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She was like an adopted Mother to Lcdr Dick Perry. Who was shot down and killed over Viet Nam. Lady Jessie was married to Fred Beck they ran the Keno game at Harold's Club in Reno. They became acquainted with Dick Perry who worked part-time at Harold's as a dealer before becoming a Navy Pilot. She was always sending us care packages of playing cards and stuff from the casino. She continued this long after the death of Lcdr Dick Perry. We named Dick Perry's plane 407 after Lady Jessie for her continued support of Attack Squadron 164. Later VA-164 continued to honor the gracious lady from Reno after Dick's death by displaying her name on each CO's aircraft until the squadron was disestablished Dec 12, 1975.
I later had the pleasure of meeting Lady Jessie in the late 70's and found her to be just as caring and generous on each of my following trips to Reno.
Lady Jessie later went on to buy Jessie Beck's Riverside Casino. The Casino later closed down but for some time it still bore her name until the mid 90's. I was in Reno in 1997, I took a walk down to the Riverside only to find a wrecking crew starting to tear it down. I took out my camera and the above picture is probably the last to be taken of Jessie Beck's Riverside Casino. You can still see where the letter "B" for Beck shows through, where a later owner tried to change it to a "P". Naval Aviation lost a devoted friend when Jessie Beck, 83, died in Reno, Nevada, in July 1987. As the first woman to own a major Nevada casino - the Riverside Hotel and Casino, she was called "the gambling grandmother," but to Air Wing 16 she was "Lady Jessie." |
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