They Came for the Warmth, They Stayed for the Coast
Some people come to the Gulf Coast for a week. Then the week turns into a month. The month turns into a season. And somewhere between the first sunset, the first Mardi Gras, and the first new friend, they stop planning the trip home.
For Susie and Mark Ketterer, Kathy and Rich Feirn, and Ning and John Wiebner, retirement on the Coast didn’t start with a carefully planned strategy.
It all began with a visit.
In 2016, the Ketterers first visited Bay St. Louis from Peoria, Illinois, to see friends. They stayed for a week.
Soon, their yearly escapes from Illinois snow grew from a couple of weeks to three weeks, then a month. In 2021, they bought a charming cottage just half a block from the bay, renovated it, and eventually made Bay St. Louis their home.
“We’d never even stepped foot in Mississippi before,” Susie said.
Now they’ve fully embraced the Coast. They take part in Mardi Gras, drive around town in their golf cart, host a steady flow of visitors at their guest cottage, and are getting ready to walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage with five other couples from Bay St. Louis.
Kathy and Rich Feirn’s journey south started with a motorhome and a Wisconsin winter.
In November 2000, Rich wasn’t ready to winterize their new motorhome, so the Wausau couple pulled out a map and saw that Biloxi was nearly directly south.
They drove for two days, spent two days on the Coast, then drove home for two days. They returned in February and kept finding reasons to come back. Eventually, they were spending as much as six months a year in Biloxi.
Long before becoming full-time residents in 2016, they had already become part of the community—joining the Gulf Coast Carnival Association, volunteering, and building friendships.
Ning and John Wiebner discovered Bay St. Louis through family.
The former Caterpillar employees had traveled around the world and frequently visited New Orleans. Trips to see Ning’s cousin in Waveland introduced them to Old Bay Town while they were living in China.
After retiring in 2015, they gave away their furniture and belongings, walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and started their next chapter on the Coast.
One Bay St. Louis house eventually became three—neighboring pink homes used by their children, grandchildren, friends, and sometimes guests from their churches.
But what surprised Ning most wasn’t the scenery. It was how quickly they felt they belonged.
John made friends through a Friday morning breakfast group, Rotary, and community service. Their grandchildren have spent summers at local camps, creating their own Bay St. Louis memories.
“We’ve lived a lot of places,” Ning said. “We know the Coast is unique.”
And maybe Kathy Feirn summed up the snowbird-to-local transformation best.
“I read that you should move to where you never have to go on vacation again,” she said. “That’s really what we did.”
