Thursday, April 2, 1998 | 10:28 a.m.
Relatives of Walter Farnsworth Vance don't know why he decided to come to Las Vegas during his retirement years to earn a living as a low-limit gambler or even how he got interested in such a pastime.
His sister, Ruth Jones, of Loogootee, Ind., admits she does not know a whole lot about her brother's life since he moved here 20 years ago, but says he did "OK for himself" as a proposition poker player, craps shill and horse bettor at downtown casinos.
Although Vance wasn't a famous gambler, Jones was nevertheless surprised when no mention was made in Las Vegas newspapers of his March 20 death from heart failure at University Medical Center. He was 80.
"March is a sad time for our family," Jones said. "Over the years, in the month of March, I have lost my husband, Brownie; my 3-year-old son, Corwin Michael; and now my brother. Our brother Fritz also died in March.
"Walter was a decent man with a great laugh, though people told me in recent years he could be stubborn at times. I just think it would be a shame if his friends in Las Vegas weren't notified that he had died."
Vance, a retired Air Force captain, was buried with full military honors at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City on March 25.
Davis Paradise Valley Funeral Home handled the arrangements. A mortuary official said Wednesday that at the request of the person who made the arrangements, no death notice was released to newspapers. The mortuary declined to release any further information about Vance.
Southern Nevada mortuaries are not required to publish death notices. However, most of them, including Davis, release such notices to newspapers on a daily basis to alert people of the death and time of services, unless clients request otherwise.
The SUN runs obituaries at no charge to the mortuaries or the public.
Born Jan. 30, 1918, in Waynesville, Ill., Vance grew up there and in Decatur, Ill. He had three older brothers, all of whom preceded him in death, and two younger sisters who survive him.
As a teenager, Vance, like many other young men of the Depression era, quit high school to join the Civilian Conservation Corps in Decatur. He later enlisted in the Air Force and served in the South Pacific with a medical unit during World War II, Jones said.
Vance eventually climbed to the rank of captain before retiring to Decatur, his family said.
In 1978, he moved to Las Vegas and began supplementing his service pension with gambling winnings.
"He played poker and craps and kept up with the horses," Jones said, noting that her brother never told his family where he worked as a shill and proposition player. "My brother also was an avid reader."
A shill is a gambler who is paid a wage by a casino to use the casino's money to keep a game going and eventually draw other players into the action. A proposition player is a gambler who is paid a wage by a casino but uses his own money to keep a game going and eventually draw other players into the action.
Fewer and fewer casinos use shills and props these days because it no longer is cost-effective to hire players when there generally are enough regular players participating on a daily basis to keep games going.
However, in the 1970s and '80s, low-limit gamblers like Vance could make a decent living off a shill or proposition player's salary coupled with their gambling winnings and two free meals a day in the employee dining hall.
"Walter said he found it easier to breathe in Las Vegas," Jones said, noting that Vance had a respiratory ailment. "He also liked the warm climate. He lived in an apartment on North 11th Street and walked to a lot of the places where he gambled."
Early last year, Vance suffered a stroke and spent the better part of the year recovering at a health care center on West Charleston Boulevard, Jones said.
In addition to Jones, Vance is survived by another sister, Dorothy Lane of El Paso, Texas; and a sister-in-law, Nelly Vance of South Holland, Ill.
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