Mark’s family safe in PA not in NOLA

Thank you to all who have expressed concern about my son, daughter-in-love and four grandchildren who USED to live about four blocks from a street car stop on Carrollton Street in New Orleans.
A couple years ago, for various reasons, as my son’s computer contract work came to an end, they realized the time had come to re-locate. They sold their home to the first person who viewed it – a good neighbor who had watched all their remodeling projects and wanted to live there.
Last summer, my son’s family settled in Lancaster County, Penn. – where everyone knows how to spell their name. Hershberger is an Amish/Mennonite name. (My husband’s grandmother was old order Amish. Many of his aunts and uncles were Mennonite.)
In the past, we have welcomed my son and his family during hurricane season. Through the 12 years he lived in the New Orleans area, I enjoyed the grand party atmosphere that descended on our house during hurricane evacuations. First, as a college student when he sent friends to stay with us while he went to Baton Rouge; then as a young married man swooping in with his growing family.
The last time or two that hurricanes threatened, however, he elected to stay put because their house had endured a 100 years of bad weather; its location on a ridge means it will be one of the last to see flooding and it is built of substantial material. Of course, as concerned parents we held our breath as the hurricanes approached, veered and passed over New Orleans with little more than a rain.
During non-hurricane times, we visited and grew to appreciate Party City, its culture and food.
The year he and his wife turned 30 they began looking for work and a life elsewhere. They ended up in an old village where Amish buggies daily, clip-clop past their front door.
My son’s house is so close to his current office that he called me one night to say he was walking down to work in his pajamas because his boss had asked him address some computer problem. With four little ones, his wife enjoys the convenience of a minute walk to the small, neighborhood grocery store. The three older children frequently walk to their local school, and their six-month old baby girl is learning to crawl on an area carpet in front of the bay windows of their Victorian style home.
So, thank you to the many who have asked about them. Safe in Pennsylvania, they have been glued to their computer screens reading the on-line updates from the Times Picayune (nola.com) and have blogged personal comments at http://www.openweblog.com/users/hexmode/ as they remember now flooded sites in New Orleans where they used to date, attended Bible studies, met with friends, enjoyed eating out and went to college.
On-line and via phone calls, they wonder about their New Orleans family, friends, acquaintances and former co-workers. They know that some left, but it may take much longer to find out what others did when the evacuation order came.
So yes, thank you for asking – they moved away before Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, but, they remain involved and concerned about the people and city where my daughter-in-love grew-up and the two began their life together.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)