Dark inheritance

1954

Born in Tulare, California, Kathleen O'Neal Gear is one of six children. Her parents, Harold Arthur O'Neal and Wanda Lillie O'Neal, left Oklahoma and Arkansas during the Dust Bowl and moved to California. For most of Kathleen's youth, her parents owned and operated a small farm in the central San Joaquin Valley of California, growing primarily cotton and alfalfa. But at the same time, her father authored more than fifty short stories, and her mother worked as a newspaper journalist. Kathleen received her B.A., cum laude, from California State University in Bakersfield, and her M.A., summa cum laude, from California State University in Chico. She conducted Ph.D. studies at the University o…