The Penderwicks at Last 

Jeanne Birdsall

On their first date, Patrick and Dorothy Yeung talked at a Mexican restaurant for six hours. They even discussed marriage, and found they shared a desire for “as many kids as God would give,” Patrick says.

But four years into the Yeungs’ marriage, Dorothy still hadn’t conceived, although she and her husband yearned for children.

Doctors told the St. Louis, Mo., couple that their only hope for biological children was in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process they opposed as Catholics. The Yeungs began to pursue adoption, but still wanted answers about their infertility.

Strays 

Remy Wilkins

A Boy Called Dickens 

Deborah Hopkinson

A Little Taste of Poison 

R.J. Anderson

SAN FRANCISCO—This year marks the 50th anniversary of San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love—a summer that quickly turned into a winter of discontent, rife with drug overdoses, sexually transmitted diseases, and other miseries. The deteriorating Haight-Ashbury scene proved fertile ground for the Jesus Movement, as disillusioned hippies professed faith in Christ. Many, now old, remember those weird and wonderful days.

SANTA ROSA, Calif.—As newly married and newly saved hippies, my in-laws once lost their few possessions in a flood that submerged the tree house they built and lived in on an Oregon communal property. They have mostly laughed about this, only wishing sometimes they had retrieved more than one washed-out wedding photo.