Gilbert Yarchever was one of nine siblings, born and bred in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He describes the way his mother?s family was granted the last name of ?Kurfeersf" by Emperor Franz Joseph (of Austria-Hungary), explains the Seder (the Jewish observation of the exodus of Hebrews from Egypt), and tells what it was like to survive the Depression. Gilbert describes the jobs he held after high school and the government examination he took that led to his lifetime of adventure and travel. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1940 and kept himself busy working for the government and taking classes at George Washington University, as well as working part time at Hecht Department Store and as a freelance court reporter. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Gilbert was sent to Africa on a merchant ship, helped smuggle Jewish survivors into Jerusalem, and was assigned the task of negotiating with Arab sheikhs for laborers to build a road. In the years after that, he worked in Europe, Panama, Alaska, Japan, and Hawaii and describes many of the jobs he was responsible for and many of the individuals he met. He also married and had children, kept up with university classes whenever he could, and collected art objects and paintings. Following his retirement in 1977, Gilbert and his family came to Las Vegas and bought a condo in Regency Towers. He did some consulting work for a couple of years, and then he and his wife began traveling around the states and going abroad. He was involved with UNLV?s EXCEL program, the music department, and the Las Vegas Art Museum. (He and his second wife Edythe presented the first major exhibition on Holocaust art at the museum.) These days Gilbert often donates pieces from his art collection to churches, synagogues, and charitable organizations.

Gilbert Yarchever was in the Navy during World War II, helped smuggle Jewish refugees into Jerusalem, worked as a civil servant in many countries, and moved to Las Vegas in 1977. He helped found the EXCEL program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and was an art collector with his wife, Edythe Katz-Yarchever.

Oral history interview with Dr. Javier A. Rodríguez conducted by Elsa Lopez and Barbara Tabach on December 19, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Dr. Javier Rodríguez, Biology Professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, talks of his personal and educational history that led him to UNLV. He discusses his migration from Puerto Rico to California where he received his PhD from the University of California Berkley and became a biological museum curator for various animal specimens. He later moved to Las Vegas to teach at UNLV where he has now been for nearly two decades; Dr. Rodríguez shares how UNLV has changed since he first started working here, including the university's increased interest in faculty research to become a Top Tier institution. Subjects discussed include: Puerto Rico; University of California Berkley; University funding; Tier 1 research institutions.

From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Drafts for the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice file. On the author's completion of term as Chair of UNLV Anthropology Department.