LAKE COUNTY — Frances E. Crary, Ph.D. gardener, rancher, poet, novelist, college teacher, counselor, friend and role model to innumerable residents of Lake County since 1960, died Jan. 24 at the age of 88. At the end of 2009, she was still facilitating a book study group in Lucerne, another in her home and until 2008 met weekly with a peer counseling group at Lakeport Senior Center.
Crary, who was born Nov. 8, 1921 in Ohio, served as an Army Air Corps medical officer in WWII. She spent the last 50 years of her life in Lake County.
Moving from the Napa Valley in 1960, Crary and a few friends hand-built three houses and a barn on their scenic ranchland near Upper Lake. There Crary adopted and raised her niece Jennifer.
Studying and practising humanistic psychology and meditation techniques for many years, Crary had an intense curiosity and desire to help the world around her evolve in positive ways. She was acquainted with Alan Watts and other wisdom teachers, psychologists and therapists during the ?explosion” of new thought in the 1970s and 1980s, offering her home as a safe haven in the Spiritual Emergency Network formed by Stanislav Grof.
Crary”s lifelong sense of community responsibility brought great benefit to this county. While teaching at Yuba College”s Clear Lake Campus, she gathered students” writings into the first issue (1976) of the Mayacamas Journal and formed the Lake County Writers” Guild, producing further issues in 1979 and 1981. The Clear Lake Clarion was a magazine published by Clear Cut Press, which Crary helped set up in 1982. Also in the 1980s she completed a doctorate in psychology; set up county-wide support groups for women and for men; and established Senior Support Services with therapist Caroline Brown: a program training volunteers to do peer counselling with seniors.
Crary was also active in creating AWARE, the county”s first center offering resources for abused women.
Crary and her friends raised sheep, turkeys and bullocks for meat, and established a quality vineyard. Crary bred pedigree collies and developed a bountiful organic garden, as well as an extensive and inspiring flower garden with pathways and areas for reflection or meditation. While teaching classes in Creative writing and communication at both Yuba and Mendocino Community College campuses in Lake County.
Crary wrote three sizeable novels: “We Who Live in the Castle” and “People of the Valley,” Vol. 1, “Awakening” and Vol. 2, “Journey.” Crary also authored countless poems reflecting her deep appreciation of country life and people and her own spiritual insights. “Markers and Milestones,” a chapbook of her poetry, was published in 1984.
Sandra Wade is immediate past poet laureate for Lake County.
