Written by Michael Trecker
Photos by Sendra Productions

Sponsored by East Village Place

Published in Longmeadow Neighbors (January 2022)

The year is 2011, families around the neighborhood are gearing up for Halloween, and the weather forecast warns of an incoming snowstorm. It probably won’t be a big deal, we get snowstorms all the time in New England, right? We all remember how that turned out. The event is a landmark in the recent history of New England. For Christina and Sean Tuohey, however, it also marks when they bought their house together in Longmeadow.

The couple was about to close on their house when the nor’easter paved its way through the state, delaying their closing for three weeks. “It was lucky we didn’t move in earlier, because we would have been in a brand-new house with no power for a week!” Christina Tuohey said. The couple, now married with three children, have been living in that same house ever since. They chose Longmeadow because Sean grew up here, his family is here, and the school system and community are great. “It just feels like a [wonderful] place to raise a family. Everyone is really involved and honestly, the babysitters were very close which was a big perk,” Christina laughed. She said they looked at what felt like 100 houses, and when they walked into their current home, they “didn’t even walk out without signing the papers.” Christina and Sean fell in love with the house at first sight. They love everything from the bright light that comes in, to the flat lot to the easy commute their property offers to the interstate. They even have plans to do an addition next spring. “We plan to have this house be the only house we ever buy. We want to grow old here,” Christina said.

None of this would have happened, though, if Christina’s friend’s flight hadn’t been delayed in Boston 15 years ago. “We were supposed to go to see a show together… so I just decided to go alone. After the show, we were waiting for the [Boston Metro], and I was pretty new to Boston still. It was late and the train was taking a really long time, so I just started talking to him, and we saw each other the next day, and the next day and the next day,” she recalled.

Christina grew up in the south, attending Georgia State University in Atlanta for her bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Sean on the other hand has lived in Massachusetts his entire life, graduating from Northeastern University in Boston. He is one of five kids that were raised together in Longmeadow, and he and two of his siblings along with their parents still live in the town. Sean and Christina’s three kids all go to one of the town’s elementary schools, where they see two of their cousins every day at school. “I love [that they are] able to grow up surrounded by their extended family and to be able to be such good friends with their cousins,” Christina said.

While she may not have grown up in a town like her husband, Christina is passionate about giving back to the community. She is the Vice President of the Longmeadow Educational Excellence Foundation (LEEF) where she works with other members of the community to support the local education systems. “It’s definitely an avenue for me to give back to the community and my kids and their schools. At this point in my life, that is a big focus. Making sure the teachers have everything they need to make their jobs a little easier, especially after the pandemic and all the things they went through. Anything to make their lives easier and to give them that encouragement to think outside the box and show that we’re here to support [them] is a big part of our mission for our schools.” Christina’s father-in-law was a founding member of LEEF 20 years ago. “It’s kind of like my homage to him and what a great community supporter he is to be on the board,” she said.

She received her master’s degree in nonprofit management and philanthropy from Bay Path University and works at Ruth’s House Assisted Living in Longmeadow where she puts that degree to good use. Christina had already been working in nonprofit and fundraising for a long time before getting her master’s, and “really just wanted to be able to take that next step.” She is currently the marketing director and does community outreach at Ruth’s House, but only stepped into the role recently. “I did fundraising before and then transitioned into this role right before the pandemic hit,” she recalled. “I’ve been with the company for almost five years and working in senior health care during a pandemic is quite an adventure. I think we all are a little in debt to our therapists after 2020!” she laughed. “The company has been really good throughout it all and really supportive, but it was tough.” Christina is also the President of the Retirement Marketing Directors Association of Western Mass. “It’s a pretty incredible group of people. We are competitors but come together to try and educate and inform each other about what we can offer.”

Making their way through the Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge for everyone, and the Tuohey family was no exception. “We were diving into this unknown of ‘what’s going to happen?’ and ‘how are we going to figure this out?’ We were very lucky to both have flexible jobs that allowed us to work from home when we needed to.” Like many other children during the last year and a half, the Tuohey kids faced the challenge of doing school remotely. Christina gives her husband, Sean, a lot of credit for making the homeschooling through Zoom work. “He got them on the zoom calls when they needed to and made sure that they were running around the house and getting exercise on their P.E. breaks. He really did a lot to make sure it all went well while I had to go into the office,” she said thoughtfully. She also credits the teachers with her children’s academic success through the pandemic. “The school was great, and the teachers were just amazing. I don’t know how they did it. We all thought the kids might be a little delayed this year going back, and my kids were right on target, if not above, and give the teachers all the credit for that.” Christina’s mother-in-law was also very impactful in helping her children through the tough pandemic. “She was there every time we needed to go into work. When all the summer camps were closed, our kids went to ‘Camp MiMi’s’ I don’t know what we would have done without her support,” Christina said.

The Covid-19 situation was especially intense for the Tuohey family, given that Christina works in the healthcare industry, as well as the vulnerable population she works with. They kept very tight within their household, going months at a time without seeing other members of their family who live right down the street. “That was a shocking experience for us because we see each other all the time. I am very lucky to have kids that are close in age. They have their similarities and differences, but they can come together and rally for fun times,” she said.

Living in Longmeadow throughout the years has been a fantastic experience for Christina and her family. She says the experience was made possible in part by the amazing community of moms, and women in general. “When we first moved here, we were here for about a year before I got pregnant with my daughter… It was hard being in your late 20’s trying to meet new friends in a strange town. There was this great group at Greenwood Children’s Center for [new] moms to meet. I met some of my still best friends from that group, and the moms’ group was just so supportive and really inviting to welcome me with open arms into the community. That’s when I think I really warmed up to Longmeadow. I knew it would be good, and I knew it would have good schools, and my husband’s family was here, but once I met that group, it really opened up the whole community for me, and it felt like everything just clicked into place for me living here. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a new town, but more like a home. Somewhere I could grow old.” Christina recounts a time when there were puddles of water in the basement that just wouldn’t go away. “It was near the washing machine, so we thought ‘oh maybe it’s that’. In February of that year, we finally found out that the hose outside had been turned on and had just been gushing water for months!” The family also has a two-year-old dog named Ash after the Pokémon character. The kids, who are huge Pokémon fans, insisted. He was a rescue from Louisiana and since Christina was born there, she felt the pull to choose him. “He’s this nutty dog that is just on the table all the time. He’s a climber, but he’s about 45 pounds so he’s not small. He just thinks he’s a person,” Christina said. Ash also tends to wake everyone up at 4:00 in the morning, as it is very important that everyone is alerted about the deer in the back yard. Christina and her family are dedicated to making Longmeadow their ‘forever home’ and giving back to the community as much as they can.