Destroyed by the Eaton fire in Altadena this week:
From the website of the Altadena Historical Society.
top photo, Theosophical Library Center on Lake Avenue bottom photo, TS headquarters on Mariposa Street
My first experience with writing for publication occurred in September 1981 with Sunrise Magazine on my first visit to Altadena. I returned repeatedly through the 1980s and contributed regularly to Sunrise. In the 1990s my research interests became local history/genealogy focused as I started to work on a study of Edgar Cayce (published in 1998 as Edgar Cayce in Context) and continued in that direction with Pell Mellers, Carolina Genesis and Letters to the Sage in the 21st century.
The Eaton fire is not the first disastrous incident in southern California involving a Theosophical publisher I knew. Another periodical for which I wrote in the 80s was The Eclectic Theosophist, edited by Emmett Small who owned Point Loma Publications, a small specialty press. After his passing, their entire book and archival inventory was destroyed by fire in October 2007 in San Diego County. The event was called the Witch Fire. Here is Marc Demarest’s post about the implications of the devastating fire in Altadena that destroyed both the TS library and their nearby headquarters, which was also home to the staff. So much to think and talk about re historic preservation as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century.