I was born in Hollywood, Florida in 1939. After living there and then in Minnesota, my family moved to Palo Alto when I was nine. We rented a four-bedroom, two-story home for $150 per month (and purchased that home a year later for $24,000). I attended Mayfield Elementary, Jordan Middle School, and Palo Alto High School, where I was involved in all sorts of activities. I helped run the Girls’ Jinx talent show when I was a senior. The folk singer Joan Baez was a year behind me at Paly. Her dad was earning his doctorate in physics at Stanford at the time. Even at that young age, Joan was an incredible singer, and her Jinx performance was so magical that I broke the show’s “no encore” rule to bring her back on stage, much to the audience’s delight!
I feel as if I have been finding my way my whole life. I have both meandered and had moments of serendipity that changed my course. I attended Swarthmore in the late 1950’s, and found it – and being on the East Coast – confusing and complex at first. I struggled with a few C’s and D’s before settling in. I sort of fell into being a history major, though, because I wasn’t comfortable with conflict and thought that perhaps I could begin to understand its sources and potential resolution. Then I thought about becoming a diplomat. At Swarthmore, I met a visiting group of Chilean University students who were very critical of U.S. policies in Chile. I was inspired then to learn more about Latin America and to study Spanish intensively. After graduating from Swarthmore, I split the next two years between The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts and the National University of Mexico in Mexico City. For about three years, I worked on U.S.-Latin American projects and spent several months traveling throughout Latin America. The more I learned about our country’s policies, the more disheartened I became.
I was a Vista Volunteer in Spanish Harlem in New York City for the summer of 1967. Coming back to Palo Alto for a visit, I learned of Esalen Institute in Big Sur. I was accepted into a one-year residential program and stayed on to work there for three more years.
After Esalen, I spent a summer in Spain and a year in London, returning to Palo Alto in late 1972. The Bay Area, especially Palo Alto, has been my home base since then. I’ve worked as a caregiver for family members and older friends, a waitress, massage therapist, and house and pet sitter, since I could no longer afford to rent in the Palo Alto area.
My mother was a Unitarian and my older sister and I were members of the Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) of the Palo Alto Unitarian Universalist Church (UUCPA). This was in the 1950s and the physical church hadn’t yet been built. I had heard of plans for Stevenson house, which was to be an affordable home for seniors. I was a great admirer of Adlai Stevenson (who was a Unitarian), but I never could imagine, at that time, being old enough to live here!
How grateful I am for that long-ago planning by the UUCPA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and for the opportunity to be a Stevenson House resident.