Roseville, MN
Christmas, 1998
Dear Family and Friends,
1998 was an eventful year for the formerly Evanston, now Roseville, McDavid family. Many of you have heard parts of the story, but probably not all the same parts. We may not have been in touch with some of you at all, for which we offer our apologies. We were busy!
As most of you know, our two sons, Jamie (11 years old) and Thomas (8), have disabilities. Jamie has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and a non-verbal learning disorder. This is not easy to handle, but with medication and therapy we can manage. Jamie is able to go to a normal school, and, with some special ed assistance he can do quite well.
Tom’s condition is far more serious. He is autistic. He has very little functional speech, a seizure disorder, and severe dietary restrictions. It is doubtful that he will ever be able to live anything like a normal life. He will need some kind of special care all his life.
Having (sort of) come to terms with this, in March Mia and I went to see a lawyer/financial planner who specialized in families with our sort of concern. She arranged a trust fund for Tom, and drew up new wills. She also had some general advice: In terms of state programs and benefits for mental disabilities, Illinois was one of the worst states in the country, and that if there was any possibility that we could move to a better place, we should. The ensuing conversation went something like:
Mia: "Well, what is a good state?"
Lawyer: "No place warm", which was followed by laughter all around. She added that this was in anticipation of the first question she usually gets when she tells clients this.
Mia: "Well, what is a good state?
Lawyer: "Michigan and Minnesota are the two best states."
At this moment Mia and I looked at each other. We both knew, right then, that we were going to move. We had strong connections in both states. Our careers were in data processing: We could get new jobs, and the golden handcuffs that bound us to our current employers could be broken.
Mia here: The golden handcuffs ain’t what they used to be. My employer’s formerly exemplary pension plan had been watered down a great deal. Glenn’s employer was probably going to follow suit. And, both of us were pretty frustrated and dissatisfied in our jobs.
We gave Michigan some thought, but our connections were in the western part of the state, while the programs Tom needed would require a major metropolitan area. In Minnesota we knew we could find everything around the Twin Cities, an area both of us knew and loved.
April was taken up with research. An inquiry to a college friend of mine revealed that the Twin Cities seemed to have an "infinite appetite" for systems personnel. From the internet we learned that the school districts north of St. Paul cooperated in a program for autistic kids, and it seemed vastly superior to what we had in Illinois. One aspect was a communication therapy, called PECS, which we had recently started for Tom, on the recommendation of his psychologist. But in Evanston it was not part of the school program. We had to arrange for it privately, at a cost of thousands of dollars.
Actually, the initial part was Internet research, but to get the real skinny, I still had to make dozens of phone calls until I could find a knowledgeable person who was willing to spill her guts. What I heard gave me a sense of focus; we did indeed need to find our home in the northern suburbs of St. Paul.
Was this for real? Mia discovered that the Twin Cities Autism Society was having a conference that month. She went to it, saw some schools. Yes, it was what we expected. We decided we definitely were moving there. Mia even started house-hunting that weekend, having made the pleasant discovery that housing around the Twin Cities was much cheaper than in Evanston.
Two big things had to happen: One of us had to get a job in the Cities, and we had to sell the Evanston house. There were other things as well, such as getting a new house, but these two were events we really could not control. Our future was in the hands of our prospective employer and buyer.
We decided that I would look for the job first. The internet site of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had lots of computer job ads, and during May I sent out a lot of resumes and talked to several agencies. Late in June I got a response from the Minneapolis office of PowerCerv, a company that develops software for manufacturing applications. After several telephone interviews and some e-mail correspondence, I had an offer. I accepted it and agreed to start work on July 20.
Unfortunately, the other process was not going so well. We had to do some repairs on the Evanston house, and could not put it on the market until most of the hot spring real estate market had passed. Our initial asking price was way too high, but by the time we realized this the Evanston housing market had gone into summer hibernation. We were to wait three months, and greatly reduce our asking price, before the house would sell.
Meanwhile I had to start work, and have a place to live, up north. I arranged to rent a basement room from one of Mia’s cousins who lives in Hopkins, a western suburb of Minneapolis. I drove up on Sunday, July 19, in our older car, with no air-conditioning. I had a few things in the trunk and back seat. Mia stayed behind with the house, the boys and all their problems, and the better car (with working AC).
A strange few weeks followed: I was up in Minnesota working, while Mia stayed in Evanston with the kids and arranging for showings of the house. I flew back on weekends. On one such visit I drove a truckload of our things up and left them in a rented storage locker. It looked like the Evanston house was not going to sell for a long time, and we were starting arrangements for the boys to return to school in Illinois. Then, in mid-August, we got an offer. The bid was low, but it was a real offer. After some difficult negotiations the sale closed on August 28.
Before then, as soon as we had a firm sales contract, I had started house-hunting. I came up with a list of about five possibilities. Mia flew up and looked at them, and some others, as well. Independently our top two choices were the same. We settled on the house in Roseville.
We chose this house by process of elimination: I took Polaroids of everything I saw (in one day, flying in in the morning), and in the evening Glenn and I looked them over, saying; "This one has a flat roof", and "That one doesn’t have three bedrooms together"; until we were left with one house. Though I had a dissatisfied feeling that we were marrying for convenience, and not for love, we have indeed come to love this house. It is larger, more luxurious, and far better put together than our pretty little Cape Cod in Evanston.
I flew back to Chicago on the same night Mia closed on the Evanston house, on one of the last flights out of Minneapolis before the Northwest Airlines pilot strike. Mia had sent most of our stuff up with the movers a few days earlier, but there was still a lot of packing left. We spent Saturday doing that, and loading a U-Haul truck. Several of our old friends came over to help. We worked well into the evening, and ended the day with pizza for everybody. It was a good party, a fine note for our departure from Chicagoland. On Sunday we drove to the Twin Cities in a car-truck convoy.
We could not close on the Roseville house until Sept. 15, so for the first three weeks we lived in a rented townhouse in White Bear Lake, further to the Northeast. However, we were able to get the boys into the Roseville schools immediately, by the start of the school year. Jamie is in our local school in Roseville, with some special ed services. A pleasant surprise is that he is also getting much more support than in Evanston. For kids like Tom Roseville has a cooperative program with the next school district north (Mounds View). Tom’s school is not the same one Mia had seen on her scouting trip, but the program uses PECS and is generally very similar. As we had hoped, it is far better than the program Evanston had put him in.
The house is a split entry: From the front door you go to the left into the garage. To the right you go down to the large, and mostly finished, basement, or up to the living room, dining room, kitchen and three bedrooms. A fourth (guest) bedroom is in the basement. The basement family room has a fireplace, which we have been using a lot since the end of summer.
The garage is enormous, built for four cars. The back half is partitioned off as a workroom. Right now it is filled with our unpacked boxes and things we have not placed yet. There is also a substantial back yard, in which Mia has begun gardening.
I have planted the Iris and perennials that I brought from Illinois, and blown a large gift certificate that kind friends gave me on bulbs, but it is really too soon to say I have begun gardening. The yard is very large and steeply sloped down from the house, so I will have to do some sort of terracing. I would like to have a good chunk of it in boulders and scree; I have become deeply addicted to the joys of "pocket gardening", planting things in the crevices between bricks or rocks. Of course, this means bringing in boulders . . . well, nothing’s easy . . .
I am a housewife at the moment. I am working on getting Minnesota state medical assistance for the boys; this will enable us to afford more, different therapies for both of them. I love this life, and still find far more things to do than time to do them in, but will have to get some kind of work at some point. Though our house payments are laughably lower than what we had in Illinois, one salary is still hard to stretch.
We are all happier here. Glenn is working hard at his new job, and seems challenged and satisfied. The boys are glad to have someone there in the morning who isn’t worried about rushing off to work the minute Tom’s bus comes (this was Glenn’s former role), and to have a genuine Mom here when they get home. I love the yardwork and the cooking (and the cleaning isn’t so bad; at least I know where stuff gets put away, now), and always seem to have more to do than I have time for.
So, that was our year. Last year this time we had NO idea that we would find ourselves in Roseville, a couple of miles from my childhood home and Glenn’s grandparents’ house. Looking back, we can see God’s hand at work, systematically tearing down the reasons we might have wanted to stay in Chicago, until He was ready to call us here. We have come trusting His providence, as Abraham came out of Ur. We are excited, fearful, and amazed. May He continue to guide us, and may he give you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
Go to Glenn's home page, or to Mia's. E-mail to Glenn or to Mia.
See our 1999 Christmas letter or a (much shorter) note about 1997 or the index of letters.
©1998-2003 by Mia F. McDavid and Glenn T. McDavid.