The Willow Glen Resident

Point of View

Deborah Taylor Hollis

Rhonda, the modern-day pioneer

I have a new friend who moved here from out of state just over two years ago. She and I hit it off from the first moment we met and can't seem to stop talking when we see each other--kindred spirits and all that.

I'm very much in awe of how she and her family got to Willow Glen. They used to live in Massachusetts, and she was raised in New York. She grew up back there, all her friends were back there, her aging parents were back there--in short, her whole life was back there. Then her husband got a job offer out here. While he flew out for interviews, accepted a job, got an apartment and started house-hunting, she was home alone packing up their lives, ending the cable, the paper subscription, the friendships. She got the kids out of school, got their stuff into boxes, set up selling the house and got both preschoolers and herself across country.

I find this hard to understand. There is just no way I could pull up roots and leave everything and everyone I have ever known and loved behind. The loss of daily contact with my friends, not having my parents just minutes away--the depression would set in before I even got that first box packed and would overwhelm me. I would be suicidal within a month. I find her courage to do this unimaginable and kind of crazy. My friend Rhonda would have made the perfect pioneer wife. Not me.

One hundred and forty years ago, Rhonda would have been one of those women on the wagon train, small children by her side, eating dust and dropping cherished family heirlooms by the side of the trail as they trekked stoically across the Great Divide.

I would have been the Boston woman who hears her husband announce that there is a new fertile land somewhere beyond the edge of existence and very quietly decides to kill him. I would probably go down to the bank, clear out all the accounts, help him pack up and give him $500 to buy that great new homestead. All the while I would be smiling pleasantly as I mentally calculated how long he had to be gone before I could legally have him declared dead and could become head of the household in my own right. Loving him would have nothing to do with my determination to stay put--it's just the kind of soul I am. Once settled down, I don't move too far.

I'd see him off at that St. Louis jumping point, then drive the buggy back to Boston and tell the children that their father "took the fever" and simply fell off the face of the Earth. I'd hope he would write, and I'd make good on promises to visit once that new railroad from Boston to Californee was complete.

I'm sure I would have hoped that the bloom would wear off the rose and my beloved would come trudging back to home and hearth. But if push came to shove and his idea of a new home meant dirt floors and bear country, I'd cable my regrets and wish him a fond future with the Indian girl of his dreams. No way would you catch me sitting on the back of a buckboard, nursing one baby and treating another for malnutrition and smallpox while loading the cartridges for another Indian attack.

Even today with cell phones and faxes, flights of three hours and overnight mail, there is nothing on this great Earth that would move me across the country--I don't care how cheap housing is or what great theater they have--I would not be able to survive. I need to know the roads I'm on are the same ones I've been on since childhood.

I truly admire Rhonda for her courage, and that's part of why we became friends. I can't imagine my life without the people I hold dear always around me, and I'm hoping that she and I become those close, deep friends. I hope that having a few true friends in the Glen makes it easier for her to stick to this life change, and I won't be one of those "acquaintances" who claim friendship only when it's convenient or makes a social statement.

When Rhonda showed up after her man, having Crossed the Great Divide, I felt like I'd found another one of those long lost friends from a past life, and I hope having me around makes it easier for her to grow into this new place. The good news for her is, unlike her pioneering counterparts, She only had to pay for the house, not build it out of raw trees and wet mud.

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]