Short Takes Short Takes (September 22, 2004)

Hazel drops by

Hazel Galbreth, the legendary retired secretary to superintendents in the Menlo Park City School District for about three decades -- from Franklyn White to Martha Symonds -- popped into Laurel School recently.

After retiring in the early 1980s, Mrs. Galbreth kept coming back to help out at the district office, business office and every school site. She's the institutional memory of the district, going back to the days when the district office was at the Glenwood site.

Mrs. Galbreth moved to Sarasota, Florida, a couple of years ago to be close to her son and grandchildren, but she returns to visit friends in the district and community. "I keep connected," she says, with a twinkle in her eye, by reading the latest in the Almanac each week.

Her many friends in the district say they miss her wonderful sense of humor and willingness to tackle any job with good cheer.

Exotic local angle

There's always a local angle, most seasoned newspaper editors say. And the local Portola Valley connection extends to TheatreWorks' world premiere of "A Little Princess" at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

Playwright Brian Crawley, who also wrote the lyrics, is the son-in-law of Denise and Jim Stanford; he's married to their daughter Katherine. He spent much of the summer in the Stanfords' home in Portola Valley rewriting and getting ready for the play's opening.

Some of the inspiration for the play's Timbuktu setting also came from the Stanfords.

Over the years, Mr. Crawley had heard stories of Denise Stanford's father, an anthropologist who lived in Timbuktu. Mr. Crowley borrowed her collection of explorers' accounts written during the 1800s in West Africa and immersed himself in the failed explorers' expedition. He imagined the novel's story set in an earlier era, at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign, and in Africa instead of India.

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