Lansdowne Woods:  Backyard Stories

Speaker, Dave Thomas
For twenty-four years, the speaker has experienced the backyards, gardens, woods, and life (wild and otherwise) behind our condo buildings, and he has collected hundreds of photos and many (very short) stories. He promises to select some of the most interesting to prove the old adage that there is “more-than-meets-the-eye” along the perimeter trail of our 46-acre tract. You will also get a glimpse of our transition to Lansdowne Woods in 2016. As many know, we started as Leisure World long before that, in 1997.

David Alden Thomas (yes, one of the millions of descendants of Mayflower pilgrims, namely John Alden and Priscilla Mullins) grew up in Indianapolis, studied metallurgical engineering at Cornell University, and then earned an Sc.D. from MIT. His career was mainly in teaching and research at Lehigh University, after five more years at MIT and five years in industrial research as well. He began learning photography in the darkrooms of microscopy laboratories in academia and now continues as an enthusiastic (but low-tech) digital photographer. Still, family comes first, with his wife Anne of sixty-eight years, children and
grandchildren, and finally the first great-grandchild in 2024.