"No, it was somebody by the name of Lando Ford."

"Hmm, never heard of him."

"You're not the only one. I don't know anything about the artist, or about the painting, for that matter. It's become more of a quest—an ancestral quest, I guess."

"Obviously you don't have an address."

"No. I have the receipt, but oddly enough it only lists the name of the gallery and the town name, which, of course, is Fairfield."

"Probably didn't need the street back then. Fairfield isn't very big now, but it was tiny then. It had to have been somewhere in the downtown section. I can't imagine any business surviving that wasn't downtown."

"Would you have any suggestions for us?" asked Sabrina. "Any gallery owners who might know?"

"I would doubt it. My gallery is one of the oldest. Most are owned by younger people and the vast majority by recent transplants. Even I'm not a Fairfield native. I think going the gallery route will leave you frustrated. You could try the library or the newspaper office. They might have something on it." She could see the disappointment on our faces. "The only other thing I could suggest would be to try all the Simpsons in the phone book. Maybe one of them is a relative of whoever owned the gallery."

We thanked her for the information, feeling a little guilty that we didn't buy anything, and went back to the car. We decided to look in the order she suggested, first trying the library. Between the library and the newspaper, we spent most of the day, and accomplished nothing. We went online, looked on microfiche at newspapers that hadn't yet been digitally transferred, paged through old picture books of Fairfield. Nothing. Finally, we got a clue, as meager as it was.

Someone at the newspaper office suggested we take a ride over to one of the nursing homes in town and talk to some of the most ancient of the residents. Maybe one of them would remember something.

We walked into one of the nicer facilities and explained our mission to the person in charge. She thought it might be a good brain exercise for the residents.

"A lot of them are in the activity room right now," she said. "Maybe asking them all together would be a better plan. Someone might say something that will spark a memory in another."

We went into the room, occupied by about forty residents, and the woman—whose name I forgot the minute after she said it—got their attention. Thus began a comedy of errors.

I stood in front of the group. "We are trying to find out some information about an art gallery that was in Fairfield back in the 1930s. It was called the Simpson Gallery. Has anyone heard of it? We'd appreciate your help."

"I can't hear you."

"Speak up."

"Stop mumbling."

So I repeated it in a much louder and clearer voice.

"You don't have to yell. We're not deaf!"

Finally, I got my message across, ending with, "Has anyone ever heard of it?"