As I get older, I am more and more amazed about the story of how my mother, Jane Roberts, decided to go to Ann Arbor. An unlikely odyssey in 1946 for a single young woman of 23, but one that started a chain of events that led to my birth. Thirty-two years later in 1978, I would embark on my own odyssey to Los Angeles, coincidentally at age 23 as well.

Based on her telling, Jane had had a childhood mixing idyllic joys and adventures with some difficult family relationships, particularly with her mother Caroline. Jane was the first of three children, her brother John just two years younger and her sister Pat born to an entirely different generation 14 years later. Continue reading →