May is flying by, Saturday has rolled around and it is time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

This week’s challenge is all about ourselves:

1)  When did you first leave your parents’ home?  Why did you leave?  Where did you move to?  What was it like?  What did you learn?

This challenge actually sounds familiar or else I’ve written about the topic on my own.

I left my parents’ home in New Jersey when I went off to college at the University of Rhode Island. I came home for a few weekends during the year and over holiday vacations, but I was pretty much living on my own.

I graduated a semester early and in January 1974, I was offered a long term substitute teaching job in Providence. I found a studio apartment in North Providence, which my parents helped me furnish – a refrigerator, a small kitchen table and a sofa bed. That was about it.

My parents gave me their old car, so I could get to work every day.

I was pretty self sufficient and was used to living away from home, as I had spent summers since I was twelve vacationing in New England with my aunt and uncle and grandparents.

I knew how to cook, sewed many of my own clothes (thanks to my aunt teaching me) and had been responsible many household chores when I was growing up.

I actually loved living on my own and I really enjoyed my time in Rhode Island, as most of my college friends all lived there.

My big life lesson was learning that holding on to a job didn’t always depend on how good I was at it.

Because many districts were facing declining enrollments,  teachers were getting laid off in the early 1970s.

I decided to be proactive, since I had almost no teaching seniority (last one hired=first one fired), so I applied for a teaching job i a completely new location – Mexico City! I was offered the job at a bilingual school, moved all my belongings back to New Jersey in a U-Haul and flew off to a new adventure.

Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge. I always look forward to SNGF.