Raya Meron was born July 08, 1935 in Tel-Aviv, Israel. She joined the Israeli Defense Force after completing her education. Following rigorous boot camp training, she was assigned to the Mixed Armistice Commission. After her military service, Meron worked as Secretary at the Foreign Office where she met her first husband who was an Israeli diplomat at the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey and shortly after her marriage, she moved to Istanbul.
World War II Naval officer, outdoors man, viola player John Watkins arrived in Las Vegas in 1955 fresh from his fellowship at UCLA, as the town’s first urologist. In this interview made two years before his 2011 death, Watkins talks about his schooling, his medical career, and medicine and medical practitioners in Las Vegas from the mid-1950s. He recalls how he met his wife, Frances (née) O’Rourke, and the Las Vegas places he, Frances, and their sons John and Brian lived. In particular, he describes their Desert Inn Country Club neighbors and neighborhood, where he and his family lived for fourteen years near the third tee. Watkins talks about his musical education and playing the viola in Antonio Morelli’s Christmas concerts. He also shares his experiences as a mountain climber who climbed Mount Charleston several times before deciding in his seventies to climb the highest peak in each of the fifty states. By the time of this interview, he and his son Brian had conquered forty-three state peaks. According to his obituary, he completed one more climb before he died at ninety years of age, for a total of forty-four highest state peaks. In an Appendix, Watkins shares his detailed wartime journal covering nine “terrible days” on a U.S. Naval ship in an undisclosed battle zone in the Pacific Theatre, 28 December 1944 – 6 January 1945.
The collection is comprised of the personal, professional and business papers of Dr. Juanita Greer White from 1927 to 1980. Included are correspondence, booklets, dissertations, minutes, newsletters, newspaper clippings, and various other materials linked to women's organizations and Nevada organizations relating to education, health, and aging. Other material includes documents from her work in the Nevada State Legislature, books, catalogs, chemistry papers, plaques, and campaign materials.