More Members
NANCY & ROGER MOREHOUSE
Nancy and I live on the Eastern Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains in VA. We have three sons, one daughter-in-law, one grand grandchild, two grand dogs, and a fluctuating number of grand chickens all of whom live in Oakland. Everyone loves California and will never look eastward so it is apparent that if we are to spend any time with our family (as in granddaughter) we must live closer than 2500 miles. Hence, Wolf Creek Lodge is a perfect compromise—not too far and not too close. We are also looking forward to being intentional good neighbors in our new life.
We enjoy cooking, gardening, and spring wildflowers. Nancy also plays bridge and tennis. (I say I play tennis but those who have seen me do not agree!) I am an accomplished curmudgeon, and I am currently working on an advanced degree in Lollygaging.
JO WARD
Jo was born and raised in England and moved to Toronto, Canada at age 21. She just up and got on a ship in Liverpool with $100 in her pocket. It was all she had in the world. Jo stayed in Toronto for six years. Still following her love of investigating other cultures, she married a New Zealander she met in Toronto and traveled with him through the U.S. and on to New Zealand, where they lived for a year. After living in San Francisco for three years, they moved to Grass Valley where her husband got a job. She has lived there for forty years and still loves to travel. In fact, she has been around the world twice. This spring she traveled through Malaysia and Indonesia, and she tries to go home to England every year.
Jo is a nurse case manager at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. Working there, she became aware of the many patients who had not made plans for their elder years, and she realized she needed to make a plan for herself. Cohousing, with its built-in co-support, became her answer. When she learned about Wolf Creek Lodge, she felt it was a good fit.
Jo is a very active person, even when she is not traveling. She loves to hike and has a bike and kayak. She looks forward to biking and kayaking with her new friends and neighbors when she moves into Wolf Creek Lodge. Jo also loves to read; she’s an expert knitter, and she sews. Jo’s hand-knitted socks are famous at Christmas parties, and she is part of a church group that knits shawls for sick people to give them comfort.
Jo is eagerly looking forward to moving into Wolf Creek Lodge and sharing the journey of cohousing with her new neighbors.
CLAIRE MILLER
Claire grew up in rural Saskatchewan, traveled to England for a long vacation at age 17 , eventually returning to Canada five years later having completed nursing training and having met future husband, Bob.
Later, after a couple of transatlantic trips, they married and set up home in Sunbury-on-Thames near London, where son Sam was born. A work relocation took them to Liverpool where Jennifer was born.
In 1978, the family set out on a new adventure, moving to Stow, MA. After being a stay at home Mom, while their children became independent, Claire did a complete career change – first working in a specialized custom woodworking and cabinet shop and then progressing to opening her own custom kitchen design and remodeling showroom in Concord, MA.
In 2004, when the opportunity to sell the business came up, Claire & Bob retired to Truckee, Ca.
Claire enjoys everything outdoors – gardens, growing things, flowers (wild and cultivated), hiking, skiing, swimming and boats, biking, and hanging out in the hammock down by the stream. She also enjoys singing and is hopeful of finding three like-minded souls at Wolf Creek Lodge to help form a new barbershop quartet.
BOB MILLER
Bob Miller is currently a ski bum, both downhill and cross country, in Truckee, California
He was born in England of an English mother and a Scottish father. At the age of eleven he moved, with his English accent, to Scotland. So far he is the only member of Wolf Creek Lodge to captain his High School cricket team.
He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in Physics and returned to England. It was there that he met his Canadian wife, Claire. They had a son and a daughter and moved with them to the greater Boston area in 1978, still with Bob’s English accent. There they joined the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. They have continued to be active Unitarian Universalists.
Bob worked in the computer industry in a variety of roles and for companies large and small. His major contributions were as a manager of software engineers for both large companies and two startups.
On retiring he moved with Claire to Truckee. Besides skiing he rides his road bike and hikes in the Sierras.
He works a little for his son’s engineering firm and gets volunteered as a computer person whenever he gets involved with local clubs and non-profits.
He is excited about exploring the concept of cohousing and enjoying the Grass Valley environment even if he has to migrate from the black runs to the blue with the passing of the years.
KRISTA ERICSON & MIKE CONTINO
Krista: I was born in southern California and grew up enjoying the beaches of Santa Monica and Malibu. My family moved to the SF Peninsula where I went to high school before returning to Claremont to attend Pitzer College. I did a lot of singing including some with Guy Carawan, a preeminent folk singer of the day, and earned my B.A. in Folklife Studies. Along the way I spent a semester in Appalachia and got very involved in health care and women’s rights issues.
Mike: I was born and raised in inner-city Philadelphia, got a B.A in Philosophy and concomitantly earned my M.A. in Mathematics at Villanova U. I ran some student community involvement programs and talked about the possibility of co-housing with college friends (although the term didn’t yet exist). I then moved to Claremont Graduate School for work on a Math Ph.D. and to experience the 60s in So Cal. Since it was already the early 70s this merely confirmed my life-long membership in the American Procrastinator’s Society. I became one of the original “Faculty in Residence” at Pitzer (translation: I was a dorm mother, but that’s a story for another time), where I met and fell in love with Krista.
We moved to the SF Bay area; got married; stayed close with family in Orinda, Berkeley, Grass Valley and Nevada City; started our own family; became owner-operators of Kimberwicke, a large equestrian facility; and learned some barnyard Spanish. Krista’s love of horses was a big help (not so much Mike’s years on the concrete streets of Philly playing buck-buck, wire ball, and half-ball). In our spare time, Mike taught middle school and community college math, and Krista got her second B.S. in Nutritional Science from UC Davis.
K: As a young parent I got interested in Montessori education, earned my credential, and started Myrtle Farm Montessori, a highly popular, well-respected, and successful pre-school in Concord, CA. A career in Montessori education proved to be a perfect fit for my interests in music, science, anthropology, gardening, and animal husbandry. A decade later, at the behest of parents at my school, I founded Eagle Peak Montessori, the first charter school in the Mount Diablo District, serving elementary-aged children. I was its director and administrator for 6 years before returning to teach at Myrtle Farm.
M: I moved to teaching math at what is now CSU East Bay, mostly to prospective teachers, and did a lot of volunteer work for the California Mathematics Council (CMC), the state professional organization of math teachers. That led to work for the State Department of Education through a program at UC Berkeley. Later I became the one and only full-time employee of CMC.
When the children were young we lived in a great neighborhood with lots of friends for us and our kids. We moved to start Myrtle Farm on semi-isolated/rural land in Concord. This proved to be a great location for the school, but we lost our neighborhood and any sense of community. Our daughter now lives in Colorado (as an equine veterinary resident) and our son lives in West Sac (as a Ph.D. student in Evolutionary Biology at UC Davis). We miss them and we greatly miss living in a neighborhood of friends. We have investigated co-housing developments in various parts of the country, but never quite clicked with any of them. Then we discovered senior co-housing and knew that Wolf Creek Lodge was where we wanted to spend our active, senior years (Krista fulfills Active; Mike Senior). Aging in place speaks loudly to us and Grass Valley is the ideal location.
BILL JONES
I arrived in the Bay Area in 1971. In the early years I taught 10 and 11 year olds at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco. It was a small progressive private school that was started in 1918. This is where I first learned what community was all about. The parents, teachers and kids were an extended family.
In the later years I worked for the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, which is a part of the National Park Service. My job title was “Interpretative Ranger” which meant, generally, I told people about the Park. My favorite part was working with teachers to develop programs to get kids involved with the natural world and Golden Gate National Recreational Area. I was lucky enough to have a duplex in the Marin Headlands, which was inside Golden Gate National Recreational Area. There I lived for the last 14 years of my 19 years at the Park.
As retirement was approaching I was looking for a place to live as well as a way to retire. Since I had Park housing, when I left my job I had to leave my home. I had been looking at cohousing possibilities for some time. I took cohousing tours in Santa Rosa, Cotati, and Sebastopol. Also, some places in Portland and Tucson were appealing. I was on the Wolf Creek Lodge newsletter email list for a year before I visited in February, March, and April. I joined in May 2011.
I retired on June 30, 2011 and moved to Grass Valley on July 31, 2011. I volunteer at the local elementary school in an anti-bullying program called Steps to Respect. I’m in a training program at Empire Mine State Park. I joined the South Yuba Club Fitness Center and take Qi Gong with several Wolf Creek Lodge members. I’ve also joined the local ACBL Bridge club and play with Wayne Vasey, another Wolf Creek Lodge member. I love it here, and the Wolf Creek Lodge community is ideal for me.
IRENE
Bio coming soon