Missing Home—Students Find Unique Ways to Beat Homesickness

TREASURED QUILT

When she moved into Remschel Hall last fall, Saman­tha Ellington didn't realize how much she'd miss her mom's cooking, her siblings' chatter and even her dad's "silly dad jokes."

"I miss that feeling of being in a house where some­thing's always going on," the freshman marketing major said.

But every time she opens the door to her room, a comforting reminder of the love and support of her family back home greets her—the handmade patchwork quilt her grandmother made many moons ago for her mother, Sheri Johnson Ellington '97.

The quilt was a prized possession her mom passed down to her a couple of years back and had adorned Samantha's bed while she was in high school. When it came time to discuss décor for her dorm room, instead of opting for something new, much to her mother's surprise, Samantha told her she wanted to take the quilt.

"It's cute," she told her mom, and it took one more thing off her to-do list before moving to UMHB, where her mom graduated in 1997 and her father, Ben, attend­ed from 1994-95. Just before moving to campus, Saman­tha asked if her mom had photos of her time in Burt and Remschel halls. The two began digging through some old photo albums and soon discovered a photo that shocked them. There was the quilt spread over Sheri's bed in Burt Hall! Sheri knew she had the quilt during her childhood but had no recollection of taking it to college, and now, that same quilt adorns her daughter's bed in Remschel.

"I can't walk into my room and not think of my family and my mom," Samantha said. "I really love constantly coming into my room and being reminded of them. It's very comforting. It feels like home."

Growing up in a military family, Samantha said she was used to moving around, but for years, she had her heart set on attending UMHB, no matter where her family lived. Then, one day, one of her schoolteach­ers told Samantha's class not to choose a college just because it's where their parents attended. Samantha made a point to check out potential colleges while living in Kentucky and California. "They just didn't feel right," she said. "So, I would pray about it, and I just didn't think I was supposed to stay there. I always knew Texas as my home, so I started looking there."

Knowing she wanted a smaller campus and a Christian atmosphere, she knew Texas had plenty of options.

"I took a tour here at UMHB, and immediately when I stepped onto campus, I had this unexplainable feeling of peace. I asked the Lord if this was where He wanted me to go and again felt this great sense of peace. I definitely felt called to come here, and I hav­en't felt any shakiness in that decision. He always has a plan for me, and He has provided it time and again."

TREASURED HANDPRINT

It just so happened that Samantha's family was moving to San Antonio, and she is only a two-and-a-half-hour drive away from them and can visit often. But what about students like Mia Hanks, who move to UMHB from another state or even country? As the oldest sibling of four, her family's approach to choosing a college came down to the school willing to give the most scholarship money. With only two schools—UMHB and Union University in Jackson—left in the running, Mia and her family were hanging out at the beach in the fall before she left for college, and she remembers crying to her mother.

"I did not want to go to Union at all, but I had com­peted for a scholarship package there and won a large sum of money. I was just so torn up about it and re­member telling my mom, 'I just feel like my people are at UMHB.'"

During that very conversation, Mia received an email from Hershall Seals, the Art Department Chair in the UMHB fine arts department at the time, offering her an art scholarship she couldn't refuse. She was thrilled to be headed to UMHB, where both her parents, Shawn and Heather (Price) Hanks, graduated.

"Now, I know, never to tell the Lord anything. He knows better!" she said.

With her family back in Tennessee, Mia, now a senior studio art major, suffered from intense home­sickness her first semester.

"I was homeschooled my whole life, and I had never been away from my siblings, and it was a very jarring change to be suddenly 800 miles away from my family." Thankfully, her parents planned to visit during Family Week­end, which was just a few weeks into the semester, but to Mia, it felt like a lifetime.

"That first semester of freshman year felt like it took eight years to go by," said Mia. "I was so emotional and homesick my first semester. It was so hard!"

Predictably, as many students do after a few weeks of being away, Mia recalls a phone call she made back home: "Mom, I want to come home! This is so hard!"

But her mom knew she would tough it out.

One day, while walking the sidewalk be­tween her room at Burt Hall and Hardy Hall, Mia started reading the names of students who had left their names in the cement years ago for a fundraiser. She recognized one of them as a buddy of her parents and won­dered if her mom and dad had also left their names. A moment later, she spotted their names and a handprint her mother had left. Mia knelt and placed her hand over the palm print, and it was an exact match. The moment was surreal. "They were here, and they experienced what I'm experiencing," she said. "It was a cool moment to realize I was going to be fine. If they could do it, I could too!"