I Chose to Stay - Jill Valavanis
Jill’s Sonoma Journey - I Chose to Stay Chapter
This is the second of three stories about Jill’s relationship with Sonoma.
🟩 I Visited – Chapter 1
🟨 I Chose to Stay – Chapter 2 (You are reading this story.)
🟥 I Got Involved in Community – Chapter 3
Click the story title above to continue Jill’s journey as she teaches art and builds connections across Sonoma.
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Jill moved to Sonoma in seventh grade and grew up in a more rural valley of orchards, small restaurants, and familiar streets. She left after high school expecting to make her life elsewhere. About twenty years later, she chose to return so her children could know their grandparents and grow up here.
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We moved to Sonoma in the summer of 1975, the day before I started seventh grade at Altamira Middle School. That was a big change for me. In Oakland, I had ridden an AC Transit bus since kindergarten, paying my fifteen cents to get on. Suddenly I was riding an orange school bus, bouncing across town to school. At the time, it felt traumatic.
I went to seventh and eighth grade at Altamira, then to Sonoma Valley High School. Sonoma felt much more rural than the Oakland Hills. There were smaller bungalows and farmhouses scattered around the valley, and you could still see apple and prune orchards. The property where my father moved his business even had quince trees. Those orchards were reminders of the Italian families who had grown fruit here.
The town was charming, though it took getting used to. I could walk to the Sebastiani Theatre to see a movie. There were far fewer restaurants than there are now. I remember pizza, fried chicken, fish and chips, A&W Root Beer on Napa Street, and a burger place called PDQ—“pretty darn quick.” It was more of a hometown cooking kind of place than the Sonoma people know today.
I noticed differences within the valley, too. The east side of Sonoma felt wealthier and more white. The west side was more mixed, culturally vibrant, noisier, and perhaps a little more fun. From my perspective, that difference has remained recognizable over the years, even as Sonoma has changed. I have also seen the Latino community grow. When we arrived, many agricultural and vineyard workers came from Mexico for the harvest and returned to their families afterward. Over the decades, more families made their lives here.
I graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1981 and went straight off to college. I did not expect ever to move back. My mother once said she thought I might end up living in Amsterdam.
But I kept visiting my parents. As I got older, I began to appreciate what a beautiful place Sonoma was. The town was changing, too, becoming a little more cosmopolitan. I met the man I married, and we had our wedding here. Afterward, we lived in Burlingame, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, where we had our first baby. We also spent a short time in Oregon.
Having a child changed how we thought about home. We did not want to raise our children without their grandparents in their lives. We decided to return to the Bay Area and considered Sebastopol, Napa, Petaluma, and Sonoma. In the end, Sonoma won. We moved back around 2000, made our home on the west side, and had our second child here.
I value the life my children could have in Sonoma. They could dig in the dirt and build forts at the bases of trees. At the same time, San Francisco was close enough for us to visit museums and art galleries or simply walk its streets. Sonoma feels somewhat tucked away because it is not on a major freeway, and I like that.
I love living in a valley where I can turn and see the hills, then hike up into them and look back down. I love being surrounded by nature and watching the seasons change. The vineyards bring beautiful colors in the fall, and they have kept much of the valley from being covered with houses.
I came here as a child because my parents chose Sonoma. I came back as an adult because my husband and I chose the life we wanted for our family. The place I had once expected to leave behind became home again.
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Jill experienced Sonoma first as a place her parents chose, then as a place she chose for her own family. Returning let her give her children both a relationship with their grandparents and the freedom to explore the valley that she had come to appreciate as an adult.
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This story was created from an interview with Jill Sable Vallavanis conducted by Don Lundgren. Jill’s words have been edited for length and clarity while preserving her voice, experiences, and meaning.
