Holyoke attracts new residents for different reasons

People choose to live in a place based on any number of factors. Many select Holyoke because it’s where they grew up and they still have family here, but there are others who choose to move to Holyoke without having any prior ties to the community or to the area.

Two married couples, Gary and Jayne Engels and Eric and Diane Schmid, chose Holyoke for their own unique reasons but are all happy in their new community.

Fire drives Engelses to move

“It looked like a bomb had gone off,” Jayne said about the devastation the Camp Fire, named after the creek near its origin, caused to their town of Magalia, California, and nearby Paradise, California, in November 2018. Jayne described the burned-out cars and standing chimneys that were left in the fire’s wake.

She said all of Paradise and half of Magalia burned, but the rural forested area of Magalia where they lived was not.

“I didn’t feel comfortable living in the forest, knowing what I’d seen,” she said, adding that in a matter of hours, 50,000 people were displaced with nowhere to go.

Gary said they had just started to remodel their house when the fire happened, and they had to be evacuated for about a month, staying with a friend until they were able to return.

Many of their friends were scattered, trying to find new places to live. Gary and Jayne began to look at other states. Gary’s sister lives in Fort Collins, so they considered the possibility of relocating to Colorado, where Gary, a gunsmith specializing in firearm restoration, already had customers.

They looked at towns on the Western Slope, but they were far from the gun shows that take place on the Front Range. They started to look east of Fort Collins, and Holyoke’s location provided the combination of affordability and proximity to gun shows not only on the Front Range, but also in Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming.

Gary first visited Holyoke alone to look at houses. “I liked the town immediately as far as appearances go, and all the people I met were friendly,” he said of his first impression of Holyoke. “The city and the county keep everything nice.”

He said they fell in love with the house they ended up buying on South Baxter Avenue. Gary brought his machine shop and equipment to town in June 2019, and they were in Holyoke the next month; however, they had to wait about another month until they had all their belongings moved in due to a delay in closing on their California house.

Jayne said she likes the nice neighborhood they live in and the fact that Holyoke is safe. “Crime compared to other places is basically nonexistent,” she said. “Kids can play peacefully outside.”

They said another reason they like Holyoke is the fact that it’s flat, which makes navigating the snow easier for them than at their house in California, where they lived at the top of a hill. Sometimes when it snowed, they’d have to park at the bottom of the hill and walk since it was so steep and icy.

Both said they would like to get more involved with the community. Jayne is already involved with Friends of the Library and helps out when classes take field trips to Phillips County Museum.

Gary took on the responsibility of maintaining the Phillips County gun range and is working on restoring a phone booth for the museum.

Jayne is retired but has worked at an apple orchard and Christmas tree farm in California, where she also spent a lot of time volunteering.

She started the Daffodils Across the Ridge project, which planted 135,000 daffodils in Paradise. She was named Woman of the Year in Paradise in 2011 for her efforts. She said she may try to start a garden club in Holyoke.

Gary likes to hunt big game, and one of Jayne’s hobbies is photography. She especially likes taking pictures of old buildings in the area. Both enjoy history and are looking forward to continuing their community involvement.

Schmids move closer to family

Eric Schmid is originally from Trout Lake, Washington, which he said has a population of about 800 people, so the small-town way of life in Holyoke hasn’t come as much of a shock to him.

“People have been very genuine, very friendly,” he said. “The thing that really attracted us to Holyoke was that it hasn’t changed a lot in 30, 40 or 50 years.”

He said his prior town has changed a lot politically, as has the state of Washington itself.

His daughter and son-in-law had been living in Arizona until his son-in-law, who had been in the Army, got a job working for the government in Colorado Springs, where they live now.

Schmids had a grandson born in April, and Eric said he and Diane wanted to find somewhere closer to Colorado Springs so they would be nearer to family as well as escape the changing political landscape of Washington.

Eric found the house for sale on South Morlan Avenue and got in touch with real estate broker Shannon Schlachter. Eric said he asked Schlachter to sell him and Diane on the town.

“She made moving to Holyoke very easy,” he said. “Shannon became our connection right out of the gate. She’s very easy to become friends with.”

Eric is a self-employed home builder and cabinet maker. He is also a retired chief of the fire department in Trout Lake.

He comes from an agricultural background, and his family has dairy farms in south central Washington. Diane will not be in Holyoke until the school year ends. She is a retired Title I director and works in special education as a para-educator.

Eric said the move happened quicker than they anticipated. They initially thought they would be moving this spring, but they wanted to be sure to get the house while they could.

“My wife fell in love with the house when she saw it,” he added.

He said he’s been very impressed with the process. “I’ve never made a real estate deal like this one,” he said. “I’d say we spent an hour on the house and eight hours on the community.”

They closed on the house in October and are still in the moving process, Eric said.

He pointed out that he really enjoys all of the friendly people he’s met so far. He recently visited with some high school boys, all of whom made eye contact, and were polite, friendly and articulate. “You could tell they were just raised differently,” he said.

He enjoys the interactions he’s had with the different businesses in town, too, noting that they’re not in a rush and are always available to help.

He’s still settling in and getting acclimated. He has been visiting different churches and wants to wait until Diane arrives to decide which to attend, and he’s looking forward to getting involved in the community.

“I think it’s a very positive place,” he said. “I don’t want Holyoke to change as long as I’m here.”