Outside

Faced with such a calamity, the family turned despair into a road trip and set off for Virginia, accepting an invitation to visit friends living in Free Union. In what was to prove the final leg of her west-to-east migration, Sorensen arrived on a Wednesday for a long Labor Day weekend of festivities. By Friday, Kip had struck up a friendship that led to a job offer: building and restoring log cabins. Swiftly considering their options, the couple decided to move to Albemarle County. Kip returned to South Dakota for his tools, and Leni to make the final crop and pack up a lifetime of memories. By mid-December 1982, the entire family was settled near Buck Mountain.

Sorensen, 40 at that time, took full advantage of the change. The woman who’d left high school at 16 to pursue a singing career opted to get an education, something she had long wanted to do. And while doing so, she started working at house museums—at Maymont and Gunston Hall, at Reynolds Homestead, Smithfield Plantation and many others. She enthralled audiences with her skills—soap making, spinning, dyeing, cheese making, open-hearth cookery—and her stories. In those roles, Sorensen was able to weave together the threads of her many lives.

And there are apt to be new adventures. Unsurprisingly, this busy woman is brimming with ideas. She has plans for the team collaborations at Monticello, plans to start classes in cooking and garden-craft, and plans for articles and books telling the stories about food and our ancestors that she finds most compelling.

Right now, though, as a weak spring sun bursts through the cloud cover and floods the rich mahogany earth before her with a golden light, the story that’s foremost on Sorensen’s mind is that of her garden. “And this,” she’s saying, “is where we’ll plant the potatoes. Yukon gold, and red, of course ….”