The Party Line: Coming of Age in Healdsburg. This item is unavailable.The Party Line: Coming of Age in Healdsburg

The Party Line title came from our rural phone line where you could dial a neighbor with the turn of a crank on the wooden box phone The atmosphere of a small town, the playgrounds presented by Fitch Mountain, and the capricious Russian River combined to shape the authors’ young lives. Summers in prune and hop orchards exposed them to agricultural life.  Healdsburg has modernized its stores, yet retains its style and class. It has spared the plaza where Saturday night band concerts were an important part of the times. The town, the mountain and the beaches still appeal to kids of today; and a soon-to-be Fitch Mt. Park will sanction aformerly clandestine hiking area. Healdsburg continues to be special.

Bob Kirkpatrick was born in Fort Bragg and became a resident of Healdsburg in 1930 at the age of one. He attended Healdsburg schools, U.C. Berkeley, and received an Ed D from Stanford in 1962. He served as superintendent of school systems in Los Banos, Merced, and Willits. He supervised teachers for Dominican College and taught ceramics at Mendocino College. Bob and his wife, Kathleen, live on a fifteen-acre garden site in Willits, CA. Don Kirkpatrick was born in 1931, attended Healdsburg schools, U.C. Berkeley, San Francisco State, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1971. He worked in education for almost forty years as a teacher and school administrator. After fourteen years as Superintendent of the Mendocino School District, he retired and accepted a job in Saudi Arabia as superintendent of the Saudi International School District in Dhahran. Shirley Morehouse came to Healdsburg in 1940 when in the fourth grade. She graduated from Healdsburg High School and received an A.B. and a teaching credential from U.C. Berkeley. She taught a total of 23 years as an elementary teacher in Winters and Fort Bragg. The most exciting years of her teaching career took place in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War from 1989 through 1992. Don and Shirley Morehouse Kirkpatrick were married in the Healdsburg Federated Church in 1953. Next February they will celebrate sixty years of marriage. They have lived in the Mendocino Community for the last 37 years. Betty Kirkpatrick Vrenios was born in 1940, attended Healdsburg schools, and studied music at the University of Pacific, Northwestern, and the University of Indiana. She is Professor emeritus of vocal music from American University in Washington D.C. and is past president of the National Opera Association. She now lives in Bethesda, Maryland, but has a second home in Mendocino, CA, where she is the founder and Artistic Director of the Redwoods Opera Workshop.