starting over
In 2009, in the thick of the financial crisis, my dad felt called to help plant a church community in a rural town in Idaho. He gave the plumbing business away to a young friend who’d lost his own dad some years before and now worked for him, and moved our whole family 2,000 miles north.
He started all over, renting a farm where we lived and taking on small jobs — whatever he could find. My teenage brothers, already skilled carpenters by this time, worked alongside him.
I was still in school.
a bigger vision
Within a few years, the business was flourishing, setting the stage for something bigger.
Together with friends from church, we bought the collapsing brick Ford service station in our tiny downtown and transformed it into a home for our bakery and creamery — ventures that my siblings, mom, and I had begun. Then came the old appliance shop, which became my mom’s charming, old-fashioned quilt store.
And then, the train car.
My dad’s always loved trains, and learned the local railroad history inside and out when we moved to north Idaho.
One snowy December day, an elderly neighbor called, worried about the weight of snow piling up on his barn roof. My dad went to help, and after shoveling, he peeked inside. There she was: 120-year-old WI&M Car 306, forgotten, rotting and home to two dozen feral cats.
