|
Born during World War II in London, England, I was evacuated to a family who adopted me at war's end. When they moved to London in 1947, I attended all girls boarding & day schools, St. Martin's School for Arts & Crafts before taking training at Marlborough Gate Secretarial College. I worked as a Temp before gaining the position of Export Secretary for the 200 year old distillery in Earls Court. When it was consumed by a conglomerate, I was elevated to Publicity Secretary & was being groomed to the secretary-ship for a Director, when I decided to see the world. I was also a longtime volunteer typist & agitator in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
When I was 22, I emigrated to Chicago, Illinois where I eventually landed the position of Secretary to the Director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. There I worked closely with Rabbi Robert J. Marx, in the newly-founded Inter-religious/Inter-racial agency & events. It was here that I was privileged to get to know many luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement, in particular, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Later, when I became Administrator of the Union Institute Camp I was asked by dozens of suburban parents to track down their children during the 1960s runaway phenomenon.
In 1969 I joined the Counter Culture where I burnt my bra, bought into a second hand bookstore & sewed custom clothing. I joined a commune, took training as a member of George's LSD Rescue Squad & advocated for runaways through the Grace Lutheran Church program. I was also a longtime volunteer at Alice's Revisited & the underground newspaper The Seed.
In the 1970s I gave birth to my daughter & son, & headed for California to start my own home cleaning business, volunteer at my children's alternative school, take Women's Studies courses at Laney Community College &, before there were any agencies, worked with battered women & children.
In the 1980s I moved my family to Port Townsend in the Pacific Northwest where I took training in the county Domestic Violence Prevention Program where I was a Children's Advocate & founded the Walk & Talk Step-Son Safety Course. For nearly a decade I earned my keep as the Managing Editor, Bulk Mailing Crew Coach & Staff Reviewer for the Townsend Letter for Doctors, an alternative medical news magazine.
When I was called to The Drum, I was drawn into the Women's Spiritual Movement on the Olympic Peninsula. I took training under a Master Drum Maker to become a Midwife of Spirit Drums. For many years I participated in & was an organizer for the annual Women's Midsummer Long Dance. I was also a longtime member of WomanFest.
When I turned 50, I married & together my husband & I published Wolf's Digest of Alternative Medicine until my father-in-law had a stroke & we all had to reconsider our priorities. That is when we moved further west & began homesteading in the rainforest.
There, while taking care of my father-in-law during the last years of his life, my husband built my website & I began taking my writing seriously.
|