Dear Reader
On our 20th anniversary, Susan and I headed off for a few days to a lovely valley about an hour away. We didn’t know much about the town, but that was fine. Our goal was really just to renew our faith in each other.
We began by stocking up at the quirky Village Market in Glen Ellen, California. Within minutes, friendly locals spotted us and started chatting in the aisles with charming tips. You gotta hike to Jack London’s house.
Oh, dinner at the Fig Café. Hours later, having followed their yellow brick road all day, we walked, delirious, back from dinner to our creekside inn. “I think I could live here,” Susan said.
It turns out that Glen Ellen’s contagious spirit was not our passing illusion. In October
2017, the Nuns Fire bore down on this town near Santa Rosa. An astounding 183 of Glen Ellen’s 750 or so homes burned down. Among them was Jill Dawson’s place, just across the creek from the inn to which we had returned the next anniversary, and four more in turn. I called Jill after reading her family’s story. She sounded just like the spirited, generous type Susan and I have loved meeting in Glen Ellen. After the fire, she told me, her family’s prospects for staying in the town looked bleak. But residents mobilized on Facebook and in the Village Market to brainstorm how to house one another.
Hearing of their plight, some neighbors who barely knew the Dawsons up and placed two new trailers next to their house, which hadn’t burned, for Jill’s family.
“Their name is the Fosters, and I tell them, ‘You just can’t help it,’” Jill says, laughing at her own pun. Jill and her husband, Art, have lived in one of the trailers for a year while sorting through how to rebuild. They are only two of the many residents who were able to remain close thanks to their neighbors’ selflessness. “I’m grateful for little Glen Ellen,” Jill says. “The amount of passionate people and grassroots efforts working to keep this place supportive is amazing. The kindness thing, it’s still huge here.”
In kicking off our annual Nicest Place in America search, let Glen Ellen be just one example. So many cities, workplaces, churches, schools, and other locations thrive because, well, “the kindness thing, it’s still huge.” Please take the time to go to rd.com/ nicest to tell us about one you love. Thank you!