GROWING UP WITH SUMMERLAND

Carpenteria, California: Carpenteria Valley HIstorical Society, 1975. Hardcover. Very Good Plus in Good Dustjacket. 8vo. Brown cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. Some edgewear and chipping to dustjacket, which has done a creditable job protecting its book. Privately printed (Carpenteria Historical Society) account of the spiritualist community called Summerland. "We lived in a tent down on Lillie Avenue when I arrived in 1890 at the age of swixteen...Santa Barbaras were poking fun at our village, calling it 'Spookville' because it started out as a spiritualist colony..."

Author May Croop Lambert "lived to be almost 101 and her kaleidoscopic memories have been set down in sharp focus..." She describes her tender romance with a future county road builder named Fred Lambert, and how they raised their eight children through good times and bad. She served oin the local school board...and tells of such things as the vile-smelling Summerland kelp factory of World War I days, and the devastating earthquake of 1925...Her book was originally intended for family consumption, but it was obvious to the community that her contribution to Americana warranted publication..." (from Foreword, by Walker A. Tompkins).