The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove

Sonoma County’s longtime newspaper columnist and regional historian Gaye LeBaron and co-author, writer Bart Casey have announced the publication of a new history book entitled The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove.

Gaye LeBaron is a native Californian and a 68-year resident of Sonoma County. She wrote her first column for The Press Democrat, after several years as a reporter, in 1959 and was the daily columnist until her retirement in 2001. She continues to contribute a "historical perspective" column twice monthly. She is the author, with three other researchers, of a two-volume local history - "Santa Rosa, a 19th Century Town," and Santa Rosa a 20th Century Town.' and, with Vermont author Bart Casey, "The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove," a history of Santa Rosa's 19th century Utopia.

She lectured for 35 years on Sonoma County history in SRJC's Community Education program and has taught several courses for Sonoma State University's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Her husband of 56 years, photographer and SRJC art faculty member John LeBaron, died in 2014.

Born in Humboldt County, she moved with her family to the Sonoma Valley in 1950 and graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1953. She received an AA "degree from SRJC in 1955 and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957.