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The History of Happy-Hollisters.com
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Happy-Hollisters.com Site History
Happy-Hollisters.com originally started out as an article titled "Oh Jerry!" that was a tribute to the author of The Happy Hollisters series, Jerry West (a.k.a. Andrew Svenson). In 1996, I housed the article on a personal home page titled "Rachel's Ramblings", which contained a hodge-podge of things that I was interested in. At some point, I planned on devoting a webpage to the series but I was busy with doling out wedding advice in real life, planning my own wedding, maintaining my wedding frugality page (originally an article from 1995, which was titled "Say 'I Do' To Saving Money on Your Wedding") and had just started as a wedding advice columnist for a website called WedNet. It was then that I was contacted by a niece of Andrew Svenson, who informed me that she had shared my "Oh Jerry!" article with members of the Svenson family. I couldn't believe it! When my husband came home from work, I excitedly told him (while waving my arms around and jumping up and down) that I had gotten an emal from a relative of Jerry West. It was my first indication of the "reach" of the Internet and was one of those defining moments in my life. I realized that if one article could reach Mr. Svenson's niece, then perhaps I could help people remember the series and author by fulfilling my desire to create a Happy Hollisters webpage.
As he always has and will, my husband encouraged me to follow wherever my dreams might lead. He fully supported my desire to create the "Unofficial Happy Hollister Home Page" and even let me use his name to start the website (at the time, you were only allowed one free web page per person). I started the "Unofficial Happy Hollisters Home Page" on February 13, 1997. When the page first started, it was very small and didn't have a lot of information. I had a title listing and included descriptions of the characters. It was the very first web page devoted only to The Happy Hollisters series. My very first attempt at creating computer drawn graphics were created for the UHH page. A more colorful version of my original graphics is at the top of every page of this site even now. UHH was also my very first multi-page website on one topic and I created my first ever FAQ for UHH as well. I worked on the site and added to it as I was busy working on my career. I worked at WedNet for slightly over a year, when I was invited to work as a Guide for About.com. After I started at About, my life got extremely busy!
The fact that my professional life was taking over, meant that I had little time to devote to my UHH site or my wedding frugality site (also, the first of its type on the web). I updated both when I could, but it was difficult to find the time. I worked at About for 3 1/2 years before I resigned from my position. Towards the end, I was working 80-90 hours a week and had little time for anything else. After my experience with About.com, I decided that I wanted to strike out on my own. So, I immediately got to work on the wedding frugality site. I purchased a domain name, designed a new site and moved all of my information from the wedding frugality site to WedFrugal.com. Once that site was making enough money in ad sales to (barely!) cover the domain name costs and hosting fees, I wanted to work on GetFrugal.com. Once that site was established, I planned to gather my Happy Hollisters information (which was now housed on a personal site until I could find time to work on it), in the hopes that I would find the time and money to pay proper homage to the series. Or, at least...that was the plan!
Plans often have a way of changing, and my plans for the Happy Hollister site did change quite drastically. I had originally hoped to create the new site after I established GetFrugal.com, but while working on WedFrugal.com, I found out that I was pregnant with our fourth child. I already knew the dangers of stress and over-work (in my case...a hormonal imbalance that caused my hair to break off, my eyebrows to fall out and all kinds of other nasty stuff that I wouldn't care to repeat) and decided that it was time for me to take a personal vacation, a professional hiatus and relax a little before going to the next phase of my professional and personal life. I took time to enjoy the pregnancy, time to enjoy gardening and time to do weird things like dance with my children in the middle of the living room. After our fourth child was born, I took time to enjoy having a new baby in the house and continued to dance in the middle of the living room. I would highly advise it to anyone who is working too hard and not taking time to enjoy life's simpler pleasures. Sometimes, it's nice to get off the merry-go-round of life, while you simply stand and let life's worries pass you by.
Needless to say, I could not stand still forever. I noticed that my passion for writing was coming back (alas, I did lose it for a short time) and that I was starting to get restless. It was then that I decided to start working on GetFrugal.com again. I did not rush it and I did not try to accomplish everything at once. As a result, I regained my passion for building websites as well. It was enjoyable again, and I found that I could make time for myself (and my family), while still making time for my professional life...without overdoing it. It's been a long road, but I think it's one of those lessons you must learn through experience. GetFrugal.com quickly became established. I then started to revise my Happy Hollisters information for the new site.
In October of 2002, I gave myself a gift. I purchased the domain name Happy-Hollisters.com and slowly started to work on moving the information from the original Unofficial Happy Hollisters Homepage. I had planned to get it done within three months, but decided instead to take a bit more personal time (because of the holiday season) and extended my goal to six months. As of this writing, I am heading into month five and the site is nearly complete (or at least, the information I want to initially put on the site). In the future, I will be adding more sections and information while taking time off now and then to simply enjoy life.
I've come full circle in my life. I started out with one site on the web that contained an article on The Happy Hollisters, an article on wedding frugality, a few articles on general frugality and some poetry. I now have WedFrugal.com, a site on wedding frugality; GetFrugal.com, a site on general frugality and Happy-Hollisters.com, a site on the Happy Hollisters. I think I'll leave the poetry to someone else though!
I hope that the readers of Happy-Hollisters.com enjoy the new site and also hope that, in some small way, I can keep the memory of the Happy Hollister series and Andrew Svenson (a.k.a. Jerry West) alive in many people's hearts. I also hope that I get the chance to convince people who have never read the Happy Hollisters to give them a try, and most of all...I hope to pay proper homage to the books and their author because they both deserve the attention this site gives them.
Best Wishes,
Rachel Sanfordlyn Shreckengast
Copyright notice: c. Rachel Sanfordlyn Shreckengast
02282003
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Best Wishes,
Rachel Sanfordlyn Shreckengast
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Site Created on:
February 13, 1997 - Revised October 22, 2002
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Original Writing & Original Graphics
Copyright, Rachel Sanfordlyn Shreckengast
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