bohemian Roger Somers. Along with Watts and his soon to be wife Mary Jane Yates, Gidlow planned and then co-founded the Society for Comparative Philosophy here in 1962. This society financed many of the improvements to the property and brought many of the important visitors and "artists in residence" for whom Druid Heights is now known. Besides Alan Watts, notable residents who, through Elsa's largess, found cheap rent and a place to create or escape were David Wills, Catherine Mackinnon, Roger Somers, Sunyata, John Blofeld, and many leaders of various women's rights efforts. The Society morphed into the Druid Heights Artist Retreat after her death whereupon she provided the funds to begin the nascent-albeit short-lived-organization, Druid Heights Artists Retreat; A Facebook group called "Save Druid Heights" has been formed where many today hope to return DHAR to her home at Druid Heights. Gidlow socialized with many famous artists, radical thinkers, mystics, and political activists, including, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Margo St. James, Allen Ginsberg, James Broughton, Baba Ram Dass, Lama Govinda, Robert Shapiro, Maude Oakes, Robert Duncan, Clarkson Crane, Sara Bard Fields, Kenneth Rexroth, Edward Stiles, Roger Somers, Catharine MacKinnon and Maya Angelou. Gidlow helped plan the funeral for her friend Alan Watts, when he died there. The monks from nearby Green Gulch Monastery often came to visit and participated in a ceremony there upon Watts's death which included an Anglican Mass; they then buried half of his ashes near his library at Druid Heights, and brought the second half to Green Gulch Monastery in the nearby valley. Autobiography Gidlow's autobiography Elsa, I Come with My Songs: The Autobiography of Elsa Gidlow, published in 1986, gives a personal and detailed account of seeking, finding and creating a life with other lesbians at a time when little was recorded on the topic; notably, it is the first lesbian autobiography written where the author does not use a pseudonym. It offers a superb account of one eyewitness-participant's view of twentieth-century artistic-bohemian life and of the cultural history of the San Francisco area. Gidlow also openly discussed her lifetime experience as a lesbian in the critically acclaimed 1977 documentary feature Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, which was released theatrically and which was broadcast on many PBS stations around the United States starting in 1978. Death The last few months of her life, Gidlow experienced several strokes. She chose not