Kate's Family Returns to Greer

by Hydee Ballantyne Seever 

Hydee (center right) enjoying a walk
with her children, siblings, etc.

I only got to visit Greer once in my childhood. We had a magical time staying in some cabins on East Fork with our extended family. That memory of the green valley, cut through by sparkling streams and surrounded by pine-covered mountains, stayed with me, as did the stories my father and grandmother told me of their visits there from their own childhoods. I knew Greer was a place our family had roots, roots that stretched back generations behind me. Finally, I returned again for another family reunion, this time a 25 yr old college graduate, pregnant with my first baby. I have been returning with my own family ever since. On our visits, we rented various cabins around the valley, and even got attached to one across the 373 from the market. We dreamed of owning a piece of Greer ourselves one day so we could continue making memories there and pass the connection on to future generations.

We looked at cabins for sale over the years, but it was never right. We looked at other places closer to home or less expensive locations, but I was quietly stubborn that it was going to be Greer or nothing. Greer is connected to my family in a way no other location can be. When I walk it's trails or meander alongside the Little Colorado, I see my Grandmother, Margaret Stradling Ballantyne (Kate's daughter), through whom I inherited my Greer family ancestry. You can't buy that or replicate it. 

Hydee's dad Tom hiking with her
youngest daughter Emmie

Christmas 2014 we decided to rent a cabin in Greer so we could get away to a white Christmas with just our family. During that visit we renewed our search for a place to call our own and found one. Just one mile off the 260, on Hall Creek, we found the Phares family selling their cabin. From the moment we drove down the road, it felt right. By March, the property was ours. My dad, Tom Ballantyne, says he thinks we may now own what used 

cousins playing in
the Little Colorado River

to be part of the Crosby family ranch, as he remembers it.  I treasure the legacy not only of our family roots in Greer, but what the Phares family left for us on the property that was their family getaway for 40 years.

This past summer, 2015, we spent as much time as we could at our Greer Hydeaway (my name for the property). I love being there with my seven children. Life is indeed more beautiful and simpler there.

Hydee's husband Adam enjoying time
with some of their girls at the pond on their land

We enjoy the wildflowers that change weekly, the hummingbirds that swarm our feeders by the dozens, the afternoon rain showers each day. A couple of times a week, we drive down to the Little Colorado for a stroll and a dip in the chilly waters. We cook and eat outdoors a lot. My kids pick wild raspberries and make fresh pies. They wear overalls and cowboys boots for their romps around our place, or just go barefoot. Family and friends visit frequently, which makes everything sweeter. Our Hydeaway has given us a place to escape and focus on being together, with each other and with our roots, too.