Ava?????? Please Help!!! (Springfield, Nixa, Ozark: environment, estate, trip)

[texasboy]

First of all thank you for reading this post. My wife and our 3 children are desperatley wanting to get out of the big city. We are currently living in Fort Worth TX, a place where we were both born and raised. As a native Texan I will be the first to tell you Texas is not what it used to be. Our area used to be a very small suburb of Fort Worth, great small town atmosphere, and just a wonderful place to raise children. Now Fort Worth has grown to us and crime is out of control, not to mention the traffic. We want so much for our children to have a childhood like we had growing up. A town where everyone knows one another and is not in such a hurry that they cant stop to say hello. We have been doing research on the southern Missouri area and are really starting to like what we see. Please if you can tell me more about the town of Ava or the surrounding areas. We NEED to have our children in a safe environment, small old fashioned town. Thank you again for your help!

[bizbazaar]

i drove thru ava once and it seemed like it was a long way away from anywhere. i think it is about 60 miles se of springfield. people live there and work in springfield and if the road is still single lane most of the way, the drive would take longer than an hour, i would think. anyway, the asumption abbey there makes a wonderful fruitcake which it ships all over the world. call the city offices and see what they can tell you. i think that is what i did when i was trying to track down this fruitcake i had heard so much about.

[Rason44]

If you are looking for an old fashion town where everyone knows everyone then Ava may be for you. I used to have family there. There is hardly anything to do there, other than hunting and other outdoor things of the sort. Just north of Ava is Mansfield. You may like that as well. It has the Laura Ingalls Wilder home. But with both places, employment is pretty scarce. If you need to be close to a place that has good employment opportunities as well as excellent schools I would check into towns closer to Springfield. Rogersville is a wonderful area, just east of Springfield. Great schools. Also just south of Springfield is Ozark and Nixa. Both have wonderful schools.

[lacyelet]

I agree with Rason, if you lived in Ava, most of your time would have to be spent in Sprinfield. It is the 3rd largest city in the state, but still doesnt feel that large, it has all that you need. Ozark, Nixa, Republic, Battlefield. Those are all outskirts that would give you the old time feel just a bit more and you wouldnt be out in the middle of no where.

[Ozarks21]

There are several good small towns around here. Springfield is the hub and the economic engine, but a number of the larger towns have solid small town economies.

For larger small towns (not relying totally on Springfield) you might look into Bolivar, Monet, Marshfield, Ava, Stockton or Mt. Vernon. For smaller towns in the area within easy reach of Sprinfield I would look at Billings, Clever, Marionville, Fordland, Pleasant Hope, or Sparta.

I've noticed since living in Springfield for 7 years that for its size Springfield acts like a small town. I'm amazed at how interconnected people are.

[trenea7]

I moved to Ava from Springfield and only lasted a couple of years before moving back to Springfield. It is a very small town. The biggest (and basically only) major retailer is a SuperCenter Walmart. There is also one high-priced grocery store, one good hardware store, and a handful of restaurants that frequently change ownership (only national chains I can think of are Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Subway, and Taco Bell--in a gas station, maybe a KFC put in recently). There are lots of places for outdoor activities (hiking, fishing, hunting), but not much else. No cultural stuff to speak of. All of this I dealt with OK, however, I was making the hour trip to Springfield at least once a week on average. What finally ran me off was my inability to break into the community. My husband had been employed there for a couple years before we got married and knew everyone. But, as the newcomer, I could find no social network. I was a stay-at-home mom and there were very few others in that situation that I wanted to spend time with. I'll probably offend many for saying this, but I found that most of the educated, middle-class type people left town after graduating or became business owners/teachers/govt employees. I'm not a snob, but I didn't have anything in the common with the people there even though I gave it my best try. Other than employment, there are very few ways in this town to meet people. It seemed like you had to grow up there to be accepted. Some of the others I met that had been there for several years, still said they felt like an outsider a lot of the time because they weren't native.

One other note is housing. We didn't have a lot when we moved there, but did manage to find a nice, older home in the Rainbow Ridge subdivision. There are a few other areas with very nice homes, but they were out of our range. There are a LOT of really bad homes or, often, decent homes surrounded by really bad homes. I cried the first time we drove around looking for houses because I had already committed to moving and I couldn't believe the houses we were looking at. We got really lucky when we found ours. If you have plenty of money and can afford the $100k plus houses than you should be fine. We were looking for a 70K or so started home and found a lot of run-down places.

Just my personal opinion. Hope it helps.

[tenn or ozark bound]

This may seem like a silly question, but:

Do you know if Ava has an adult recreational softball league? Or what town closer than Springfield would be likely to have one? Thanks.

[MoMark]

Texasboy...I don't know if you or your family would be happy in Ava. It's extremely small and ....no offense anyone...but hicker than hickory. It's a long way east of Springfield and like it's already been mentioned, the people mostly commute if they need a job in or around Springfield and it's about 60 miles one way.
I didn't like Ava when I went through and I don't like Mansfield either. The topography is very rough around there, all thickly forested and while I wouldn't call it "mountainous"...it's "rugged"...really rugged, and there is little open space.
There are charming areas near Springfield that would be far nicer I think. Ash Grove is a bit of a commute on a narrow highway west of Springfield, but it's charming and the Mayor is a hoot with her throaty smokey voice (looks like a female impersonator!!) But nice woman. It's a cute classic town too with a classic downtown, though it's sleepy and there are a lot of vacancies there.
Marshfield I like, especially the country north of I-44. It's gorgeous. And there are beautiful homes in Marshfield as well.
Rogersville I don't know well, but it seemed to be drawing wealthier folks in the newer areas and there seem to be a lot of new small acreage estates along there. Again, the highway between Rogersville and Springfield is usually choked (same highway that you'd go to Ava on if you kept going).
I don't know Monett. Nixa and Ozark are becoming rather developed due to being choice suburbs of Springfield for families and taxes in Christian county seem higher than Greene county (I can't say for sure, that's what I've heard). There's also Marionville to the southwest of Springfield, and like it's been mentioned, Bolivar is a very nice town of about 10,000. I like Bolivar a lot and it's easy to reach on Highway 13 going north out of Springfield, but it's really a stretch for a commute, especially in a bad winter with a lot of ice if your job is in Springfield. Parts of 13 are called Blood Alley because of the accidents. People FLY on 13 and it can be scary driving.
I'd look closer to Springfield and I think you all would be very happy with what you find.

[thatgrl]

Boring little place, few restaurants. Looks like a mining town in winter.

[Versatile]

People in small towns in the midwest are very standoffish to newcomers. This will include Ar and Ks as well. It will take about 5 yrs before you are accepted to the community. I have had realatives live in Ava for yrs and i could go there and drop names and be treated just fine but i would still be treated as an outsider. Not rude; you will just feel you are treated different overall. I would choose a town closer to Springfield.