John Ben Snow Memorial Trust grant – Nevada Women's History Project

Suenaga, Florence – Carson City, Carson City

Posted on May 10, 2018February 11, 2022 by NWHP

Florence was the thirteen-year-old daughter of Japanese immigrant parents living a typical American life at the start of WWII. Shortly after December 7, 1941, the family was uprooted from their Gilroy, California farm, taken to the local fairgrounds and then transported to a Japanese Internment camp in Poston, Arizona. Florence’s detailed story of WWII internment replicates the experiences of so ...
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Miles, Ann – Kingston, Lander

Posted on May 10, 2018February 11, 2022 by NWHP

Ann Miles, PA-C, daughter of a Carson City doctor, started a medical clinic in the tiny town of Kingston, thirty miles southwest of Austin. Austin had lost its medical clinic and the closest medical services were located at a Gabbs mine, sixty miles southwest from Kingston and one hundred forty miles from the closest hospital in Battle Mountain. Ann recounts the many undertakings necessary to qua...
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McKay, Anna Burkhardt – Eureka, Eureka

Posted on May 9, 2018February 11, 2022 by NWHP

Anna, at age thirteen, was to graduate from eighth grade when her school was bombed. She recounts the rigors of living in Germany during and post WWII years (1939-1945). At the age of fourteen she went to work for the Americans at an “enlisted men’s club” for occupation soldiers. Those positions were highly sought after by German girls because that gave them access to food, a commodity very scarc...
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Lee, Fern – Fallon, Churchill

Posted on May 9, 2018February 11, 2022 by NWHP

Fern typifies a rural Nevada woman who left Nevada but returned and set out to give back to her community through service. Fern started out in Fallon in the banking business early in her career, about the time computers were becoming commonplace in the banking industry. She had an aptitude for interacting with the public and ultimately was promoted to an Operations Officer. This was in the decad...
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Koyle, Denys – Baker, White Pine

Posted on May 9, 2018February 11, 2022 by NWHP

Nevada is fortunate to have individuals choose Nevada as their home, and who make substantial contributions to the state. Denys typifies that woman. Taking over a run-down gas station located on the Nevada-Utah border in the late 1970s, she has turned it into a productive restaurant, motel, and gas station complex. Denys is also a co-founder of the Great Basin National Heritage Area, the only nat...
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Holub, Pat – Carson City, Carson City

Posted on May 9, 2018January 12, 2021 by NWHP

Pat moved to Nevada with her family from California in 1958. She took painting lessons from some of the best local artists in the Reno/Carson City area and she stresses that she is a “location” painter, not a “studio” painter. Her paintings of buildings and landscapes, done throughout the state over five decades, now have gained historical relevance, as they illustrate how those scenes have n...
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Hilts, Ruth – Reno, Washoe

Posted on May 9, 2018January 12, 2021 by NWHP

Ruth is not only an accomplished longtime artist, but she is also a fount of historical knowledge of the city of Reno. She was born in 1923 when Reno, Nevada’s largest city had a population of about 20,000 and she has participated in all facets of Reno’s community growth as it has reached its current population of 237,000. Not only does Ruth recount her long history in the Reno art community,...
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Helming, Deann – Austin, Lander

Posted on May 4, 2018January 12, 2021 by NWHP

Wyoming native Deann Helming moved to Austin in 1981. Her interview illustrates the self-reliant life of a rural Nevada woman raising a family in a small town (population 192) hundreds of miles away from larger towns, such as Ely (population 4,000) or Fallon (population 8,000), with more shopping opportunities. Clothing, groceries, medical appointments, as well as high school age children’s a...
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Fox, Ada (Sister Michael Fox) – Reno, Washoe

Posted on May 4, 2018January 12, 2021 by NWHP

Sister Michael entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Resurrection in Indianapolis, Indiana and transferred to Nevada in 1956 to help in the building of the Carmel of Reno Order, which had been established just two years before. Although she intended to stay just one year, now more than sixty years later she is still here. Sister Michael is blessed with a wonderful artistic talent and is the ...
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