Letters to the Editor 4-24-14

Support AAUW Healdsburg Home Tour
Editor: May 4th is the 24th annual AAUW Healdsburg Homes Tour. Visitors will have fun discovering Healdsburg’s hidden treasures while supporting AAUW’s educational programs.
Each year the Healdsburg branch of AAUW sends local junior high school girls to Tech Trek Camp at Stanford University; funds continuing education scholarships to women graduating from Santa Rosa Junior College; and supports various other educational programs. This year we will be sending eight girls to Tech Trek. Three of the girls are from Windsor. Of the 54 girls in our GEMS (Girls Engaged in Math and Science) field trips grogram, 22 are from Windsor. The Healdsburg Homes Tour is our primary fund raiser.
Please come to the tour Sunday May 4th from 10:00am to 4:00pm. The tour begins at the Museum, 221 Matheson St. There are six homes within a two mile loop which may be walked or driven wi! th street parking. The American Philharmonic String Quartet will be playing at one of the homes from 12:00 to 2:00. Tickets are $35.00 in advance or $40.00 at the event. Tickets are available at www.healdsburgaauw.com or by cash or check at Levin & Company Booksellers, Copperfield’s Books on the Plaza, or the Healdsburg Museum. Buy raffle tickets at the event to win of six baskets of great prizes each valued at about $1000.00.
Ronnie Devitt
Healdsburg
A sad day
Editor: It is a sad time for the citizens of Healdsburg, Friday, April the 18th, 2014 one of it’s founding father passed away. Not a founding father in the sense that Neil Cronin arrived here in 1857 alongside Harmon Heald to establish this lovely hamlet that 11,000 of us call home and another 3,000,000 visitors trek to annually to relish in the beautiful hillsides and flowing russian river. A founding father in the sense that Neil Cronin set a tone for the town, the Healdsburg that has risen to international relevance for its beautiful attributes including a warm place to visit, where the people are genuine and it reminds you of a place you only dreamed could exist. Neil Cronin and his new bride, Valorie Cronin, to Healdsburg looking for a place to start their fairy tale existence and build ties with a community that would make a difference in each others every day existence. That started happening on day 1, for anyone who! m has ever watched Cheers, you know the value of the local watering hole. In fact, 80% of the people I met in Healdsburg, happened to be bellied up at the bar of John & Zeke’s. From there I have eaten in their homes, conducted countless business deals, been inspired in my writing, celebrated personal and public triumphs, and comforted and been comforted in times of sorrow.
Neil Cronin was our band conductor, he set the tone for this masterpiece. He toiled at building a business where everyone could come and feel at home; his business was more like your back yard than a watering hole.
His participation in community events cannot be told in one writing, there is simply no capacity to do it justice. I will mention a few, which he would scorn me for if he could. I remember Neil having a lucky day at the casino and taking the proceeds to donate to a lucky charity anonymously, or paying off a friends tab who happened to be down on his luck. I recall one Christmas he call! ed me up as I was packing to go back east to visit my family for the holidays, he asked me to join him as he dressed up as Santa Claus to distribute presents to the children of the boys and girls club. I was short on time, but Neil didn’t ask much of others so I felt a special obligation to join him. I must say that I have known Neil quite well for more than a decade, and outside the birth of his pride and joy, Hannah Mae, I have never seen such happiness on his face as he passed out gifts to these children. The disguised personified Neil, he was shy to adornment and adulation and this gave me the perfect vehicle to give of himself to the benefit of others. A selfless man, a man that reset the founding of a community by making it a home for all to kin as we support one another through our trials and tribulations. The legend of Neil Cronin begins, the stories will live on and I just hope you were fortunate enough to participate or at least witness in his being. A good friend died last! Friday and we are sad, but a legend began and we are grateful.
LaMarion Spence
Healdsburg