"Home Sweet Home?!?"

This is my childhood home in Gary, Indiana's Marshalltown neighborhood. My great-grandparent's bought this house and two others in this neighborhood in the 1950's after moving from the Midtown Section of Gary after living there some 30+ years (Yeah, my family has been in Gary for a good while, 1918 to be exact.).

Great Grandfather Herman Turner and Great Grandmother Ola Mae Souter

Back then the city was 12 years old. Our family has seen the city's infant years, boom years, decline years, and decayed years yet we are still here. Too often we don't stand up for our own neighborhoods, leaving is too easy of an option especially when home ownership has become so low in our community. This blog is about my experience being handed off this home from my mother as my first house. NOTE: I chose to live here just recently Graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a Bachelors degree, at a whim I could have chosen to live in the suburbs but I despise cookie cutter characterless suburbs and urban sprawl! Gary has great access to Chicago via commuter rail and highways, five minutes from the USS Steel Yard, and I live ten minutes away from the lake shore. I hope to show others my reasoning in why living in Gary is possible from a lifelong resident (with street sense which I am more than willing to share with other pioneers) and why living in Gary despite its over talked ills is a great start off for those wishing to live on the cheap and reap all the conveniences Gary has to offer.