Moving to Ottumwa (Oskaloosa, Pella, Albia: crime, home, construction)

[illchi]

Hell all,

My husband and I will be moving to Ottumwa in the next couple of weeks.
We have 2 school aged children and 1 toddler. I've read some bad posts about Ottumwa, can anyone give sny information or advice about the best areas to move to. We hope to find a nice community to raise our children.

Thanks in advance

[MRuiz1]

My husband and i are going to be moving there soon to but im kind of getting cold feet about moving there also because all the post that i have seen about ottumwa have you heard anything good about ottumwa? we are moving to get away from the city life but part of me is saying to try to find somewhere else that has a more positive outlook

[Mercruiserdr]

As I stated in another post Ottumwa is not that bad.
If your move here is to escape the hectic city life , you are not going to be dissapointed.
As for where I would recomend living, probably in the northern parts of town would be best.
However I do not live in Ottumwa and never have , I have worked a lot of construction in the area and visit there probably every other weekend.

Maybe some Big O dwellers could answer your where to avoid areas better , I have never had any problems anywhere in the town myself, but I never have anywhere I have ever went, unless I was looking for it of course.

One big advantage Big O has over the northern snob centers, its much closer to the states biggest lake and there is plenty to do in the area if you just look around.

Id avoid Albia & Pella however, the people there are evil !

[IAby7]

We live in Oskaloosa (about 20 minutes away) and go to Ottumwa frequently to shop.

I don't know where you're both moving from, but we moved here from Portland Oregon. Ottumwa is a perfectly fine small town. They're all kinda the same (not much going on culturally) but as opposed to crime in bigger cities.... Well, you'll be just fine.


By the way, Oskaloosa is a great place to live. Might be biased though...

[mom3mnc]

I moved to O'Town 20 years ago to escape city life and worked at the local hospital for 18 years until they started cutting jobs. I believe they are down to 500-600 employees now and it used to be 900. You have to have the right name and connections to count for anything in many of the community activities, such as sports, drama, etc. I'd think twice if I knew what I know now 20 years ago

[yooper62]

The post-mortem to the small town hospitals local ownership is being written all over the country. Growing up in Ottumwa years ago we had the Catholic hospital which I believe was St. Joe''s and we always had Ottumwa Hospital. Ottumwa Hospital used to be downtown and I think maybe in the 1950's it moved to its current location. Both hospitals were busy all the time. And they were controlled locally. Today so many of these small to medium sized hospitals are owned by corporations in some large city hundreds of miles away. The board of directors of these corporations could not care less about the communities that are home to these institutions. It is all about cutting jobs to increase the bottom line.