My dad started a new job in Connecticut in 1979, and he and my mom moved their little family to a Cape Cod cottage, a couple of blocks from Lordship’s Russian Beach. I was four, and I doubt they knew it at the time, but they had picked the perfect place for children to grow up. My best friend Lucy lived across the street, and when we weren’t fighting, we had sleepovers on our screened-in porches and played in the life-sized playhouse in her backyard (it only sounds fancy), rode our bikes to the beach, and chased each other on the esplanade, a long lawn with big oak trees which ran down the middle of the street separating our houses. The witch’s house two doors down simultaneously terrified and delighted us. Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Wyler, older than Methuselah, gave us candy whenever we knocked on his door. We walked to and from the elementary school at the end of our block. My mom and I loved to walk in the neighborhood at twilight, so we could see into our neighbors’ houses and it seemed particularly voyeuristic because we knew everyone.
I graduated from high school in 1993 and left for college. My dad got a new job the next year and my parents left Lordship. I haven’t been back since. For a while, I really missed it, but gradually began to see it as just one place in the Ohio-Illinois-California-Connecticut-Iowa-Utah-Missouri-Minnesota-Texas lineup of places I lived. When people asked me “so, where are you from?” I’d say “Connecticut” but it felt more like I was from nowhere in particular, at least not in the way my husband is from the Utah town where he grew up, which was settled in the 1850s by a great-great-great-great grandfather and whose cemeteries are filled with ancestors.
A couple of months ago, I signed up for Facebook, and I’ve been reconnecting with the place I’m from. I’m surprised at how many of them have stayed close to home, living in the same neighborhood that I grew up in. I know it doesn’t make sense, but in some ways it felt like Lordship ceased to exist when I left it, but I get on Facebook and realize that one little girl I used to babysit is now married to a little boy who was on my brother’s t-ball team, and friends from my swim team now own local businesses. The other day my parents sent me some pictures of Lordship which my mom took last summer when she went out to visit friends, and I looked at them with a lump in my throat. Although I haven’t been back for more than a decade, it’s still the framework for all of my childhood memories, still the place that shaped me.
In the Summer 2008 issue of Segullah, Trisha Coffman’s article “Where We are From” talks about the places that shape her– Phoenix and Montreal and McCammon, Idaho, and how a piece of her is in each of these places.
We’re picking up and moving again in about six months, this time I hope it will be more than a temporary three or four year stint in a place, and I feel a heavy responsibility to find the best place to raise my children for the long haul– to recreate Lordship in Salt Lake City (well, minus the beach, I guess).
I’d love to hear about the places you’re from, and how they shape you.
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I grew up in a small town in Wyoming–big for Wyoming but really small for the rest of the world. I was born in the same hospital as my father. And my grandparents on both sides were among the early residents of that town. But I always had a hunger for travel.
Since I went to college I’ve lived in Utah, Sweden and Israel and now New York. Of all the places I’ve lived, I consider Wyoming and Sweden my true homes.
Wyoming is the home of my childhood and, I guess, the home that shaped me.
Provo is the home of my time as a young adult, filled with the anticipation and excitement of learning and the future.
Sweden is the place I grew to be an adult. I don’t think I’ve ever been so stretched in my life. I think it will always carry a special place in my heart because it was such an intense 5 years and those memories, complete with smells, tastes and sights, are very strong and powerful.
I can’t really go into the ways that Israel shaped me, but it has a very poignant place in my heart.
I feel uprooted again in New York and am trying to make a home for our family. But it’s a beautiful place to raise children. My kids play ball on our quiet street with the neighbor kids, jump in piles of leaves, and swim in the lake in the summer. It’s not the same as my childhood, but a wonderful childhood in its own way.
I was born and raised in Blackfoot, Idaho. However, every summer (and sometimes more often) I was in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. My parents were both born and raised in Alberta; all of my extended family are/were Canadian. After graduating from high school, I moved to Provo to attend BYU, and except for a One Year stint in Concord, CA, my husband and I have lived here ever since.
Every time I drive home to visit my parents, I’m blown away by how much I love the Snake River valley –especially in Autumn. I miss the sights, sounds, and feelings of the small farming city, and how bright the stars are at night out on Rose Road. I think being raised in a small place helped solidify my love for people and being outdoors.
Canada evokes very similar feelings; all four sides of my family moved to Alberta via Utah between 1895 and 1903. Many were farmers and ranchers, and so when I visit Stirling or Raymond, it feels as if I’m home again –just how Blackfoot is to me. Even now, thinking about the sweeping plains and the rising mountains in Waterton Park, I’m overcome with a sense of belonging, you know?
But I’m happy here in Provo. I think the memories I have from where I’m from has also helped me to create similar ones for my children as they are growing up. I take the time to drive them to the mountains and show them the rivers and some of the farming lands south of us –I hope they will grow up with a love for the outdoors and for people, too.
And now I realize that I probably sound really, really cheesy. Ah, well! I love where I’m from.
I think it’s fascinating how we develop such strong ties to the places of our childhood. I’m from Colorado, and spending five years in Provo for school only deepened my love and nostalgia for Colorado. I enjoyed living in Provo, but I had a really hard time dealing with the frequent inversions. Gray skies and smoggy air were really hard for me. In Colorado, even when it’s bitter cold, you can still enjoy a sparkling clear blue sky. Just seeing the sun, even if you can’t feel it’s warmth, does wonders for me in the wintertime. Now that I’ve returned, albeit temporarily, to Colorado, it’s going to be hard to move somewhere else when the time comes (grad school for hubby is looming on the horizon.)
The city I grew up in is extremely family friendly, with fabulous public schools, parks and trails everywhere, and plenty of good wholesome recreational activities. I now see how much of a difference it can make to raise a family in such a community, so I appreciate this post.
I could have written the same comment as S.L. I also grew up in Colorado, and my husband and I have thought about moving there to raise our family. I am not shy to pronounce Colorado The Best State In The Country. I grew up in a suburb of Denver, where, like S.L. said, there are excellent public schools and easy access to any type of outdoor activity you could want. People always think Colorado and Utah have the same weather, but they are actually quite different. Colorado is 10 degrees cooler in the summer and 10 degrees warmer in the winter, plus the other things S.L. said.
We live in Provo now, but we are hoping to move to Virginia within the next nine months or so. I’m excited to move somewhere that will shape they way my children see the world, somewhere that will create fond memories for them.
We moved around a lot as a kid. I was born in San Diego and lived there until I was 9. Then we moved to Idaho for a few years before moving back to California, this time an area north of Los Angeles. Then when I was 17 (summer before senior year) we moved out to a small town in Maryland. A few years ago my parents moved to Las Vegas. I’ve never been back to most of the places where I spent my childhood, although we’re going to San Diego as a family during winter break. I’m excited to see how it feels. I can’t really name specifics about my childhood, but I do feel a deep sense of nostalgia. Both my husband and I have a strong desire to settle down somewhere and stay there for a long time. The funny thing is we’re both feeling a strong pull towards Utah County. We both went to school there and so lived there a long time (nearly 10 years total for both of us). We moved away a few years ago, but still talk about moving back. Especially since many of our family members still live there or close to that area. Long story short–when people ask me where I’m from I usually have a long convoluted story about my childhood. I also think it’s weird that people still ask us that when we’ve been married 7 years.
If there were a way to make it socially acceptable, I think my parents would have remained hippies and lived in their VW van, driving all over the countryside for our entire childhood. As it was, we still moved numerous times throughout my childhood.
So, I don’t really have deep roots anywhere, but I find myself rooting down quickly and deeply where we currently live in an attempt to not make my children move, ever ever ever. It’s a good feeling, having a place that I’m from.
We moved quite a bit. I spent my first 10 years throughout Texas, the second ten in three New Mexico towns, the third 10 in Utah, and the most recent 10 in Oregon and where we live now (another western state).
I always have a hard time describing where I’m ‘from’. Mostly, I think of myself as from Houston and New Mexico.
By the time I was my 8 year old’s age, we’d moved 5 different places. I didn’t mind moving at all; except when I was 16, my dad wanted to move. Thankfully, we didn’t.
I hope we never move again. I’d be perfectly content to stay in our nice little town the rest of my life. Now, if my kids all move far away I’ll cry. I could imagine following them.
Elizabeth– that’s something my mom is going through right now. They live in a small town in Minnesota, and her kids are in Texas (soon to be Utah), Chicago and Alaska. I think she’d love her small town if her kids were close, but they don’t really foresee themselves settling there long-term because they don’t want to be far from all of their kids forever.
It’s interesting how our childhood experiences often shape our adult choices. I’m hearing here that a lot of people who moved frequently as children want to put down roots for their families now. I lived in the same town for the first 18 years of my life, and while I don’t want to move too frequently, I also don’t want to stay stuck in the same place forever. I feel quite a bit of wanderlust and want to see the world. I feel like my experiences are rather narrow. I grew up in a small town in southern Arizona, came to college and spent most of 10 years in Provo (except for my mission, which was in the midwest), then have lived in Salt Lake, southern Idaho, and am now still in Utah. Boring! I am dying to see the country! I do feel torn because I love being close to my extended family, and I love that my children are getting to grow up near cousins. I sorely missed that as a child. But I don’t want to get to the end of my life and feel like I missed out by not seeing other places.
I have many fond memories of my childhood town, but I never want to live there. I think many of my memories could have happened almost anywhere. We lived out in the boonies on a dirt road, and I have no desire to live in a small town, or on acreage. I am a suburban gal! I do think of my hometown as “home”, though. My mom lived there for 37 years and only recently moved here to be nearer her kids.
Oops, I don’t know why I came through as Anonymous–I’m eljee!
With a military childhood, so many places were a part of me. Trouble is it filled me with wanderlust. It also taught me to root quickly. I do long though to know what happened to people to see all those pieces of my life and places where I once lived!
I grew up in the burbs of Detroit. I went to the same elementary school as my father. I went back a couple of times in college, but after my father died when I was 22 I had no reason to go back. No relatives there anymore.
I don’t really consider it “home”, but rather where I’m from.
I’ve travelled around the country trying to find the place where I want home to be. I came to Austin and fell in love. This is home now. My kids were happier in Utah, but I wasn’t (sorry guys! Mom’s the boss!)
What fun child hood memories!!:)
I think I am opposite from most of you. I have moved so many times, and it just makes so I am completely incapable of staying anywhere. I feel like I am missing out on the world out there when I stay in one place too long(too long being more than 2 years). I also LOVED it growing up, and feel like all the moving around the world really broadened my horizons. I lived in small town in Oklahoma until I was 10 (before that my three older siblings were born in three different places - utah, ohio, and Bogota colombia). Then we moved to england. Then Norway (another sibling born), then back to Oklahoma (I started HS there and hated it so bad) then to texas then when I graduated HS my fam moved to san diego. Of the 5 kids in our family we were all born in different cities (and countries) and all graduated from different high schools. No my dad wasn’t in the military, but we used to joke he was deep cover for the cia.
Now my little sister will likely have spent kindergarten through graduation in the same house with the same friends. Its hardly comprehensible to me.
Of course, since I have left home (ten years) I have been to two different colleges, moved nine times and lived in three different countries. I think I have an addiction to moving.
And I hate it when people ask me where I am from. I have gotten to the point where I either say the last place I lived or just California (my husband is from Cali, and while he moved alot it was just between two states and all his relatives are still in Cali so that makes an easy answer).
I’ve both moved a lot and yet I would say I have somewhere “where I’m from”. Growing up I wasn’t military, but we moved a quite a few times. I did however have a connection to family and live in a state where I had those roots.
Once I was married, my husband was in the military and we tried to make each place home. We tried to have fun and appreciate the area where we lived.
But where am I from? Thankfully, where I live right now is where I’m from. The biggest downside is that none of my brothers and sister nor my parents happen to be from here! And I just can’t seem to talk them into it either.
I grew up in a small town nestled between two college towns in the wet Willamette Valley of Oregon. I’ve since been transplanted to the very dry Utah Valley. My ward here is family to me and I feel most at home surrounded by the amazing Wasatch Mountain Range so while I miss the rain and the green this is home to me.
By the time I was 17 my family had moved 13 times. The longest I lived anywhere before college was the three years we lived in Taiwan. I never really thought about it much. I just knew every year I’d be making new friends. It did turn me into a city gal. I wouldn’t even know where to begin if I had to live in the country.
BYU for college, where I met dh who was born in So. Cal. and lived there his whole life. I really thought that was strange. After we married and left Provo, we moved back to So. Cal. Then in a round about way we’re back in Provo, and have been for a long time. The roots are firmly planted and I love it.
I never thought I’d be happy to stay in one place for so long, but I do.
I mean I am - happy to stay put.
DH and I have moved throughout our childhoods. He - Idaho, Texas, Holland, Saudi Arabia, Tennessee, Provo, England, Provo. I - Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, Utah (Park Valley, Salt Lake, Provo). We agreed when married that we would like to find a nice place to stay but… Utah, Indiana, Colorado, Pennsylvania. We have had very little control over this. When the job is gone and there is only one offered you go. I must say the best and the one we yearn to return to is Colorado.
Although this rings true, “Because we’re at odds with this place in which we live, my husband and I are on a constant hunt for our “perfect” place—thumbing our noses all the while biting our tongues, trying to stick to those ‘I’ll go where you want me to go’ guns.”
Every place has had it’s own beauty and entertainment. What I miss, what I yearn for is relationships. There is a special quality to a long-term relationship, friend or family. Yes, we keep those ties even though we’re far away but there is nothing like a hug from someone who has known you in better and worse and loves you completely despite it all. We yearn for our children to have that also.
I’m from a small town in California. I still feel very connected to it, though Utah is home now.
I loved being from a small town . . . catching pollywogs in the nearby roadside ditches, riding my bike for miles through the country, a skunk chase in our neighborhood (those poor kids who got too close), the “dime store” and teeny library, one stop light in town, etc., etc.
I haven’t been one of those people who moves around a lot; in fact , I’ve only lived in about four places, but when people ask me where I’m from, I love to say, “Heaven.” I love to see people’s reactions. Some people just laugh and say, “No, where are you REALLY from?” Others laugh and ask where I came from after heaven. Others just leave it alone, and I can’t tell whether they are satisfied or scared to ask further.
I introduced myself in my ward’s Relief Society as “from heaven” and got quite a laugh.. and later, when my husband and I were getting interviewed by the bishop for callings, he told us that a sister had told him what I said. She had been surprised that I had meant it. He asked her, “Aren’t we from heaven?”
Very funny.
I grew up in Salt Lake City so long ago that I no longer recognize it as the city of my childhood. But home to me will always be the mountains of northern Utah and the red dirt of southern Utah (where we spent many family vacations). I have since lived in Mississippi, Oregon (the little town of Lebanon in that beautiful Willamette Valley where dalene is from) and the Puget Sound area of Washington. We moved to western Montana seven years ago, and it feels more like home that anywhere else since my childhood, because, of course, I am again surrounded by mountains.
Although I grew up in Salt Lake and most of my family still lives there, I feel like I’m on the search for a home. I love Leipzig, but it doesn’t feel permanent, though I rejoice whenever I get back from a trip or even back after a long day. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be a wanderer my entire life. A friend of mine who accompanied me on a trip this spring said, “Michelle, the difference between you and me is that I see new places and I realize all the more why I love home and you see new places and you want to live there.”
I live in the small city I grew up in just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. I moved for a short year to go to college in Northern Utah, but all of the rest have been here in Tooele. I can not even comprehend moving all the time. My parents bought a house when I was two and my brother was a newborn and they still live there. We bought a house and have to move because we have three children and one on the way and it only has two bedrooms, but I am fighting it. I don’t like moving!!!