A Wyoming Memoir Chapter 3: Coming home

Our destination loomed directly west of the river. Lovell, unchanged in many ways, still stirs my soul. Most of the old stores are shuttered or at best have unrecognizable businesses operated by unrecognizable people. If there were a phone book, I’m sure it would be filled with names that don’t relate to those of 65 years ago.

One very apparent characteristic of Lovell is its patriotic flair. Little parks with wall paintings exhibiting patriotic themes, monuments saluting soldiers and a feeling of Americana in the air. Maybe I’m biased, but it’s undeniable that the community loves America. The local general store, the Red Apple, has a large bulletin board exhibiting pictures of hundreds of WWII, Korean and Vietnam veterans from the county. It’s surprising how many people served in the military from such a small area. A county of only 12,000–13,000, composed of towns with 2000 and fewer people, supplied all branches of the military with hundreds of personnel.  

Growing up during the 40s, 50s and 60s, people felt like one extended community. High school sports, county fairs, church activities and local businesses connected families from Lovell, Cowley, Byron, Deaver, Frannie, Greybull, Basin, Burlington, Hyattville, Shell and Manderson. It was common to recognize faces almost everywhere you went, a feeling that’s no doubt much harder to find today. 

I have often wondered why my Ohio friends seem almost untouched by their high school years. For me, those years never ended. They became the foundation upon which the rest of my life was built. 

Wyoming gave me mountains to climb, rivers to fish, honest work, lifelong friends and values that have guided me for more than eighty years. Although I left nearly six decades ago, it never really left me.

Home, I have learned, is not simply where we live. Home is the place that continues to live within us. Mine has always been Wyoming.

It was with those thoughts that I drove into Lovell. The streets were familiar, yet different. Some storefronts had changed, many of the people had, too, but the feeling hadn’t. I had finally arrived, not simply at a town on a map, but at the place that has always remained part of me. Every mile had held a memory, and every memory had led me home.

(Richard Stevens is a 1961 graduate of Lovell High School. He and his wife, Susan, live in Granville, Ohio.)