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!”

Never Die

Like many newly married couples, Cristen and Jeffry Hays wanted to get pregnant soon after their wedding in 1992 but felt it best to wait.

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.

For a year, nothing happened. Something was wrong, and the Bakersfield natives suspected the problem was inside Cristen.

By Thomas Larson, March 23, 2000 | Read full article

Ewa Carrier: "Abortion is different than therapeutic [surgery]. I have no problem with this, being Catholic myself.”

I Am Your Loving Daughter Clara Clemens

Decent men elude Mark Twain’s child

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.” The irrepressible Clara opened herself to the possibility. Soon she met and started dating a dashing Russian émigré musician, who claimed to have conducted many of the world’s greatest orchestras and to be well acquainted with several U.S. presidents.

By Thomas Larson, May 8, 2003 | Read full article

Diamond ring Clara gave Dr. Seiler. The inscription reads, “To Bill Seiler, from Clara Clemens Samossoud, the last of the Twains.”

Photo by Dave Allen

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.

…. Some teens are emancipated on their 18th birthday, others after graduating from high school. In rare cases, 16-year-olds petition the court for emancipation, usually because they are already living on their own. Last year in San Diego County, approximately 200 foster kids were emancipated. Some went to college, some found work, and some ended up on the street.

By Robert Kumpel, Nov. 21, 2001 | Read full article

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?

They were being murdered by the light. I watched and said nothing.

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 | Read full article

When Kevin graduated from the School for the Blind, he typed 80 words per minute, played the piano, and was fluent in Braille.

They Won the Biggest Family Contest

Almost everyone who skimmed the San Diego Union on May 9, 1964, would have noticed the photo that ran at the top of the front page of the local section.

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 | Read full article

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.

Drew Friedman

What Do Women Want?

The gender wars’ male casualties

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 | Read full article