ReAnn Rothwell’s Money Saving Ideas, Tax & Organizing Tips

OK, I don’t really live IN Great Falls:  I live in one of the bedroom communities surrounding Great Falls, Vaughn.

A suburb of Great Falls is what Vaughn really is. Like virtually every one here, I have always worked in ‘The City’, my kids went to school in the City, I shop, go to Doctors, eat out & recreate IN the City.

Between Sun Prairie,  the new county shop complex, & other new subdivisions coming, Vaughn is not going to be too different than Black Eagle in 10 - 15  years……you will not really notice when you leave official Great Falls city limits.    (I would probably live IN the City limits if they did not frown so much on horses & cows in back yards - however from the experiences of raising Ferdinande the orphan bull in Grandma Rothwell’s backyard until he was over a year old, riding the horses into town on a lark & leaving them in the backyard until the neighbors grumped when I was in high school, raising my easter chick into a full grown rooster who loved to crow about a half an hour before sun rise just to announce the joy of the morning to the neighborhood, etc etc, you can see that the IN town City folk really have never wanted me & my inseparable animals too close! Plus the new city ordinances frown heavily on my 20+ cats.)

I think what I love most about living in the Great Falls area is my community and history here; especially the fact that almost everyone I meet usually knows someone I know so there is a connection of some kind almost immediately.  They say that we are all only 5 degrees of separation from some one famous. In Great Falls, I think we are all only  2 to 3 degrees of separation from each other.

My paternal great-grandparents came to this area in the early 1900’s. Great-Gram Rothwell worked at the grocery store where Bert & Ernie’s is now. My Grandma Anderson moved here from Wisconsin when she was offered the job to start the pediatrics wing and be it’s head nurse at the ‘new’ Deaconess hospital in the early 1920’s. Grandpa Rothwell started Gus & Jack’s Tire Shop in 1938 where the parking garage on 1st Ave North is now.   When I see one of those blue Clean Up The Highway signs around I always think of my dad who started that program when he was Head of the Dept of Transportation.  Over & over I am reminded of my history. 

I run into people who I went to kindergarten thru 12th grade with on a regular basis. The Doctor who did my carpel tunnel surgery is one of those people & we joked & told stories on each other all thru the appointments, surgery & followups.  It was great fun to catch up that way! The head of membership at the fitness center where I go is another kindergarten friend - in fact she has now purchased her old family home in Riverview & is raising her children in it. My best friend from 6th grade up still lives in Black Eagle & I try to see him once every month or so to catch up.

This kind of community reaches out to newcomers also IF they will allow it. Just let them live here for a while & soon they are living beside the cousin of your best friend from high school. Or they bought tires from & met my ‘little’ baby brother (who stands 6′4″) and just thought he was SOOOO charming! 

How can an area of 70,000ish people still have that small town community feel? Because it is GREAT Falls!!!

I have had my chances to leave & have chosen time & time again to stay. It has always been a choice. Some folks may not like it - or like my sister left for 20 years & now are back. I have always chosen to stay.

(Cross posted in Greaterfalls.com)