The Family Fables

I was born in an orphanage and adopted by my father, Orval Locke, a pharmacist. I had several mothers. I worked for my father from age six as a soda jerk, clerk, and toy manager before I attended college. I wed a bipolar husband, whose suicide left me with two children and no close family. I was also a professional singer, choir director, assistant embalmer, EMT ambulance driver, substitute teacher, social worker, founder of the Contra Costa Food Bank, public defender placement officer, and social worker in the Delano Grape Strike assigned to Cesar Chavez. These stories begged to be told.