In this chapter, Stern describes her upbringing in Russia and fleeing to Poland. It is accompanied by a letter to the publishing company William Morrow.
From the Syphus-Bunker Papers (MS-00169). The folder contains documents about the history of George Burton Whitney and his wife, Lovina Syphus, and Luke Syphus and Christiana Long, Lovina's parents, and a genealogical data sheet for John Mathieson Bunker and Mary Etta Syphus.
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.
This ability to greet each day with a challenge has laid the foundation for a long history of success for Elaine McNamara as she has navigated through local beauty pageants, an illustrious real estate career, serving on the Las Vegas-Clark County Library board during their decade of expansion to authorship. Her story of resilience starts when she became ill at approximately seven or eight with erythema nodosum that impeded her ability to walk for five months when she started collecting pictures of movie stars. Her favorite movies were any of Roy Rogers, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Her family moved to Las Vegas, where she attended Las Vegas High School as well as UNLV majoring in elementary education and minoring in language arts. While she attended high school, she studied modeling in the evenings to help overcome her shyness and to become more outgoing. Becoming more involved with local and state beauty pageants, she met the likes of Phyllis Diller, Natalie Wood,