The original question this week was about moves as a child. While there several I only remember one of them during my childhood, so I thought it'd be fun to recount all the moves in my first 57 years.
I was born in the Libertyville, Illinois hospital then moved home with Mom and Dad in Mundelein. Six months later we moved to Janesville, Wisconsin.
We lived on West State Street, then moved to Ruger Avenue on the east side of the city. From there the family moved to 731 North Garfield Avenue which is the first home I remember. Prior to third grade we moved again to 145 Forest Park Boulevard.
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| My childhood home. (dwm photo) |
That fall, my college roommate, Scott, and I moved into a better residence hall called Crawford. The next summer I shared an apartment east of campus in a home on 23rd Street split into several apartments.
We went back to Crawford for junior year. My last summer in Des Moines I worked and took summer classes while living in a studio apartment on Merle Hay Road near Douglas Avenue. I lived through my final fall semester.
The next move came before I married Rhonda and started my job with KJJC in Osceola, Iowa. I moved some stuff into an apartment above a department store on South Main Street just east of the town square. (1)
The apartment was re-built after a fire. While it was new construction there was a lingering smell of smoke in our place. It eventually became too much so we moved a few blocks into a small rental house on South Park Street. (2)
The summer of 1986 took us away from southern Iowa to a new job and home in Pierre, South Dakota. We found a rental at 2304 East Buffalo Street. The house was bigger than we needed and more expensive than we could afford. We stayed there a year. (3)
Our next home was across from our church, Faith Lutheran. Our landlord owned the buffalo ranch where Dances with Wolves was filmed. This was more our size and the place we lived when we brought Matthew home from the hospital. It ate most of my paycheck each month, so before our third year in the capital city we moved again. (4)
208 E. 7th Street was across the street from a donut shop! We lived in an upstairs apartment. It wasn't as fancy or near as big as the houses, but it was where we should have been in the first place. (5)
In 1989, WISC-TV hired me. We moved back to Janesville as I became the Rock County Bureau reporter-photographer. At the time my parents owned a home on Milton Avenue they were fixing up to sell and we lived there a year before we buying a home of our own. (6)
We purchased a Cape Cod home at 450 South Fremont from a family at church who were selling items from their aunt's estate. We had major yard work clearing out overgrown bushes and trees. It had two bedrooms which was fine with both boys less than 3 years. The only real inconvenience was that the only way to bathe was to take a bath. (7)
It was our home for a couple of years. When I lost my job with Channel 3. We moved north to Augusta, Wisconsin where we found a home that was built in the 1880s. It was rough around the edges but good for us. It's the only town we lived in one place. We tried moving once, but it didn't come together. (8)
The Augusta house wasn't quite what we wanted, so we embarked on a remodeling project to add a master bedroom on the second floor. However the first floor couldn't support it, so we had to rebuild that part of the first floor and place a basement and foundation under it. At the time we expected to live there forever, so we followed through.
I changed my career from insurance to fundraising in 2003. That job was short-lived which led to a second fundraising job in Indianapolis. We put the Augusta house on the market then found a rental house near Lutheran High School on Pappas Drive. (9)
That house was OK, but not a place we loved. Then someone broke into our home and took stuff. Meanwhile, the house in Augusta had several buyers fall through and sat empty. We got out of the house, moving again to a more secure location in the Overlook Apartments on Southport Drive. (10)
We lost the Augusta home to foreclosure and bankruptcy. The first apartment at Overlook was on the third floor with three bedrooms. After Mark went to college we moved across the street to a first-floor apartment. We liked the ground level patio and easy walk out to our parking space. It was home for the rest of our time in Indy. (11)
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| Our apartment at Hawks Landing. 2021 (dwm) |
When our three months were up, we moved to Hawks Landing on the west side. It was a beautiful loft apartment overlooking the 18th green surrounded by green grass and rolling hills. For an apartment it was remarkably spacious. (13)
In 2015, after mom died and with her help we bought a condo in Verona. During the pandemic of 2020 we had the kitchen and living room refreshed to fit our lifestyle. It's difficult to predict how long we'll be here, (14) but I hope it is a long time.
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| Our Verona Home. 9/28/2015 |
Counting the first move, from going home from the hospital to the last one... that's 25 moves. I know at least one more move awaits, and I expect there might be a few more between now and then.
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