From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Personal and professional papers file.

Oral history interview with Sara Kalaoram conducted by Alexandra Arabshian on November 15, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Sara Kalaoram shares her immigration story to the United States from Singapore in 2002 at the age of four. She talks about her upbringing in Las Vegas, Nevada, her education from Arizona State University, and her work with the Culinary Workers Union and with Assemblyman Steve Yeager as his campaign manager and executive assistant. Sara Kalaoram discusses cultural differences between Singapore and the United States, the immigration stories of her parents, and her experience as an Asian-American immigrant in the twenty-first century.

Rachel Gibson was the granddaughter of Nevada pioneers. Her maternal grandparents, George Rammelkamp and Anna Dougherty, were among the earliest white residents of northern Nevada, settling first in Dayton and later Yerington. Her mother, Clara Angelina, and her two aunts, Elizabeth and Georgie, graduated from the University of Nevada at the turn of the century. Clara taught in Yerington for a number of years before marrying Chase Masterson, a dentist. Rachel was born in 1913 in Yerington. The eldest of three children, she continued the tradition of women’s learning and education that began with her mother’s generation. Her 1930 class was the first to graduate from Las Vegas High School, and soon after Rachel moved to California to attend college. Although her father had counseled her to study law, Rachel chose the field of economics. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and worked in San Francisco for one year before returning to complete

When Melanie Greenberg was a young girl in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, she thinks it is likely that she crossed paths with her future husband at Hebrew School. However, it would be years later in college when they officially met – and fell in love and married in 1970. By 1976, Missouri was in the rearview mirror and career opportunities for her husband Gene Greenberg would lead them to Las Vegas. With their 18-month-old daughter Sari, they drove into Las Vegas for the first time, down Boulder Highway to Flamingo Road. Gene’s employer had arranged for a room at the Flamingo Hotel. As she explains, there many have been a better route, but it brought them to town and they stayed, raised their family, and became fixtures in the community since that moment. Among their first goals was finding a synagogue. Melanie’s magical touch has been felt in many places within the Las Vegas Jewish community: an active member of Temple Beth Sholom, the Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership and Women’s programs, organizer of Hebrew High, coordinator of L’Dor V’Dor activities for seniors, and Executive Director of Hillel from 1996 – 2003.

The memories and recollections of Alice Thiriot Ballard Waite provide a most interesting look at both at the Junior League of Las Vegas in the 1970s and the early days of Las Vegas. Alice recalls her childhood and young adult years after she arrived in Las Vegas at the age of five, giving the reader a rare picture of Las Vegas in the 1950s and 1960s. She was most active in the volunteer community of Las Vegas and served as Junior League President in 1964-5. Her reminiscences about the events and activities during the years while she was a Junior League member are an invaluable insight into its history. The exhibits she is sharing are an important documentation of those years after the Service League became the Junior League. She herself was a forerunner of today's Active members because she was a single, working mother while serving as the first "professional" President of the League.