Elizabeth Robinson

Who writes epistolary novels these days? Who even knows what they are? Even though the concept of telling a fictional story through letters seemed so, well, 18th century, Elisabeth Robinson went ahead with it anyway. "People were saying, 'Don't do it'; they'd say it was unsellable," says the author of the new novel "The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters," a first novel receiving the kind of advance hype usually reserved for movies starring hobbits.

Who writes epistolary novels these days? Who even knows what they are? Even though the concept of telling a fictional story through letters seemed so, well, 18th century, Elisabeth Robinson went ahead with it anyway. "People were saying, 'Don't do it'; they'd say it was unsellable," says the author of the new novel "The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters," a first novel receiving the kind of advance hype usually reserved for movies starring hobbits.

Elizabeth Robinson Schwartz, the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in track, is dead at 87 of cancer. In 1928, Schwartz won the gold medal in the 100-meter dash in a world-record 12.2 seconds.

Nearly 400 children participated in the Saddleback Valley YMCA's fifth annual Backyard Swim Program. Children 6 months to 3 years old participated in the recently completed Waterbabies sessions (also called the Mommy and Me programs), which are designed to help youngsters become acquainted with the water and learn fundamental aquatic skills. The Tadpoles division, a beginning swimmer course, accepted children 3 to 5 years old.

Fernando Flores, 66, whose fashion illustrations with their distinct Latin flavor appeared in The Times, Women's Wear Daily, the Apparel News and several leading fashion magazines, died June 26, according to Elizabeth Robinson-Williams, a friend. The causes were cancer and complications from idiopathic polymyositis, a degenerative muscle disease, Robinson-Williams said. Flores began his illustrating career in the 1960s in the advertising department of the now-defunct May Co.

If proof was needed that opposites attract, the loves of Carolyn Cassady's life would more than make the case. The daughter of a biochemistry professor and an English teacher with strict, Victorian values, she grew up in the 1940s envisioning a traditional marriage with children and a steady husband to keep them in comfort. What she chose, however, was marriage to Neal Cassady, the fast-talking, hard-living, womanizing wanderer who would be immortalized as Dean Moriarty in "On the Road," Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel that celebrated nonconformity in a rigidly conformist era with its depictions of sexual freedom, drugs and other revelry on the open road.

NASA's budget for the 2015 fiscal year wouldn't budge much from last year under the White House's proposal for nearly $17.5 billion, as officials reaffirmed the commitment to extending the life of the International Space Station, funding potential missions to Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa and sending a manned mission to nab an asteroid and bring it back to Earth orbit. The proposed $17.46-billion budget for 2015 is roughly $200 million less than the 2014 fiscal year request, and the planetary science division would receive about $1.28 billion -- not quite up to last year's $1.35 billion.

Jesse Lee Robinson, a Compton civic leader and management expert who was the first black to chair the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, has died. He was 81. Robinson, who pioneered a black presence in the all-white city of Compton in the 1950s, died June 8 at St. Francis Hospital after a seven-year battle with cancer. "The Compton Ku Klux Klan used to ride out in full regalia on horses and line up on the south side of Imperial Highway," Robinson told The Times in 1987.

Jennifer Capriati advanced to her first semifinal in more than two years by upsetting top-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France, 6-1, 6-0, in the Strasbourg International clay-court tournament at Strasbourg, France. Dogged by drug and legal problems in recent years, Capriati has seen her ranking drop from a career-high No. 6 in 1992-93 to her current ranking of No. 113. She has not appeared in a semifinal since a runner-up finish at Sydney, Australia, in 1997.

As the last act in a remarkable 60-year saga, an American has made a gift to the English nation of a magical mansion he preserved. Ightham Mote is a 645-year-old stately home described as "the most perfect example of a medieval moated manor house left in England." It remains that way because of Charles Henry Robinson of Cape Elizabeth, Me. Robinson, now 93, first saw Ightham Mote (pronounced "item moat") from a bicycle in the early 1920s.

An unknown number of Mexican children may be refused entry to the United States at the Tijuana and Mexicali border crossings Monday morning when the Immigration and Naturalization Service begins strict enforcement of student visa regulations. Any potential effect is likely to be felt most in four South Bay public school districts nearest the border, in which the INS believes a number of Mexican nationals are enrolled.