Over the last 15 years in Ukiah, Sande has fostered many kittens, planted a lot of native plants, worked in hospice, said goodbye to Echo, said hello to Echo Too, and been a supportive friend to many.

Throughout these last few years she’s held all that love in her cozy little nook above a garage on Holden street, but she’s facing a transition in life - a transition that requires fewer stairs! Carrying groceries up her stairs has become awkward and difficult.

(a couple years ago with a foster kitten, at Holden street)

I am writing to ask you to help us renovate a ground-floor one-bedroom apartment for Sande to move into this coming January. This is a unit that John and I own, but it needs work to be made elderly-friendly.

I’m in nursing school so John is supporting our family on his salary, and we don’t have a big reserve of cash to pay for the work. So here’s my idea: If her friends and family can help me raise money for the renovation, I will match each $1,000 with a month of free rent, and it will be a gift from all of us. That way we can raise the lump sum, and she can save her money for a trip to India to visit Mira Sadgopal, or any other special thing she wants to do.

What we’d like to do: Replace the bathtub with a walk-in ADA shower, add grab bars around the toilet, install a washer/dryer inside the unit so she doesn’t have to walk outside carrying her laundry, replace the gas stove with an induction stove, replace the carpet with wood flooring, and eliminate one outdoor step (of two). These renovations would make the apartment safe and more pet friendly.

So, if you’d like to show your support at the beginning of this new transition, here is our opportunity. Beyond her work with kittens and native plants, I want to tell you a little about why I am so grateful to Sande. Her mother and my paternal grandmother were best friends, and so after the 1966 plane crash, their family invited my father Henry to join them every Christmas. When he had kids, she spent hours and hours wandering in the woods at Leonard Lake with us, and opened her home to us, whether it was a tiny trailer on a cattle ranch in Bolinas, a traditional adobe in Fabens, TX, or a big farmhouse in Estancia, NM. When I was a teen, she was like a second mother to me. When my maternal grandparents moved in with us, she sat with them and patiently asked questions and transcribed their memories of fleeing Nazi Germany and living in war-torn Japan. When my father was dying of pancreatic cancer, she managed his IV infusions and was by his side every step of the way, even after he passed on. She saw and honored and laughed at echos of him everywhere. When I had kids, she babysat them. She and Jock didn’t have kids, but she supported children of all species, and the vulnerable, everywhere she lived.

The apartment is just a couple blocks from my mom and Tim, with an enclosed yard for Echo Too. It is slightly larger than her current place, but close enough to maintain her community. Any amount you can give would be appreciated - and if you prefer a direct loan, I can pay it back over time (send me a direct message). Hoyt Construction has agreed to the work and will try to get it done by January 1st. I can write up a card from everyone who contributes, and then she’ll have a Christmas present from her entire community. She’ll have more space to host visitors, including overnight guests, so I hope you visit.

What We Need

We need $23,000 to cover the renovation. I will match every $1,000 raised with a month of free rent for Sande.

The Impact

Sande will be able to live independently for as long as possible with her animal companions in a safe, pleasant, and affordable space.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can spread the word to other friends of Sande, please do! If you're free in January, she may need help moving. If you like building things, I'd love to add another enclosed area right around her front door, so that Echo Too will be safe.

Who is completing the work?

Greg Hoyt is a professional licensed and bonded contractor in Ukiah who has worked for me before. He charges fairly and his team does excellent work. He will start on December 1st and finish in the first week of January.

What is the market rate for the apartment?

The market rate for that one-bedroom, which is part of a 4-plex, is about $1,500 per month. A lower amount is still sustainable for John and me.

Baby Echo Too with my daughters

If you're curious, here is a link with pictures that show the space as it is now:

https://airbnb.com/h/grove1 (just my iphone photos, not professional)

And here's an excerpt of a conversation I had with Sande in February 2023. It was for a nursing school project, so I had some set questions, but they feel worth sharing, and I have her permission to share.

Rose: As a result of your life experiences, what do you feel has had the most positive effect on you?

Sande: Positive - my dad’s sense of awe and wonder. He would always observe things and say, isn’t that amazing?

But, another thing was when I had brain surgery at 12 years old, I wasn’t supposed to live, but then I did. They thought I would be a vegetable, fine motor, gross motor, language, all of it, gone. I was in the hospital so long that I was really weak when I went home. One of the first days at home I was struggling to walk across a room and I started to cry, asking “why did this have to happen to me?” and my mother stopped me, and said “Sande these things happen, but why do they happen to anyone?” That had a lasting effect. I learned a lot from being so sick.

Rose: Tell me about any events that influenced your life.

Sande: I remember when your aunt Sara committed suicide (she was institutionalized for schizophrenia at Langley Porter and jumped off the roof in 1961), my mother looked like she could have ripped out her heart to give it to Susanna (Sara’s mother), if that would have helped. They were so close. Susanna was a role model for me, her parties, the way she made presents for every guest, even the tiniest ones. I loved Susanna. She had a lightness and respect for everyone. She was like a second mother. Later I got close to an aunt, but Susanna was the one who was nearby and part of our lives every day.

But after the plane crash in 1966, those years, that was so hard. Did I ever tell you how I heard the news about the plane crash? It was 11am Christmas morning and I was at my parent’s house in Belvedere. A neighbor across the road called on the telephone. She said ‘hello, I heard something on the radio and I think it's about your friends with the last name like Bacon. Can you tell your mom to turn on the radio?’ So I put down the phone, and walked through the living room, past my boyfriend on the couch, and as I was walking I was saying No. No. No. I told my mom, and she turned on the radio.

That was a rough Christmas. I think they were found on Mira’s birthday, January 3rd. I made a film for my art class about the horses at the lake and when I finished and showed it to the class it helped me let go. Another Christmas shortly after the crash we were at Fort Cronkhite with your father Henry, we always invited him after that year, and Henry told me that Stubby the horse had died. I did a split second of “oh poor me” and then I remembered who I was talking to. Susanna had loaned Stubby to me for one school year, previously. I boarded him at Tennessee Valley Stables. We rode all over those hills. He loved to run! This was before Judith died in the car crash. Henry wasn’t married yet.

There was a lot my mother didn’t share about her grief and I wish she had. I just wish we had all been encouraged to express ourselves. My closest friend in the family was Mira, but she was gone in India. I felt so alone. No one said ‘this is easy!’

The Vietnam war also had a big impact on my childhood. My mom got terribly depressed.

I got my sadness from my mother. I remember she said to me “manic depressives like you and me sometimes need to get help.” So she got me to a therapist, but she never got help for herself. I recently asked my sister what she remembered of me during adolescence and she said “you were either sad or angry.” Like, really frustrated. The therapy didn’t help. Working with horses and going to the lake, being in nature, that was my therapy.

Mama and baby at the Upper Ranch (by me, oil pastel)