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AURORA - Victoria MacKenzie met Richard Childs at Alfred University in the mid-1970s, when both were working toward their graduate degrees in ceramic sculpture. Victoria, originally from San Francisco, and Richard, from Massachusetts, both became disillusioned with the fine-arts world. "It was not quite as altruistic as we'd imagined in our idealistic world," Victoria says. "It was much more politically oriented than artistically oriented."
After graduating, the couple moved to the United Kingdom, where - they worked at a pottery for a few years before moving back to New York State. In New York, Richard took a part-time teaching job at Wells College in Aurora. The couple's young daughter, Heather, wanted to go to ballet school overseas and since the couple wasn't financially able to accommodate her, Heather says she sold raspberries from the back field until she raised enough money for the trip.
But Heather didn't raise enough money to get back home. Victoria...