Leif's Seventh Home - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - August 1986 to July 1990

We wanted to stay in Hawaii, but the army wasn't going for it. Instead, they sent Peter W. to MEPCOM, the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command at Great Lakes, Illinois, north of Chicago. After checking out all the school systems on the north side of Chicago, we decided the best one for our sons was in Highland Park. We could send them there if we chose to live at Fort Sheridan instead of one of the Great Lakes housing areas, though Peter would have a 20-30 minute commute (which he did not enjoy). That meant that Leif could go do Northwood Junior High School for three years and then his freshman year in high school at Highland Park High School, where Peter Anthony would compete his senior year before heading off to the Air Force Academy. Leif did some of the best academic work of his entire school career there.

We lived at 419-D Nicholson Road on Fort Sheridan. Behind the house was a part of the golf course and just a couple blocks walk brought us to the shore of Lake Michigan. Leif picked out a cute kitten, Scamp, who was our favorite cat. I've written about him before and posted photos of him with Leif.

Leif played soccer all four years. It was there that he got enamored of radio controlled cars and built at least three of them from kits, modifying them to make them even faster, and using them in science fair experiments.

His best friends there were Robert and Chris, and they spent a lot of time at our house. We also had visits from my family, and Leif's cousin Holly spent time with us a couple of summers. We were fortunate to see a lot of my sister Sherie and her family, as they lived in Michigan about two hours drive from us.

During our time in the Chicago area, we also did a lot of things in the city, from seeing a big car show (Leif loved that!), to the time Leif and I went to the top of the Sears tower. We went to the museums and aquarium, and flew NINE times on military aircraft space available, free, back to Hawaii for long weekends. We also flew military space-A to Germany in 1988, the last time we were there, and visited Peter W's relatives, as well as taking a long trip through the eastern half of Canada. Leif was with us on all those trips and enjoyed each one. Of course, we also went to visit Peter Anthony at the Air Force Academy and looked forward to him coming home to see us for a short time each summer and at Christmas.

By the time Leif was in seventh grade, he was also living in his seventh home.

----------------
The photos above are:
1. Leif's school portrait, probably fall 1989.
2. Leif's school portrait, probably fall 1988.
3. 419-D Nicholson Road, Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a townhouse, where we lived for four years.
4. The living room at 419-D Nicholson Road when we lived there.

Silly Leif in a Kitchen Cupboard - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - September 1986 - Age 11

We moved from Honolulu, Hawaii to Fort Sheridan, Illinois in August 1986. Peter W. was working at Great Lakes Naval Training Station at MEPCOM (the Military Entrance Processing Command) as their legal advisor. We checked out all the area communities to find the best schools for the boys and decided living at Fort Sheridan, about a 20 minute drive south of Great Lakes, would be best as the guys could go to the excellent schools in Highland Park.

We lived in a townhouse and although it had 4 bedrooms and a basement, the rooms were small and we were pretty cramped. Now as cramped as Leif was in this cupboard, though! He climbed into it before we were all moved in and filled it up with food or pots and pans. He wouldn't have been able to get into it by the next year. At 11, he was tall for his age, but hadn't yet experienced the incredible growth spurt that shot him up to 6' 1" by the time he was 13.

Leif always had a whacky sense of humor and got a kick out of doing silly things. And I was a whacky mother who enjoyed taking photos of the boys antics. I treasure those photos.

Leif's 12th Christmas 1986 - Lawton, Michigan - Almost 12 years old

In the summer of 1986 we moved from Honolulu, Hawaii to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a small army base on the north side of Chicago sandwiched in between the suburbs of Highland Park, Highwood and Lake Forest. Peter W. was actually assigned as the Staff Judge Advocate for the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM) at Great Lakes, a few miles farther north. We could have gotten quarters there, or lived in any of a large number of the northern suburbs, but after a thorough investigation of the schools, it was clear that the best place for our sons to go to school was in Highland Park, and accepting quarters at Fort Sheridan would put them into that school system. For Peter Anthony, it was a critical senior year, but for Leif, we knew it would be at least three years, and it turned out to be four.

Our sons had grown up so far away from my family for most of their lives that they really only knew my mother, who came to visit at least once a year wherever we lived. Moving to the Chicago area brought us closer to them, because my mother and my brother Donovan were a day's drive away in Kansas; my sister Lannay was a day's drive away in Maryland, and my sister Sherie was just a couple of hours drive away in Michigan. We were able to see them a lot more again and Leif took to his cousins very quickly.

1986 was the first Christmas on the US mainland since 1976, ten years! We spent it at my sister Sherie's home in Lawton, Michigan, and my sister Lannay and her family came, too. It was great to have a house full of family to celebrate with, and Peter Anthony and Leif got to know four of their first cousins. In the photo above, left to right are Peter Anthony (18), Derek, Leif (almost 12), Shane, Jacquie and Brenda. It was Peter Anthony's 18th birthday, my Christmas boy born on December 25th.

Christmas in the north, cold and snowy, seemed more like what we were culturally used to as Christmas weather, but it was a shock after three years in warm Hawaii!