Meet your new neighbors

Bill and Erika Elliott moved to Tehachapi in June from San Leandro, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they both were teachers. It was Tehachapi’s seasonal mountain setting and the fact that Erika’s daughter lives in Bakersfield that lead them to look in this area for a place to retire.

Bill had lived in the Bay Area his entire life. For the last 17 years he has taught high school science in the Newark (California) school district. He has a brother who lives in the little town of Pioneer which is near Jackson in the Sierra foothills.

Erika was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She is the only child of a Colombian mother and a German father. She said she was raised in Colombia but her mother now resides in Germany. While living in San Leandro, she taught English and language at Cal State University, East Bay in Hayward.

Both Bill and Erika have always loved to travel. As a matter of fact, they met on a vacation to Poland in 2007. At the time, Erika was living in Norway and Bill was traveling around Europe. (Erika told me that at one time Bill stayed at a winery in Ravenna, Italy, and got to help pick grapes.) They have been together ever since.

Erika’s daughter, Sarah, is an immigration attorney in Bakersfield, so mom and daughter can now visit more often. Her son, Kevin, is an IT for a medical center in Portland, Oregon. Their current baby is Pazita, a little sweetheart of a dog that they rescued five years ago in La Paz, Mexico.

The Elliotts love their new Bear Valley home that they had been in for only two weeks when I visited, and Erika was thrilled when her new next door neighbor brought over a welcome cake. She shared a piece with me, it really was delicious.

Tehachapi welcomes you both to our mountain community.

Cliff and Mary Elbl have lived in Cambria, California for 20 years. While visiting Tehachapi, Cliff saw a house being built that he really liked and before he knew it the couple had commissioned the construction of their new home. They now have the best of both-worlds, a house at the coast and a house in the mountains.

Cliff and his brother were born in San Francisco. He has been involved with aviation for most of his life. He was a pilot in the Navy and then worked as a course developer for the Federal Aviation Administration Academy. He was also Director of Operations with the FAA in Oklahoma City and involved with flight calibration inspections. He resigned from that position in 1998.

Most of his work since then has been United Nations related.

In 2005-2006 he was sent to Egypt to upgrade the National Pilot Training Center into the 21st century. Cliff said it was the best job he ever had. He and Mary have been back in the United States only a year after spending five-and-a-half years in Botswana heading a United Nations project involving 15 African states for the South African Development Community.

He has flown gliders for years and used to come to Tehachapi to do glider check rides at Mountain Valley Airport. That was how he first found out about Tehahcapi, and I found out later that he is still well known at that facility.

Mary is now retired from a career in planning and zoning. She said that she and her two siblings were raised in Lexington, Kentucky and that she had the opportunity to attend the funeral of the great Kentucky Derby winner Man O’ War at the horse park there. She was once a stewardess for Pan American World Airways and is a member of World Wings International, Inc., a philanthropic organization of former Pan Am flight attendants. It was during her time with Pan Am that Mary met Cliff. She said that now she loves to decorate, but also likes to paint using both oils and acrylic.

The couple has two grown children. Their son, Cliff, is an artist and illustrator educated at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Their daughter, Allison, is a graduate of UCLA and is the mother of their two grandchildren.

I was really glad I was able to catch this couple on one of their weekends in Tehachapi.

Welcome Cliff and Mary, enjoy your new home.

If you have moved to the Greater Tehachapi Area within the last six months and would like to know more about your new community, call 661-822-8188. We will be happy to make an appointment for a hostess to come by and give you lots of helpful information, some valuable coupons, gifts and much more. Many families and individuals who come to the area are pleasantly surprised with the amount of knowledge they gather about their new home. Publishing your welcome article is completely voluntary and is not a requirement of being welcomed.