Is This Heaven? No, It’s South Dakota : Emigres: San Bernardino family finds refuge from city in small town that advertised for new residents. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to California,” woman says.

WESSINGTON, S.D. —  The classified ad caught Kathy Abbey’s eye: “Wanted: Motivated family looking for child-oriented community,” it began.

A few months later, the eight members of the Abbey family are settling into this town of 265, far from the stress of Southern California. Kathy and her husband, Ed, dropped everything and moved from San Bernardino to Wessington--without jobs, without acquaintances, without anything more than video pictures and a booster’s recommendation.

“This is like a little piece of heaven here,” said Kathy Abbey, 36. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to California.”

The ad in Mother Earth News magazine was the brainchild of Naomi Reinhardt, who works in the Wessington bank and volunteers on the Wessington Economic Development Committee. She figures the $205 the committee spent on the eight-line ad was money well spent.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Reinhardt said. “Not just the Abbeys, who got here faster than I’d have dreamed, but the swarm of inquiries, at least 40 or 50.”

For the Abbeys, Wessington offered what San Bernardino couldn’t: no crime, clean air, friendly neighbors.

“Our daughter, who’s 14, is working at the bank scraping bricks, and the other kids are swimming or with friends,” Kathy Abbey said.

Kathy Abbey, a teacher, and Ed Abbey, a computer specialist, don’t have jobs in Wessington yet, although Kathy says she’s thinking about opening a bakery. She said the family had been considering moving for a while before the Wessington ad sealed the decision.

“I called Naomi Reinhardt; she sent videos of the town and this house, and we liked it,” Kathy Abbey said. “We paid off as many bills as we could, withdrew our retirements and took off.”

For Wessington residents, the Abbeys represent hope that the east-central South Dakota town--and its school--will survive. Wessington High School had 35 students last year, the minimum required to get some forms of state aid.

But the school superintendent moved after the end of the school year, taking five children out of the local schools. The Abbey’s six school-age children will bolster the school census.

“We want to keep the community alive,” said Vernetta LeGrand, who runs the grocery store in town. “I suppose it sounds strange to advertise in a magazine for residents, but we all figured we’d try just about anything.

“If you can save a school, you have a better chance of saving the community. We hope we can.”

Reinhardt said she’s talking with four other families who saw the ad and are trying to arrange jobs before moving to Wessington.

“Each of them has at least five kids too,” Reinhardt said. “I don’t think I talked to anyone with fewer than five.”

Kathy Abbey said she, too, has become a promoter for the town.

“We’re telling friends and relatives about our experience,” she said. “I know a lot of people who’d like to find what we’ve found here.”