True Tales from the Valley of Heart's Delight

About the Event

Did you know that director Alfred Hitchcock once had a home in the Santa Cruz Mountains where events not far from his estate helped inspire the classic horror film “The Birds”? That singer-actor Bing Crosby played an important role in the development of the Los Altos Youth Center? That an extensive interurban rail system once connected the communities of the Santa Clara Valley? These and many other tales are featured in The Valley of Heart’s Delight: True Tales from Around the Bay, the newest book by local author and historian Robin Chapman. Join us at the historic Adobe Building on Sunday February 5, 2023, when we will welcome her as our featured guest speaker.

Whether you’ve lived in the Santa Clara Valley your whole life or just moved here recently, you’re sure to enjoy the author’s fascinating stories from our region’s past that she has uncovered in her research and will share during her talk. She will also be available after the talk to sell and sign copies of her new book. This event is free to all MVHA members and their guests. Suggested $10 donation for non-members. Light refreshments will be provided. We hope to see you there!

About Our Guest Speaker

Robin Chapman is a journalist and historian who is a native of Los Altos. After earning her Master’s Degree at UCLA, she worked as a television news reporter and anchor at several stations in the West, including KRON-TV in San Francisco, before moving to Washington D.C. where she covered the White House, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court (though she likes to add she covered quite a few parades and fires too!). In 2009, she returned to her hometown to care for her parents, and in the years since has published California Apricots: The Lost Orchards of Silicon Valley, and Historic Bay Area Visionaries, both from The History Press. Her new book, The Valley of Heart’s Delight: True Tales from Around the Bay was published by The History Press in July 2022. Robin writes a monthly column for the Los Altos Town Crier and has already begun preliminary work on her next book.

About the Adobe Building

The Great Depression-era Adobe Building was Mountain View's first community center. In 1934, government work-welfare laborers used adobe bricks made on-site to construct the building's walls, giving the building its name in the process. The Adobe has seen many diverse community uses over the years. During World War II, it served as a serviceman's club and hospitality house for veterans. In the 1940s and 1950s it hosted weekly dances for local youth and was known as the "Eagle Shack," named after the mascot of Mountain View High School on Castro Street. Over the decades the building has hosted countless club meetings, classes, weddings, dances, and parties. In the 1990s, the MVHA led efforts to save the Adobe Building from demolition. It was seismically retrofitted and restored in 2001 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The MVHA hosts most of its quarterly membership meetings at the Adobe Building.

Host or Publisher Mountain View Historical Association