First Flatlander Response

If you're new to this project please read: Flatlanders' Vermont, and if you'd like to participate, please respond to Flatlanders' Questionnaire 1 (both below).

Celia Schneider of Castleton, a woman whose vibrant personailty seems indicative of many who left more profitable and many ways more predictable lives to re-root their faimilies-- and their own creative selves-- in the lush, rough, but more rewarding world-- in all ways but monetarily-- of Vermont.

Here's her first impressions:

1. When, from where and why did you move to Vermont? We moved to VT because my husband was a Forester and there were not a lot of jobs in that field in NJ. He also knew this area from coming to Lake Dunmore in the summers as a child. His family was also moving here as well.
2. If your Move to Vermont were a movie, describe the opening scenes and images as the credits flash across the screen. The first scene would be of a young woman excited and then in the very next moment that look of wondering what she got herself into. The next scene would be her crying.
3. List 5 first impressions of Vermont. Beautiful, peaceful, quiet, scary and overwhelming.
4. Describe the first problem you encountered and how you coped or overcame it. When we first moved here we lived in Brandon and I did not have a job at the time. I had been married a year and we moved into my -in-laws house. That says it all. I don’t remember any first problem, it was more adjusting to a new way a life.
5. Tell the most compelling story of those first weeks in Vermont-- could be as simple aswatching your kids hunt for tadpoles, drawing your first landscape, being befriended orostracized... whatever comes to mind most boldly. I’ll think about this one!

Celia, I'd be curious to hear more of those first months with the in-laws: where (or more on the temperament of the town), why, how long. Can you recount one incident that conveys that living situation and the cast of characters.We all play different roles in our families at different times: what was yours?

Thanks for responding, look forward to reading more of those early years!!
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