Born at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in 1968 and raised here until she was eight years old, Stacey Leigh Mullin never forgot her Island home. Although her parents Diane and David (Crow) Mullin divorced, and she lived in the US, as a child Stacey always looked forward to returning each year to visit her paternal grandparents, ‘Happy Jack’ and Jessie Mullin, of Tulo Lane in Spanish Point.

Even after her mother remarried, and the family lived all over the world in exotic places due of her step-father’s career, Stacey’s affection for Bermuda and the happy memories it held remained undiminished.

Later, she had a daughter and a son, and was living in Gulfport, Mississippi. When word of category five Hurricane Katrina’s approach came and her mother said they would all have to evacuate, the family packed up a few things and drove to Destin, Florida. Three days later, they all returned home — in Stacey’s case to virtually nothing, while her mother’s home was unscathed.

“It was horrible, devastating,” Stacey remembers. “My house was under eight feet of water; it was one big, muddy washing machine. My daughter and I were able to dig some things out, but basically we lost 98 percent of everything we owned.”

Such is the strength of the bond among alumni from the old Kindley/Chaffee High School, of which Stacey’s mother is one, and others who lived at the old US Base at Kindley Field, that when word of the family’s plight became known, the response was overwhelming.

“I was getting cheques from Americans and Bermudians by FedEx, even from people I didn’t know. Their generosity was simply amazing,” Stacey’s mother, now Mrs. Allison, recalls.

“They helped me to rebuild my life,” Ms Mullin added.

Meanwhile, the dream of returning once more to her Bermuda roots “some day” remained within her.

Last week, ‘some day’ became ‘today’ as she sailed into Hamilton Harbour on the cruise ship Azamara Journey, along with her mother, stepfather and two children.

While her mother, now Diane Allison, was travelling with a group of Kindley/Chaffee High School alumni and others who shared a common connection with the former US Base here, Ms Mullin’s goals included revisiting her former home at Tulo Valley and her paternal grandparents’ graves.

“I hadn’t been back in 31 years, and I was quite emotional sailing up the North Shore,” she relates. “Going to my grandparents’ graves at St. John’s churchyard, as well as seeing the church itself, was very, very special.”

Ms Mullin also joined her mother’s group on pre-arranged sightseeing tours to what is now Clearwater and elsewhere around the Island, during which she experienced many “flashbacks” as she remembered certain roads and landmarks. She also had an opportunity to thank some of the people who had so kindly sent funds to her in her hour of need.

A relative took her back to see her former home at Tulo Lane, as well as the Spanish Point Boat Club, where she had also spent a lot of time as a child.

In fact, looking back on her childhood, Ms Mullin says that, after she was born, her grandfather bought a cow because supplies of fresh milk were limited.

“We also had pigs and a Shetland pony, and tons of rabbits. I remember bringing carrots and climbing in the hutches, and my nana yelling at me,” she says.

On a more sobering note, Ms Mullin, who is a single parent and works in advertising, says the past year had been a rough one because, in addition to the trauma of Katrina, her maternal grandparents died. Yet she found solace here.

“I feel very calm here. It is a very different feeling to Mississippi,” she says. So much so, in fact, that like many transplanted Bermudians, she would now like to “come home”.

“My daughter is going to college, but she and my seven-year-old son Tres both want to move here if I do. They have fallen in love with the Island, and Tres says he doesn’t want to leave! He loves the beach.”

Despite the fact that the Island is much more built-up than she remembered, Ms Mullin says, “I still think it is more beautiful than I imagined it would be after all these years. I am glad it is not commercialised with franchises, and I like the fact that it has stuck to its authenticity.

“In the US everything is so franchised and commercialised. Bermuda is a beautiful gem in the middle of the ocean — just gorgeous. I definitely want to come back.”