We started our lives together in a cruddy little chalet in Bennington, Vermont, blackflies in summer, interior icicles in winter. We’d purchased it for $35,000 and fixed it up, and it became a welcoming home for our new baby. A year later, we sold it for $70,000. That was the start of my interest in […]

We had been living aboard our 42-foot Grand Banks boat in the Isle of Palms, South Carolina, marina when the announcement came over the radio. “Hurricane Hugo is headed for Charleston. Those who reside in vulnerable places should evacuate.” My husband phoned me from work. I was to gather up our important things and evacuate […]

How fortuitous. A theme posed on the very day I was to move. But … I had paid my rent on the new place, 70 miles south of Waterville, and I didn’t want to waste a minute getting there. You see, when you lose a husband, and the place where you both lived no longer […]

When I was 19, my dad received a promotion, and our family relocated from Connecticut to Massachusetts. On departure day, after the moving van was loaded with all of our possessions, we split up into two separate groups. My sister and I rode with Dad in one car; our brother rode with Mom, our grandmother […]

Just the thought of pulling up roots to settle in a new location creates a minefield of competing emotions. Losing what is comfortably familiar is offset by the excitement of exploring new surroundings. New friends wait to be found, while old friends promise to visit on vacations. A move allows old routines to be discarded […]

From ages 5 to 9 we lived in Coral Gables, Florida, in a small house beside an empty lot that was our jungle playground. Avocado, mango and banana trees, lizards skittering between ferns, a turtle we thought of as a pet, named “Easter,” and bare feet at all times were all part of our landscape. […]

My parents, Donald and Lauretta Fournier, were both from Aroostook County. They got married in 1957 and in 1961 moved to Bethpage, on Long Island, New York. Along with their belongings, they had a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son (me). Over the next three years they had two more daughters. Five years after that, […]

After my mom died last November, I went through her house, not only bringing boxes to Goodwill but also bringing home boxes of antique photographs; many, many photo albums (I think I have a total now of 63 family photo albums on my bookshelves), and the best treasure: my grandfather’s diaries and letters from World […]