From the archives

Poignant human drama in San Diego

Down side of in vitro fertilization, Mark Twain's daughter, foster care, life of blind, biggest family, what women want

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When her mother walked in the door late that afternoon and sat down with the assembled children, Margaret says she already knew her sister was dead.

  • Never Die

  • They used birth control until Jeffry finished three years of chiropractic school, passed his preceptorship, and established a practice in San Diego. Then, in their mid-30s, with “it’s now or never” nagging them, they dropped their protective shields and went at it, a pleasure as often as it was a duty.
  • By Thomas Larson, March 23, 2000
Cristen, Jeffry, and Jayden Hays. Suddenly an idea lit up in Cristen; she thought of her older sister Candace. (Sandy Huffaker, Jr.)

  • I Am Your Loving Daughter Clara Clemens

  • In 1940, the recently widowed and wealthy Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch bought a small estate in the Hollywood hills and sought counsel from a medium named Sardoney about her love life. Known also by his epithet the Human Radio, Sardoney channeled news that a fresh husband was in transit and that Clara could not “escape this appointment with Destiny.”
  • By Thomas Larson, May 8, 2003
Twain with Clara and Jean. Clara spent her childhood and adolescence with her older sister Susy and younger sister Jean, in the 19-room mansion in Hartford, Connecticut.

  • Hard Freedom: Life After Foster Care

  • Leaving home is one of the defining events of growing up. The first taste of freedom from parental boundaries can be exhilarating. But for teens in San Diego County’s foster care system who have lost contact with their parents and who can no longer expect support from their foster parents, leaving home may be the ultimate disconnect.
  • By Robert Kumpel, Nov. 21, 2001
Group meeting at Turning Point. Tonya Hall: "My parents were using drugs, but two years down the line, they got clean and we went back home."

  • What is Beauty to the Blind?

  • When we began our lunch, the sun was just burnishing the windowsill. It was a hot day and Linda had left the window open so that air could circulate. But because the sun moves, by the time we finished eating, a great deluge of sunlight was pouring into the room. Light crashed onto the dining table, where it reduced our luncheon things — the knives and forks and glasses and plates smeared with the remains of our meal — to a single intense glare. I shut my eyes, squinching them so tight that neon shapes pulsed against my lids.
  • By Jangchup Phelgyal, Feb. 17, 2000
Linda Flores and Kevin Kelly, both born prematurely. It was discovered, eventually, that an excess of oxygen damages the infant’s retinas and optic nerves, but the fruits of this medical research came too late.

  • They Won the Biggest Family Contest

  • She was smiling broadly and leaning toward a man with graying temples, who seemed to be whispering in her ear. Eighteen-month-old twins sat on his lap. Around the man and woman, 11 other boys and girls ranging in age from 3 to 17 pressed close. “Mrs. Richard Lovell, 40, is surrounded by her 14 children as she prepares for Mother’s Day at home,” read the caption.
  • By Jeannette DeWyze, March 28, 2002
The Lovell family. "We didn’t want to have spaghetti. We threw it all over the wall, all over each other. Even the youngest ones. There was spaghetti on the baby — just everywhere!”

  • What Do Women Want?

  • It's been nearly a century since Freud asked his famous question about the nature of female desire, and very few men that I know are any closer to an answer than Freud was. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, shortly after going through my own divorce, I belonged to a men’s group that met weekly, and I was regularly hearing the stories of men troubled by the fact that they had been unable to make their relationships work and distressed by their inability to understand what makes women tick.
  • By Fred Moramarco, Oct. 2, 2003
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