I Arrived in Sonoma Without Knowing Anything About It - Jan Erickson
Journey
This is the first of three stories about Jan Erickson’s relationship with Sonoma.
🟩 I Arrived in Sonoma Without Knowing Anything About It – Chapter 1 (You are reading this story.)
🟨 I Planned to Return to Michigan, but I Chose Sonoma – Chapter 2
Click the story title above to continue Jan’s journey as an unexpected job opportunity begins to turn Sonoma into her home.
🟥 I Found My Way Back Through Community Service – Chapter 3
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A Job Offer Brings a Young Teacher to Sonoma
Jan Erickson first fell in love with California during a trip to San Francisco in 1969. Four years later, a teaching position brought her to Sonoma—a small agricultural town she knew nothing about and initially found surprisingly different from the life she had known.
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I Arrived in Sonoma Without Knowing Anything About It
I came to Sonoma in 1973, but my journey to California began four years earlier.
During the summer after high school, one of my girlfriends and I traveled from Michigan to San Francisco. We were two very naïve 18-year-old Midwesterners. We stayed for about a week, and I absolutely fell in love with the city. That trip created my first real pull toward California.
I returned to Michigan and went to college. A friend from the university later moved to San Mateo, so I began visiting him and his girlfriend during school breaks. Those visits gave me more opportunities to spend time in San Francisco and around the Bay Area.
By the time I finished college, I knew I wanted to return to California for my master’s degree. My plan, of course, was to eventually go back to Michigan.
After graduation, I came west and had three job interviews. The opportunity in Sonoma was the one that came through. I accepted it even though I knew nothing about the town.
At the time, Sonoma was a very small, agricultural community. Many people still dressed in what I thought of as cowboy clothes. I had come from a university of about 40,000 students and considered myself fairly sophisticated. Arriving in Sonoma was a real cultural shock.
Becoming a teacher in the school district helped me find my place. I met other teachers and the parents of my students. On weekends, I sometimes went to the Plaza, sat outside with my lunch and newspaper, and simply watched for people I knew.
After the constant activity of a large university, life in a small town took some adjustment. But teaching gave me an immediate connection to the community, and Sonoma gradually began to feel less unfamiliar.
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A Small Community Can Become Accessible Through Everyday Connections
Jan’s introduction to Sonoma illustrates how work can provide an entry into an unfamiliar community. Teaching connected her with colleagues, students and parents, while ordinary routines—such as spending time on the Plaza—helped her become comfortable in a town very different from the one she had left behind.
Her experience also captures Sonoma in the early 1970s, when it was still a small agricultural town rather than the destination it would later become.
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This story was created from an interview with Jan Erickson conducted by Don Lundgren. Jan’s words have been edited for length and clarity while preserving her voice, experiences and meaning.
