My writing of " Memories" has been a labor of love for several seasons. The first section covers the years from 1932 to 1951. The second edition details 1951 to 1964, and the third covers 1964 to the present. The day after Labor Day in 2002 marked the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Civin family in Spencer. It was in the heart of the Great Depression when my parents established a tiny dry goods store at 47 Mechanic Street in Spencer, MA. Marty Civin http: //memoriesbymartycivin.blogspot.com/

We were indeed in deep trouble. The Monsoon rains were horrendous, with heavy clouds and rain reaching far down to the ground. We couldn’t land, leaving two very difficult alternatives; bail out now, hopefully in the vicinity of our China base (and not a lake), or fly west, over the Hump, in hopes of finding a safe place to land in the Assam Valley of India. We had enough fuel and hence made the fateful decision not to bail out and to chance a flight over the Himalayan Mountains once again. What we would face over the Hump was hard to predict, given the lack of communication and weather stations in that part of the world. Well, we found out very suddenly when the turbulence hit us. The aircraft was thrown about a lot, with updrafts and down drafts of thousands of feet. It was quite a challenge keeping the airplane under control. My seat and seatbelt alternatively felt the stresses with my stomach caught up in the middle. How I then wished that we had chosen to bail out.

The author and her three brothers, left orphans at an early age, were raised together by guardians.

Leman acted throughout post Gold Rush California and gave much detail on actors and on the theater of the time.

Scripts, interviews, photos, and critical commentary documenting the riotous beginnings of this long-lived experimental theater space for women