Choosing Elk Grove to Call Home
By Shirley Peters, President of the Greater Sheldon Road Estates Homeowners Association
When we arrived in the Sacramento area in the 1970s, with our two very young children, we were open as to where we would live. Our priority was, as with parents with young children, to find a place where we could raise our children with our values. Of course, we investigated which schools might be the best, as well as having a commute close to Capital Mall where my husband was going to work.
Friends of ours lived off of Brown Road, long before the shopping centers were built. My husband, having grown up on a farm, saw the rural area and decided that living in
Elk Grove could be the place that meets the criteria we had established. The schools had an excellent reputation, the thought of living in a rural environment and having a “small” town atmosphere, called out to us.
We purchased a condo in old Elk Grove (one of very few available places to live in Elk Grove at that time), and started plans to build our house. The housing construction was just beginning to grow and there were wonderful places available, including houses in the fabulous 40s, Eldorado Hills, and Carmichael (where the school district also had a good reputation.)
My first experience as to what kind of community we chose to live in happened the second day after we moved into our temporary quarters. I was driving the children to school and one of my tires found a nail. When I pulled over, I was very concerned and not too sure what to do. I knew no one in town, my husband was out of town, cell phones came twenty years 
later, and I had my children in the car. As I sat fretting, I suddenly noticed, in my rear view window, a pick-up truck approaching my car. Four young men jumped out of the pick-up, asked me to open the trunk and proceeded to change the tire. Only minutes later, they finished, and as I was ready to pay them, they just waved good-bye, jumped back in their pick-up and sped on. I didn’t even have a chance to thank them.
This experience let me know that we probably chose the right place to live.
I always ask newcomers who recently move to Elk Grove why they choose to live here. Interestingly, I found, regardless of the size of the city, their reasons are close to why we chose Elk Grove.
