This is my family standing in front of the truck we bought to make our trip to Costa Rica. The following story is an excerpt from my mom's journal:
Our Costa Rican Trip of 1979
The idea to move to Costa Rica began a few years prior to 1979. Jim had been researching for the "perfect" place to raise a large family. He was dissatisfied with every place we had been- and we had moved often during our marriage. He decided that Costa Rica was that special place. The climate was warm year round. The country had a constitution similar to the U.S. constitution and the country had more teachers than police.
I put money aside from the earnings of our Bergoo [West Virginia] store and bakery until there was enough to send him to Costa Rica so he could actually see the country for himself. We presented him with the round trip ticket as a father's day gift. When he returned, he was more excited than ever. This was, indeed the perfect place and supposedly he had been offered a job as a psychologist in a government office there. "Just move here and the job is yours," he was told.
We had been putting siding on our Lumberport [WV] house so that it would be more apt to sell. It finally did sell, so we used the money to purchase a new 1978 Chevy diesel pickup instead of using the money as a down payment on another house, as we had in the past. We then put the remainder of the money, $3000, in the bank.
We drove the truck for a year to make sure all the bugs were worked out of it. In the meantime, we put a camper shell on it with a sliding back window so we could communicate with the kids in the back (seat belts weren't widely used yet). I also had the boys build bench seats on each side in the bed of the truck. The seats were padded and covered with a Naugahyde lid, which was hinged and had cubicles inside the bench for each one of the family members. Every one was allowed only what we could squeeze into them. This included three changes of clothes for each of us, our encyclopedias, a few choice books, a Spanish-English dictionary and enough diapers to last the three weeks it would take to drive through Mexico and Central America.
We had moved several times in the three years we were in West Virginia. We had first bought the Lumberport house and Jim worked in Clarksburg a few miles away. He later changed jobs and we moved to Webster Springs, then to Parcoal, Bergoo, and up to New Martinsville. Courtney was born in Lumberport and Jeanie in New Martinsville.
We had to sell or dispose of extra belongings in order to make the trip. We planned on camping out on the way, so we bought a very used tent trailer for that purpose. I filled a cooler with snacks and food to eat along the way. I also brought my sourdough starter and freshened it every few days. I had obtained the starter from an Italian grocery store owner three years earlier. He said the original starter was over ten years old. I had used it in all my breads and pizza dough.
We said our good-byes and left New Martinsville in the fourth week of July, 1979. Jeanie had been born July 1st. We only made a few short stops that day and night and drove all the way to Texas before camping. That night a raccoon had a great time getting into our cooler. He managed to get the lid part way off the sourdough and then strung our hot dog buns on a little tree above the cooler.
The next day we crossed the border into Mexico. An older Mexican gentleman looked over our truck and trailer. He seemed quite interested in our trailer and I was certain he was going to make us empty it. Instead, he looked at the children and was impressed with the size of our family. He even commented that he didn't realize some Americans had such large families. He then smiled and waved us on.
The first night in Mexico, we found a nice little park and set up our tent trailer. I spent my time and energy trying to see that everyone was happy. It is amazing to me that nine (out of the ten, since Larry, the oldest, stayed behind and came down later) children behaved as well as they did on that trip. We were three weeks on the road, driving from dawn until dusk and sometimes even later.
That first night was the only night we camped in Mexico. Whenever we stopped for the night and asked the location of a place to camp, the people looked alarmed and told us it was not safe to camp. We were then told, by these total strangers, to follow them. We did, and they took us to their homes and gave us their own beds. A couple of times, I saw teenagers going off to stay with relatives for the night so we would have a place to sleep.
Always, during the trip, we dreamed of arriving in San Jose, Costa Rica, and combing the area for that perfect piece of land to farm and to raise our ten children. It was not a problem to leave the color TV, stereo, and dishwasher. We would pioneer. The smog and inclement weather would be replaced by balmy weather and clear skies. Palm trees, loaded with coconuts, and sandy beaches would surround us.
When we finally arrived, in the Fall of 1979, our first casa had four bedrooms, a red tile roof, and gleaming terrazzo floors. It was nestled in ten acres of coffee trees loaded with the bright red berries. The electricity to the house had not been turned on and we found out that it would be at least two weeks before it would be. That first night, by candlelight, we found that we shared this casa with hundreds of huge cockroaches and several mice...but it was worth it.
Contributed by: Marie Holley Meshkin
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