Interview with Nora Roy

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I first heard about Prairie Hill years ago when it was just starting. I thought it sounded so cool! But at that time my husband Chris and I were living in our big old house over near City Park. I knew Chris wouldn’t be interested in scaling down at that point. But then he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late 2018 and he died in February, 2019. So, in just a few short months, my world was turned upside down. And there I was, alone in a big house—the house where we’d been for the last 30 years.

Chris and I were married in Burkina Faso in 1970 when we were Peace Corps volunteers. We have two kids who are grown now. We’ve done a lot of traveling, both abroad and in this country. So, over the years, we’ve accumulated a LOT of stuff! Chris was a long-time faculty member in the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History. He loved to take photographs and video footage documenting the arts of African peoples. He had amassed an extensive library of academic materials and mountains of photographs that he’d printed. Some of those will probably go to the University Special Collections Archive and the School of Art and Art History. I’m still in that process of letting go of all of that.

After Chris died, our daughter Megan and and her husband John and their baby Sylvia, were staying with me. One Sunday, we noticed that there was an open house here at Prairie Hill. So the four of us came over to take a look. The social part of it was extraordinary. The people we met were so friendly and clearly engaged in making this a good place. They weren’t phony at all. These were obviously people committed to making the world better. So, that was a big hook for me.

The day we visited, we toured Val and John Bowman’s 515-foot studio apartment. I was impressed that two people could live in such a small space. I just couldn’t imagine paring down that much! Then we walked up to the two-story duplexes on the hill. I loved the view. Del Holland and Barb Bailey showed us around their place. I thought “Wow! For a fairly small footprint this has a lot of living space!” Megan and John are both architects, so they know a lot about energy efficiency and smart design. They were very enthusiastic.

Later, I came back to Prairie Hill by myself. I remember scrambling up the hill in the snow one day just to see what it would be like to sit up on the upper patio. I slowly became aware that I wasn’t here incognito—a lot of folks had spotted me poking around. But people didn’t swoop in and ask a bunch of questions. They just let me be. That’s one of the great things about being here: you can chat with your neighbors, but it’s not a huge production. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like the neighborhood I grew up in: you see someone, you say hi, you maybe catch up, or somebody has a question. It’s just easy-going.

It didn’t take me long to make the decision to move here. I joined within a month or two. And I chose my duplex because I need to be cool when I sleep. The bedrooms are downstairs and they’re nice and cool. I began to see where I’d place my furniture and what I wanted my kitchen to look like. Megan and I had fun selecting interior finishes together. We also decided to take out part of a wall upstairs to open up the living space and create a natural flow. It feels just right. It’s great to have architects in the family!

I officially moved in in May and I love it. I’m so happy to be here. And it’s not just the space. It’s all of the people, and it’s the land. To wake up each morning, get my coffee, and look out and see the trees on the hillside: I love it. And my kids are very happy that I'm here.

I’m 73, and in pretty good health overall. But I know I’m still reeling from losing Chris. The last few months of his life were so hard. After he died, there was all the paperwork to wade through. So Prairie Hill was always the up thing, the thing I looked forward to. Now that I'm here, I still get stressed out. Probably we all do. But I feel safe here. I don’t have a Pollyanna-ish view that everything’s always going to be fine, because I know—it’s life!

I want to be able to add to our community and make it the kind of place I think we all want it to be. I’m on the Land Circle and also on the new Land Committee that’s assessing big picture issues of land use at Prairie Hill. I'm finding the land challenges we’re dealing with to be sort of a source of inspiration. I want to learn more about how we can be good stewards of the land—how we can grow the prairie, tend the gardens and plant trees. Doing all of that with other people makes it wonderful! I was very alone over at my old house. Every time I go over there now it seems very lonely.

I love that if I want to be by myself here, I can be. And I like that I can sometimes hear people chatting on a nearby porch in the evening as twilight comes on. It's fun knowing I can join the conversation if I want to. So here I am!

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