My cousin Lanny (striped shirt in front of column), mom and I are in the ctr. back of this group which is at the top of Sugarloaf Mtn. We just got off the tramway when our picture was taken.Click to enlarge picture.
Born to wandering gypsies, Pat grew up in three countries, three states, ten cities, and visited an additional 3 countries and 5 states. By the time she finished college, she had attended six elementary schools, three Junior Highs, two high schools, one secretarial school, and two universities. Since then, she has lived with her husband in three more states, five more cities or towns, and visited four more countries.
Although even she has trouble believing it, the only part of the above paragraph that is untrue is the word "gypsies." But, like most Americans (and probably you as well), the traveling and moving were also part of her ancestors' lives who traveled from the "Old World" (in her case, England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany) to the Colonies. After the Revolution her ancestors moved on, eventually making it to the SouthWest. When Texas was still a brand new state, and still wild, they traveled to the center of it and stayed; most of them as farmers but one as a Baptist circuit-riding preacher. So Pat sees the moving around as continuing a family tradition...except that her travels originated in the North American SouthWest and have taken her North, South and East, instead of only Westward. She has lived in Southeastern Pennsylvania longer than she has ever lived anywhere else, and loves it. She has thrown the moving boxes away. But she hasn't thrown her suitcases away!
Where
"Where" is beside the point and quite tedious, but out of respect for your curiosity, the places are listed here as a side note.
Up through the age of 21, Pat has lived in these places (alphabetically): (years are rounded for approximation)
CANADA: Calgary (9 yrs) and Edmonton (1/2 yr), both in the province of Alberta
CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA: Punta Arenas (1 yr) and Santiago (1/4 yr) (Celebrated 14th, 15th and 16th birthdays there)
USA:
Colorado: Denver and Littleton (2 yrs) (Junior High; now called Middle School)
Oklahoma: Tulsa (1/2 yr)
Texas: Abilene (around 4 yrs), El Paso (1 1/2 yrs), and Midland-Odessa (2+ yrs)
and visited these places: (alphabetically, not chronologically)
Argentina: Cape Horn, Tierra del Fuego
Brazil: Rio de Janeiro [On the way to Chile, we took 4 days to visit an uncle (dad's brother), aunt, and 4 cousins, who lived there. This was near the end of August.]
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My dad's bro., Uncle Ross L., and his family lived in one of these highrises along the Copa Cabana. The sand was like sand-colored powdered sugar and the water was very warm. | |
My cousin Lanny (striped shirt in front of column), mom and I are in the ctr. back of this group which is at the top of Sugarloaf Mtn. We just got off the tramway when our picture was taken.Click to enlarge picture. |
Canada: Banff, Lake Louise and the Ice Fields of Alberta; Vancouver and Vancouver Island, British Columbia
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Lake Louise Alberta, Canada That is me and my older sister, Marianna |
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Mt. Rundle and the Bow River Banff, Alberta, Canada mom, me, dad. Banff was our favorite place to visit on Saturdays. You may click on the picture to make it bigger. |
Chile: Puerto Montt, Valparaiso, and through the Archipielago de los Chonos by ship
Mexico: Juarez (El Paso border town). Saw the airport (and a view from above) of Mexico City, and some terrain from the sky of Latin America between LA and Lima.
Peru: Lima airport (for a change of planes). Aerial view of Lake Titicaca
USA: La Jolla, Los Angeles, and San Diego areas of California; Yellowstone Park and Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming; Salt Lake City, some famous canyons and mountains of Utah; Phoenix, Arizona (to spend a month with an aunt, and later to Tucson to meet Jay's family); Carlsbad, Cloudcroft (for skiing), Las Cruces and Raton, New Mexico; Mt. Rushmore of South Dakota; North Dakota; much of central and western Colorado (with an emphasis on deserted ghost towns and historical places in the mountains), and much of central and western Texas.
On Spring break Jay took me home to meet his family, now my family too. While in Tucson, the family took a drive up into the Catalina Mountains towards Mt. Lemmon. This picture was taken along the way. Left to right: Mary Alice, Joe, Pat (me), Jim, Mary Jo, JayC, and Jay, Jr. whom we later called Papa Jay (when he became a grandfather). You may click to enlarge the picture.
Further up the mountain we were throwing snowballs. |
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Why?
Why so many moves? Pat's father, a geophysicist, worked for an oil exploration company, United Geophysical, which moved him around to manage crews and conduct seismograph testing to locate oil under the ground. (side note: Pat's father eventually invented a clever system to tell if oil is in the ground without needing to set off explosions under the ground).
Why so many different schools even in the same town? Because of frequent and sudden transfers, leaving them with the expectation of future sudden moves, her parents would rent houses under temporary contracts. When the contracts were over and the owners, who had been away for a year, needed to return to their house, her family had to relocate. Her parents never expected to be in Calgary more than six months, much less nine years so they rented about six houses, each in a different school district. For Pat, who was three when they moved to Canada, this meant a different school district every year of elementary school, usually in the middle of the school year.
Why Chile? The government of Chile hired United Geophysical to do oil exploration for them. United chose Pat's father (who had worked in Baia, South America, long ago and had just returned from a six month stint in Tripoli, Libya) to head a Chileno crew. After the coup of Allende, her father was the only American citizen in Punta Arenas asked to stay on to continue to work. Since the English speaking school in Punta Arenas only went through the ninth grade, Pat was sent to continue in a boarding school in Santiago, Chile. Santiago is about as far from Punta Arenas as San Francisco is from Alaska. After the end of the term (December), her parents felt that if she was going to be that far from them, she might as well be in the United States near her dad's sister in El Paso, TX, obtaining an education that would provide her with no difficulty getting into an American college.
Why Abilene, TX? Pat ended up at Abilene Christian High School, part of Abilene Christian University, because she needed a place to board while she went to summer school, and she had an older sister living an hour away in Brownwood. She liked it so much better than the school in El Paso that she asked to stay on in the Fall. The school gave her special permission to be the only high school person to live in the college dormitory during the year. After high school she continued at the same college. This is where she met and married Jay.
Why so many places visited? The number of places visited, however, were from a combination of places seen on the way to either relocate or to visit family (who were in Arizona, California, and Texas). These trips often involved side-trips for the love of exploration and camping, especially in national parks.
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Since age 21, Pat has lived in these places: (alphabetically, not chronologically)
Arizona: Flagstaff; Pennsylvania: Boothwyn, State College, and Upper Darby; New Jersey: Princeton; Texas: Abilene
and visited these places:
Canada: Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec
Italy: Rome and Venice and the area between seen from the train
Mexico: Nogales (a border town of Arizona)
USA:
Most of Arizona,Texas, Pennsylvania, and NJ;
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Barstowe, NJ: One of our earliest camping trips was in New Jersey. We packed our camping gear in the middle of the canoe and canoed three hours on a Friday night after work down to our campsite. We thought we had the whole campsite to ourselves because we hadn't been able to reach the campsite by car due to a washed out bridge the weekend before. But then three car loads arrived on the road from the South. Quite an adventure and a learning experience. Our creek was deep and narrow and took more skill than we, as beginners, had. We had only canoed the canal before this. We each thought the other could do a better job of paddling, so we traded places. Less than fifteen minutes later we traded back again and didn't criticize how the other was doing again. We picked up a lot of skill in a hurry, including how to swing back around to back up to get off a submerged fallen tree. The next day we paddled for six hours to get to Barstow, NJ. This creek is where I lost my wedding band. I had lost weight since the wedding and so the ring slid off my finger (when I batted away three huge mosquitoes) into the deep dark cedar water, which was the color of root beer. This was the summer before Emily was born. |
Selado, Texas: We built a rock dam with my brother Mike's family in Selado Creek. Nephew Mark is with Jayson, Emily and me, while Jay and Kathy are back with the picnic stuff. [Unknown little girl] Nephew Andrew isn't shown in the picture, which Mike must have taken. Click to enlarge. |
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| Jay, Emily and Jayson on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Living only an hour and a half away, we made many trips to the Grand Canyon. |  |
June 2005, South Rim of Grand Canyon, Arizona. Left to right: Jayson, Brenda, Tim, Emily, Jay (with me behind camera) please click to see pictures enclarged |
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Hart Prairie. This is part of what we, on the right, are looking at. Every hill and mountain was formed by volcanic activity (they say there is over 300 of them). We are in the parking lot of the ski lodge, which is on the West slope of the San Francisco Peaks. (The "Peaks" are actually what is left over after the eruption of one 14,000 foot high volcano that blew its top off, now @8,000 ft high.) |
Emily, Jay, Jayson, Brenda and Tim. Behind them is Humphrey Peak of the San Francisco Peaks, north of Flagstaff, Arizona (and a rental car). I am taking the picture. They are in shorts because it is June in AZ and we're on our way to the Grand Canyon; they are shivering because it was pretty nippy up there (note snow nearby). |
much of Colorado, Delaware and Virginia; and
some areas in Maryland, New York, and Ohio. Also the areas of the states along most east-west interstate highways between NJ and Los Angeles, including Chicago, IL and Memphis, TN. Trips to and through DC, Atlanta and Macon, GA, Charlotte, NC; New Haven, CN up through Boston, MA; and the New Hampshire White Mountains. Honolulu and along southeastern to northeastern and northcentral shorelines, and down center parts of Oahu, Hawaii. And, if we were to get nit picky, we'd include the airport of Miami, Florida, on a very sticky, humid day, but we won't.
| Oahu, Hawaii: Just one of many beautiful pictures. Jay was sent there for a four day conference. I tagged along and we didn't stay longer than what the university had paid for the hotel room to keep costs down. We did a lot of walking and taking the bus in Honolulu and then, the last day we checked out, rented a car, and went around the Western half of the island. We really enjoyed getting to go snorkeling and watching the beautiful fish around a coral reef. (Bonus adventure: Trip home took 18 hours! and that was beginning at 10 p.m. after a full day of driving, site seeing and scuba diving!) |  |
United Kingdom; Yorkshire: as far west as the Manchester airport, as far southeast as Hull, as far north as Whitby and the Moors, but mainly Market Wheighton (pronounced Mah'kit Whee'hn) where Tom and Tracey lived (whom my sister Terry and I were visiting). Although all these places are listed in alphabetical order of country, this is the most recent trip. Tom and Tracey now live in Sydney, Australia, with their two children.
English channel seashore near Scarborough |
Robin Hood Village to beach |
A train that looks just like the one used for the Hogwarts Express (Harry Potter movies) at the Grossmont station. It was sheer serendipity that we came across it. Click for a larger view. |
"Yorkshire Pudding" is a breadbowl with a meat and gravy. We're both having Pork (in York), but mine is a Yorkshire Pudding "Special of the day" and hers is the regular. It was delicious! |
Venezuela: Coro, Caracas, La Guaira, Maracaibo, Merida, and Valencia (including a side trip to Cucuta, Colombia)
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Coro, Venezuela It was February, but Venezuela was still hot. This was a nice beach but not the best for swimming because it got deep fast and had a lot of current. Under the cabana shade is the wife of one of dad's crew, and her daughter who was also visiting. Pat's mother is holding baby Emily, and Pat, is standing. Coincidentally, the lady's name was Emily and her daughter's name was Pat. The Pats are about to go swimming (their bathing suits are under their clothes). This beach was too vigorous for baby Emily, who stayed with her grandmommy. The dads of the two Pats were working. After this, baby Emily, Pat and her folks traveled East over to the capitol city, Caracas, where they took a swinging gondola over the mountain to the coast, and then took a taxi (which also did some swinging) back around the mountain to their hotel. Then they headed South and West into the mountains to Merida, and then back to Maracaibo, completing huge irregular circle. Pat and Emily visited her parents in Venezuela a month while Emily went from seven months to eight months of age, missing the worst of the weather in State College, PA, where Jay was working. Pat's parents lived in Venezuela seven years. Click to enlarge. |
Why?
Why the move to Pennsylvania? Pat's husband decided to go back to school to get his doctorate degree, and there were only two schools in the United States using computers to fill in the gaps of the Dead Sea Scrolls at that time, which was a strong interest of his. He chose the University of Pennsylvania over Claremont in California. They moved in August of 1986 from Arizona to Pennsylvania for what they expected to be three or four years, but ended up staying. Pat likes to say that they "forgot to leave." The same year he graduated with his doctorate, their daughter graduated with her bachelor's degree, and their son graduated from high school. The year was 1996.
Why the trip to Venezuela? Pat's parents were living in Maracaibo, Venezuela and wanted to see Emily who was 7 months old at the time of the trip. The visit was for one month, and during that time the four of them took several mini trips. It was a nice warm break from a ruggedly cold February in State College, PA, where Jay had to remain to work.
Why the trip to Venice? Pat's husband Jay needed to check an original manuscript for a paper he was writing. The microfische, which was difficult to see, could have been misleading him. The manuscript, very old and well protected, was only in the ancient library in Venice. The trip was worthwhile as his theory proved correct, that a previous translator had misunderstood a certain marking, changing the meaning of a sentence. It was also a wonderful experience.
Why so many trips in the USA? Why does one need a reason? It's a beautiful country and every American should get to see it. Also, it's less expensive to drive than for four people to fly...sometimes. And we had relatives to visit.
