, California and sent her to live with her grandparents. Upon moving to Vegas for fourth grade, her mother remarried and worked for the Las Vegas Sun while Nancy attended the Fifth Street Grammar School and later became a member Las Vegas High School’s first graduating class in 1956. After graduating from high school, Nancy invested in the spirit of wanderlust as it carried her to study theatre at Texas Christian University (which sh
Text
Ellen Barre Spiegel grew up in Jericho NY, a predominantly Jewish town in Long Island. Her ancestors had migrated to the United Sates prior to the outbreak of World War II. And for much of life her exposure to cultural diversity was limited. Ellen was born in 1962. She attended Cornell University, located in upstate New York, and graduated in 1984. Though the student population was 30% Jewish, the university expanded her knowledge of the world: her Protestant roommate explained that she had never met a Jew and Ellen replied, I have never met a WASP. Her college studies centered on consumer economics and she was a public policy major. Ellen was an early adopter of technology and her career path included positions at American Express, Prodigy (a joint venture of IBM and Sears), the Weather Channel, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Each company used her increasing experience with using technologies to improve connections with consumers. Ellen describes her Jewish identity as conservative and is a member of Midbar Kodesh Temple in Henderson. She talks about her bat mitzvah and her move back to New York to recite the mourner’s Kaddish for the year following the passing of her father. Later, she moved to Santa Monica, where she met Bill, her husband, using a new dating site called Luvitt AOL. After marriage, the couple saw financial advantages to living in Las Vegas and relocated their business and home to the valley in 2001. Soon Ellen noted that there was no active Democratic Club in Henderson and it became her mission to reignite the club. This launched a long list of political and civic accomplishments for Ellen. She has been an assemblyperson in the Nevada legislature (2008, 2013-2017). Her list of accomplishments and affiliations are on pages 46-47.
Text
Alice Ward Boyer arrived in Las Vegas from Oklahoma in 1937. Her brother and former husband came earlier to escape the dustbowl depression and get settled. In the middle of the summer, just at dusk, she emerged from the train at Kingman, Arizona with her two small children to meet her family and drive through the darkness to her new home in Las Vegas. Although she missed the trees of the Plains, she soon became accustomed to her desert home. Her recollections revive the older Las Vegas when community life characterized the small town. At the heart of her story is the Mesquite Club. The non-partisan civic activities of the Mesquite Club are part of a national history of women’s club voluntarism in the nineteenth and twentieth century United States. Founded in 1911, this pioneer Las Vegas women's club played an essential role in the development of the growing town. When few cultural or social services existed, the club raised funds for the first public library, developed parks for the city, and provided services and funding for the aged and youth. The Mesquite Club, along with the Parent Teacher Association, scouts, and church activities formed a network of community relations commonly found in developing towns and cities, but not ususally associated with Las Vegas. Alice Boyer joined the Mesquite club in 1944. She first served as the chair of the Garden Committee, then "went right up through the chairs," and was elected President of the club for 1958-59. (See Table of Offices Held). Speaking about the Mesquite Club founders, Alice Boyer said, “They were very forward-looking women. They knew that the town would grow and they wanted the best for the town.” As one of the second generation of members, she has found the club to be a continuing source of congenial social life and civic community building. Born in rural Oklahoma, she spent her early years on a ranch. Her parents met there shortly after "the run to open Oklahoma" around 1892. They met, married and had twelve children, nine of which survived. Alice came right in the middle. She spent her early years riding horses, wearing “overalls," and spending as much time as possible outside. The family moved into Clinton, Oklahoma for better schools for their children when she was in the fifth grade. Alice graduated from high school just as the Great Depression began and worked briefly at a newspaper before marriage. At the time of the interview, Alice Boyer’s vivaciousness, gracious manner, and sharp memory belied her 82 years. This interview has been produced with the assistance of the Mesquite Club and the History Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It is part of a series on women community builders in Las Vegas. The transcript has been edited only slightly for clarity while the syntax and style of the narrator were retained.
Text