Promise of Paradise Episode 24: Bill Heil and Zo Abell

This is Laura Hamburg with Kate Magruder for Promise of Paradise, Back to the Land oral histories of Mendocino County. Today we’re bringing you the story of Table Mountain Ranch, a commune in Albion, which lasted for 20 years.  We’ll hear from two of the commune’s earliest settlers: Zo Abell and Bill Heil. Bill, who describes himself as an aging hippie, runs a saw mill business, and Zo is a life-long educator.  Zo grew up on the East Coast with her Yiddish-speaking grandmother; Bill was a bible student in a German household in deep south Alabama.  Both were looking for their tribe. They found it on a piece of land at the end of Albion Ridge Road.