“My wife, Carol, and I were living in Chicago. We were both teachers and didn’t have good jobs. It was expensive to live there and we weren’t making a lot of money. It was 1981, not a good time for job hunting for a teacher. We said, ‘Let’s look at the whole country’ and thought we’d end up in the Sun Belt. Arizona and Texas were booming. But then I got this notice for Wentzville, Missouri. I ignored it and it kept showing up. There were four jobs for the Wentzville School District in the art department, so I said, ‘I have to find out more.’ I knew it wasn’t far from St. Louis, but I had to find it on the map.

Eventually, we came. I met with the principal and took the job. As soon as they found out Carol’s specialty was special ed, they courted her, too. We had to find a place to live and had two choices: move to St. Louis County and commute to work every day or live close to work, which made a lot of sense. We found an apartment in Lake St. Louis. When we first moved here, you could see the stars every night. We stayed and watched the area grow. Our kids grew up and went to Wentzville schools. Most years they were the only Jewish kids there. They tell us now they’re glad they had that opportunity. They’re glad they learned what it was like to be a minority and they got to meet all different kinds of kids, not just kids who were like them.”

📷| Bill Motchan