This story originally appeared in the April 14 edition of the weekly LINK reader. To see these stories first, subscribe here.
On the street where you live is a regular feature in which contributor Ann Mort takes readers on a tour of one street in Northern Kentucky to tell the story of the people who live there.
On the outside, those big suburban homes appear very quiet and serene. On the inside, some are a hotbed of family activities spanning three generations.
Mustang Drive in Walton is a part of the Heritage Trails subdivision known for the life-sized model of a horse at the entrance.
Mustang Drive runs from Appaloosa, where one can see the traffic on Interstate 75, to a cul-de-sac about half a mile downhill. Some of the Mustang Drive homes back up to the Triple Crown area, and as Alain Tourikian explains, “The Triple Crown value seeps into the Mustang Drive area,” driving up the value of their homes too.
Sue and Alain Tourikian found their forever home 23 years ago when a house under construction became available. The Tourikians both grew up in the Cincinnati area, and both spent seven years prior in Charleston, West Virginia. They moved to the region from Alain’s job in banking.
Rick and Mary Jo Stiene were their neighbors in Erlanger before the Tourikians moved to West Virginia, and they encouraged them to join them on Mustang Drive where the Stienes had recently moved. Unbeknownst to the Tourikians, they would find another familiar face in their new neighborhood.
Sue Tourikian and Tom Hopkins had grown up on the same street. So there were immediately three family connections.
When the Hopkins discovered their old/new neighbors had young girls, Tracy asked right away, “How old are you?” When she found the Tourikian daughter was indeed old enough, Tracy blurted out “Thank God, Do you babysit?”
Apparently both families had found what they were looking for.
“When we moved in, everybody had young kids, then they all grew up,” Alain said. “Things got too quiet but in the last few years, more young kids are back in the neighborhood. Those grown-up kids now are bringing back their own kids.”
Sue, now retired, also worked in banking, and their daughter Nicole is carrying on the family business as a mortgage banker. Another daughter, Lisa, lives in Anderson Township, Ohio, and is an investment advisor.
Daughter Mollie, who lives in Cold Spring, is a college student currently a server at Smoke Justis in Covington.
Daughter Caitlin and son-in-law Patrick Behne were living temporarily with the Tourikians when another neighbor mentioned a house for sale across the street. The house had been used as temporary housing for a local church.
Families would live in the home for extended periods of time until they found permanent housing in the area. One family came from the Czech Republic and demonstrated to their new neighbors their prowess on unicycles.
Another family came from California. The church was willing to sell the house at just the time the Behne’s wanted to buy a house. They did some repairs and upgrades and recently moved in just across the street. Caitlin is an Interior Designer with Best Furniture Gallery in Fort Thomas. Patrick does Signal Maintenance for CSX Railroad. They have two children, ages 2 and 5.
Nicole said she enjoys just hanging out with the family and going on group vacations, most recently to Disney World.
Sue and Alain both agree that “being grandparents” is a great way to spend their spare time. Their home seems to be a center for family activities with many passing through every day. With such a lively household, only Oliver the oversized cat seems oblivious to all the happenings.
Just up the street is the Hodge family home, the fourth home built on Mustang.
There are now four generations of the Hodge family living on Mustang Drive. Shirley and Dave Hodge found the perfect house in the school system they wanted – Boone County Schools – and near I-75. They moved into their home Feb. 6, 1999. The builder did the basic things: foundation, walls, roof, plumbing. But the Hodge family finished the job and have continued using their skills to adapt and change as their needs changed.
They are also all working on rehabbing a rental property owned by Shirley’s mother and step-father, Langda and Bill Sullivan, who now also live just up the street. Another former rehab project was a house in Elsmere that Dave II and brother Daniel bought together several years ago. Daniel lives there still.
The Hodge household is a marvel in organization and loving, structured living.
There are three distinct families under one roof, each with their own “house,” as they call it, with sleeping and small private living quarters. Everybody shares the dinner, the prayers and general living areas. A playroom holds communal toys used by anyone. All together, there are the two grandparent Hodges, two adult children, five grandchildren ages 4 to 13, two dogs and five cats – currently. At one time there were 11 humans in the house.
At one point, daughter Danielle Knox and her two children were living with her parents and were almost ready to try home ownership of their own, when brother Dave II appeared on the doorstep with his three children – so everybody just stayed and made it work for all. As Shirley said, “God does have a sense of humor.”
It’s all about respecting others’ personal space. Everybody knows to knock before entering another family’s “house.” Everybody has their assigned chores. Adults have worked out how they get the kids off to school and who is on kid duty when parents are busy or away.
The five cousins each have their chores. Preston and Owen do trash and dishes, the girls do laundry, Eli handles the sweeper and things rotate around the group. Everybody cleans up after themselves. Shirley is the designated “Fun Police.”
Outside, the neighborhood group moves among five yards. The Hodge backyard has the pool and room for soccer games in the front. Next door neighbors adopted the portable basketball court when it appeared there would never be enough room in the Hodge driveway with four cars and five bikes. The Tourikians have the trampoline and others have space for other activities.
Grandkids were glad to share the advantages of such a large, lively and loving home.
“There is always somebody to play with,” one said. “There is always somebody to blame.”
The Hodge family business seems to be firefighting and paramedic service with a side of construction.
The three men are all firefighters. Danielle works for a company that retrieves tissue and bone for transplant purposes. David Sr. has been a firefighter since age 17, retiring in 2022. He worked at the Florence Fire Department for 22 years, City of Covington Fire Department for 20 years, Ludlow’s department part-time for six years and has been retired one year. Some of those assignments overlapped.
David II volunteered at Union, worked part-time at Ludlow and has now been a paramedic/firefighter for five years at Bellevue/Dayton Fire Department.
At one point both David Sr. and David II were assigned to the same firehouse. As it turns out, David II outranked David Sr. because he was a paramedic and his dad was an EMT.
Daniel began as a volunteer at the Union FD and is now a paramedic at the Covington FD. The work schedules mean firefighter/paramedics are on duty a full 24 hours and then off 48 hours. David II tells of the stresses of paramedic schools, two part-time jobs, a newborn baby and clinical training all at once.
The family tells of David Sr.’s cooking abilities that moved from the firehouse, where he cooked for eight grown men, to home where the group was smaller and younger. Today, he is back to the larger portions and rapidly mixing up a meatloaf for dinner.
Shirley is proud to point out that, during the pandemic, “with everybody in the family as a first responder, they were at high risk but, by taking precautions, nobody got sick.”
Also, during that time, Shirley acted as the family classroom teacher and kept the classes moving along like a one-room school teacher, being able to send them all back to the classrooms in their schools without anyone falling behind. Even the little ones had pre-school lessons alongside their older cousins and siblings.
Just when they might get really tired of each other, there is that every-other-weekend reprieve when all the kids go to their other parents for the weekend. As Shirley puts it, ”With any luck their resident parents are gone, too.” Shirley also says that when things get too hectic, she goes outside and works in the yard.
Dave II says the most stressful issue in the household is the parking. Juggling the four cars in the driveway involves always coordinating who has to leave first in the morning.
Somehow, the guys in the family have also appeared in two different films. David, David II, Daniel, and cousin Tim all appeared in “Dark Water.” Daniel and David II were in the Ted Bundy movie that premiered on Netflix in 2022.
Mustang Drive at one time was home to the former Bengal player, Andrew Whitworth. These days, the claim to fame is a large model train display one of the neighbors has installed in his backyard. On Fridays in December, it is open to the public and according to Sue, “People come from all over to see it. The hosting neighbor even serves hot chocolate and distributes candy canes.”