Jerome Travel Grant

I was notified last week that I have received a Jerome Travel Grant to research the last years of Camilla Hall, a Minnesota native who was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s. This research will take me to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she spent the last three years of her life before she was killed in a May 1974 shootout with police.

I plan to go out there for a couple of weeks in July.

Camilla was the subject of my master's thesis and I've always wanted to pursue it as a book project. Her story really is captivating. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and professor, she was active in anti-war protests in the 1960s and by the time she moved to California, she had come out as a lesbian. It appears she was "sucked into" the SLA through her lover, Patricia Soltysik. The dynamics of their relationship are still rather mysterious and likely will always have an air of mystery since Pat was killed in the shootout, too. Everyone who knew Camilla best is dead, which poses a challenge for me. But I'll see what I can find out in California.