Constance Lerner was born on September 20, 1929 in New York City, to Max and Anita Marburg Lerner. Both her parents were college professors. Max’s family had immigrated to the US when he was a young child, from Pinsk, Russia, to avoid the pogroms against Jews. He became a syndicated columnist and prolific author. Connie was raised largely by nurses as both her parents worked. She attended City and Country School, an iconic progressive school in Greenwich Village, which she loved. Her parents had two more daughters, Pamela and Joanna. Then they divorced, and Anita moved with the girls to Boulder, Colorado, where Connie attended high school. She played clarinet in the marching band, and always carried a book of poetry in her pocket. She returned to the east coast to attend Smith College for two years, and then Sarah Lawrence College. Sarah Lawrence did not have majors, but I know she studied Greek, Latin and French. My parents occasionally spoke in French when they did not want me to understand them!
In her last year of college, a young man, recently returned from serving as a bombardier in the 12thAir Force in World War II, was hanging out in the school cafeteria. He liked to go to local colleges to check out the girls. He noticed a beautiful girl who went through the cafeteria line three times! Yes, my parents loved food! They met, and the rest is history. I would say that the main thing they had in common was that both had been in psychotherapy, which was a young discipline at that time, for years. In fact, my mother had taken a “time out” at a sanitarium for six months mid-college, after suffering a nervous breakdown.
My mother worked at the New York Times, as secretary to the Sunday Editor, during the early years of her marriage. She loved working there, would pitch story ideas at times, and got a few published. She also represented the New York Times in a beauty contest, and was chosen as runner-up. Meanwhile, her husband, Richard Russell, worked as a textile salesman and designer in the garment district of New York. His boss was Alfred Schlossberg, father of Edwin Schlossberg, who later married Caroline Kennedy. After receiving a small inheritance and tirelessly researching how to invest it, Richard discovered the work of Charles Dow, and had found his inspiration and main influence. With my mother’s encouragement, he quit his job to start Dow Theory Letters, his investing newsletter. He eventually became a well-known financial writer, who added his many thoughts about the arts, politics, lifestyle, psychology, and anything else on his mind; which many subscribers found to be very addictive reading.
Connie quit work right before her first daughter, Daria, was born. Daria was followed by Nicole two years later. Nicki did not develop as expected. When she was two, she was diagnosed with autism, which was almost unknown at the time. She was physically normal, but never developed speech. Nicki got sick a lot, and Richard decided to move the family to sunny San Diego, which he was familiar with due to his love of cacti. It was a bold move to relocate from one of the world’s centers of culture to what was a backwater navy town at the time, and friends thought the Russells had lost their minds. But move they did, and never looked back. We moved into a house practically on the campus of San Diego State University, where we lived for six years.
My parents mainly socialized with other Jewish families, many of whom they met through an old army buddy of my father’s, Jules Pincus. However they did not attend synagogue or formally practice the religion. My parents discovered encounter groups at the local Jewish Center. This happened during a family crisis, precipitated by my father’s unfortunate and apparently psychologically driven habit of shoplifting. He was caught, and my parents were in terrible fear for weeks that he would lose his license from the SEC and thus lose his livelihood. Instead the judge sentenced him to counseling, which encounter groups were considered a form of. He did not lose his livelihood, but did eventually lose his marriage, as an indirect result of this. My mother also participated in the encounter groups, and found her inspiration for the rest of her life.
My sister Betsy was born, five years after Nicki. I had begged my parents to have another child, which they were reluctant to do after Nicki. But Betsy was normal, beautiful, charming, a born actress, and lit up all of our lives.
Connie was a wonderful musician, who had played piano from a young age, and later learned guitar and accordion as well. Both my parents were enamored of the folk music movement of the sixties, and decided to open a folk singing coffee house. They found a closed-down candy factory on El Cajon Blvd., and decided to keep the sign and name. Thus The Candy Company was born, and managed by Cliff Niman. They had many world-class folk singers there, including Lightnin’ Hopkins, Big Mama Thornton, Hoyt Axton, Jack Tempchin and many others.
On the sad side, their marriage had always been rocky. This was the sixties, and both my parents had extramarital affairs, which they were open about, their main creed being radical honesty.
Meanwhile, my parents had struggled mightily with Nicki, their autistic daughter, who was never toilet-trained, and became increasingly agitated and disruptive. She screamed frequently and in public, threw fits that included jumping up and down and hyperventilating, and during the night she smeared feces over the walls of her room and destroyed everything she could, including pulling bathroom fixtures out of the walls. My mother had her on a child leash whenever we went out, so she did not run into traffic and get killed.
Half the time, Nicki was so skinny we were afraid she would starve to death. She would only eat foods of a certain color. She went through a phase of orange foods, in which she ate a ton of carrots, and her skin became tinged with orange. Later in life she decided she liked food, and ate so much that she became obese.
My parents sent Nicki to Blueberry, a pricey boarding school in New York, the best school they could find for someone with autism, for a year and a half, when Nicki was five. I was so relieved, as our family life was finally “normal.” But Blueberry was unable to help Nicki, or even get her toilet-trained, and the nightmare returned. We had live-in help to care for Nicki and the house, and this went from one person to three non-family members living in our home at all times. It meshed with my parents’ increasing interest in encounter groups, which they held a couple of times per week at our house. My mother became the “leader” in this interest. I escaped to the world of horses, which I loved; first in Bonita, and then at La Jolla Farms.
My father then decided to move us to La Jolla, which I was unhappy over, as I’d wanted us to move to Bonita where my horse was. But La Jolla actually turned out to be a happy place, at least for me, while I attended junior high there. My parents lasted another five years in La Jolla Shores, with the encounter groups and the whole menagerie. Then they divorced, while I was attending a hippie boarding school in the Santa Cruz mountains.
After the divorce, my mother bought a church property in Pacific Beach, which included a sanctuary, small house, two-story dormitory, large “fellowship hall” and parking lot. She continued with her encounter group calling, now in the context of a commune. Hundreds of people had passed through her evening encounter groups, and a handful decided to essentially devote their lives to the work, joining the commune. Connie started a non-profit organization called The Psychotheology Center, combining her interests in psychology and spirituality. It later was renamed The Center for Psychological Revolution, and later The Center for the Examined Life. Though it was usually just referred to as “the group.” My mother talked me into joining her group when I was seventeen, and I remained with it for ten years. Betsy left when she was twelve and lived with my father and his second wife, Paula.
Connie was essentially operating as an unlicensed therapist, and the “work” at the Center consisted of around-the-clock “groups,” caring for Nicki and the property, and part-time work to sustain ourselves. Most of us settled on working as school bus drivers for Francis Parker school, which paid a decent wage but was very part-time.
Connie often referred to her “change,” when she felt her life had completely turned around, due to her involvement in encounter groups, honesty, and coming out of her shell, I guess. She celebrated this “anniversary” yearly. Her goal was for others to experience this as well, and the work of the Center was directed toward the “cure” of its participants. Connie believed in telling the truth, not just in the encounter groups, but 24-hours-a-day. This led to rifts with her family and others.
There was much discussion of moral or character precepts, psychological and spiritual principles. My mother was very much ahead of her time, I feel, in her veneration of honesty, the power of small groups, and the need for admitting one’s needs and vulnerabilities. I feel that her work foreshadowed the self-help movement (small groups), reality television (unvarnished honesty) and vulnerability as recently espoused by authors such as Brené Brown. She believed in the power of small groups to change the world. She also had a strong interest in relationships and sexuality. While a strong advocate of commitment and marriage, she also pioneered a concept she called “stellar mates.” She felt everyone had an “earthly mate” (spouse) and “stellar mate,” which was like a therapeutic and spiritual partner.
Connie was quite a writer herself. She wrote an autobiographical article called “How the New Yorker Ruined My Life” and submitted it for publication, but it was not accepted. She self-published a book she wrote called, Nicki: Notebook for a Theory of Autism. I still remember her purchasing an old printing press, and group member Joe Prenn getting it working and printing the book! It came out beautifully and I wish I still had a copy!
Connie bought an old school bus, circa 1957, which we all learned to drive. It not only had a stick shift, but you had to double-clutch it. But we learned, and getting our Class II licenses launched us into our later careers as school bus drivers! Marel rewired the bus and Joe refurbished it with bunk beds and storage bins on top. We took a trip across country to visit with other intentional communities. Mike Gutstadt and others created a film of the experience, called Five American Gurus. I wish I still had a copy!
Connie was helpful to many people, but the group had a definite abusive side. This was due to its more or less being a cult, her complete control over others, the anger and criticism of her relentless confrontations, and things devolving into her classifying people as “good” or “bad.” She reserved her strongest criticism for narcissists, again being ahead of her time in identifying this problematic trait, and “bitches,” her word for the female equivalent of narcissists. People were also essentially used to care for Nicki, and gave up many years of their lives for questionable gains.
People slowly left the group, and she and the few remaining committed souls instituted a program of “exchangers,” where anyone who needed housing could live at the Center in exchange for contributing work, in the form of caring for Nicki or the property. Overseeing all of this was quite taxing, and her health was always on edge. I finally convinced her that she needed to end this experiment, and after about twenty years, she sold the property and got out of her “group” business.
During the next period she joined a group for Jewish senior singles, where she made some wonderful friends. She moved to an apartment near us in Mission Hills. She joined a painting class, which she really enjoyed, where they painted from photographs. She met a man who taught an acting class, and joined his circle of friends.
Then she had a fateful meeting with a group of people who called themselves the “As God All Lives” group. This group was led by a man who called himself Christ Roses, and had around twenty followers. This group was actually similar to my mother’s group (only more extreme), in that there was a small “core” who lived communally, plus other more distant members, and they engaged in a form of all-day meditative prayer they called “sounding,” and had multi-day meetings with their leader periodically. They ate a raw vegan diet that consisted mostly of salads, fruits and nuts. My mother joined this group full-time, and followed it when they moved to Hawaii.
She lived in Hawaii for about ten years. She took Nicki with her, and several members of this group cared for Nicki. All of this care of Nicki, who needed 24-hour, one-on-one care, was always paid for by my father; so this was how many people survived over the years. We visited Connie once in Hawaii, and Betsy visited periodically. My mother was very enamored with one of the group members, As God All Lives Richard. Her feelings were not returned in kind, though he was fond of her and helped her a great deal in her spiritual progress, I would say. I always felt it was poetic justice that my mother had led a cult for many years, and then she joined a cult.
Finally I got a call from Richard that Connie was ready to leave. I was teaching and could not leave my job, so my husband Mike flew to Hawaii to bring her back. There are varying accounts of everything about my mother’s life. My sister Betsy believes she was kicked out of the As God All Lives group because of her “food cheating,” in that she occasionally would eat a salad (minus the meat) at Taco Bell! I would say they kicked her out because she was near death, due to their diet. Although this group still cares for my mother’s elderly and near-blind cousin, Suzanne, whom my mother introduced them to.
So Connie returned to San Diego, and I was able to rent a house across the street from us for her to live in, which was a godsend. She was not in good shape, and Earl, a former group member and old motorcycle buddy of my father’s from the time Earl was a teenager, moved in to care for her. She spent about fifteen years there. She faithfully went to Curves gym for many years, for as long as she could. After my father’s third wife left him, when he was 87, Earl or one of her other caretakers would take her to his house to visit, daily. They did not talk much, but enjoyed being together for several hours every day.
Connie had Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life or so … it’s hard to say. We were extremely blessed to have such loving, competent, patient and tireless caretakers for my father, and then my mother: Editha Espiritu, a dentist from the Philippines, and later her son Robin and his wife Kim. Also my old friend Sharon, who heightened the quality of their lives immeasurably with her foot rubs, music, singing, and practicing her weekly talks for her church on them; plus her beautiful daughter Monica, who also provided care.
Getting back to the story of Nicki, As-God-All-Lives Richard, Anne, Marianah and sometimes Michael cared for Nicki for over 20 years, well beyond the time that Connie left their group. Then one day I got a call out of the blue that they could no longer care for Nicki, and I needed to pick her up immediately.
This was a complete shock, and I scrambled to figure out what to do with Nicki. Thousands if not millions of people in the US are struggling with where to place their autistic children, and it is not easy. A friend told me about a wonderful community in Arizona, the state where Nicki had actually been living for some years, after her caretakers moved there from Hawaii, called Rainbow Acres. Mike and I flew to Arizona several times to make all the arrangements for Nicki to have a provisional stay there. However after two months of a three-month trial, they did not accept her. The Espiritus said they were happy to care for her in addition to Connie, so that’s what happened. I don’t think they had any idea what they were getting into, but they never complained.
While in San Diego, Nicole received services from the Regional Center including their Tailored Day program and respite care, both one-on-one care programs. We had two fantastic behavioral specialists who worked with Nicole, Jara and Sari, who both provided loving and brilliant behavioral support. Jara took Nicole around Ocean Beach, and many store and restaurant proprietors became friendly with her.
We had various crises, including Nicole’s fingertip being bitten off by an equine therapy horse, which led to several hospitalizations, and an overzealous and imaginative caretaker reporting us to Adult Protective Services. We got through all of that, but it was still difficult to find enough caretakers, let alone get them to stay. Finally Nicole got a better social worker at the Regional Center, who provided us with ideas for day programs and group homes that actually had a chance of working.
We tried to place Nicole at Brisas del Sol, a wonderful group home in Boulevard, east of San Diego, but after a weekend stay, they did not accept her. Mike and I made another round of visits of day programs, and liked the ARC program in Kearny Mesa, which Nicole attended during the last months of her life. It was the first time she had ever succeeded in a day program … i.e. not been kicked out. She was transported in a special bus with other clients, which I think she enjoyed. The staff at the day program found her challenging but were fond of her, and she was progressing in going with their program.
The Espiritus also brought in additional relatives from the Philippines – brother Paul and cousin Andre – so we finally had enough caretakers. After her day program, Paul and Andre would take Nicole for a long walk, and out to eat at Jack-in-the-Box or another place she enjoyed. The Espiritus also took her on outings such as the beach and Sea World, which I’m glad she got to finally visit.
On the last day of their lives, Robin was about to shower Nicole, when she had a seizure. She’d had several grand mal seizures in her life, usually as a result of her ingesting a non-food or drug that did not agree with her, and was on anti-seizure medication. There was no apparent reason for this seizure, but they called me, and Mike and I went across the street. I told them to let Nicole stay where she was lying and sleep it off. Sometime later they came over, saying that Nicole was not breathing. She had died, for no known reason. Robin told Connie, who got tears in her eyes, and then she stopped breathing, an hour or two after Nicole.
We all felt it was sweet and fitting that this mother who had devoted so much of her life to Nicole departed from the earth at the same time. Maybe Nicole did not want to live without Connie, whose time was clearly almost up. Connie either wanted to follow and still be with Nicole, or perhaps felt that her job was finally finished. What a job she did. May they both finally communicate with each other, and joyfully cavort in heaven together.
— Daria Russell Doering
Daria Doering 