Occupation: I’ve worked at Trinity Day School for the past 14 years teaching the 4-year-olds. It is so meaningful. I feel it’s an honor to have these children entrusted to me. We find it’s a big challenge to prepare them for all they’ll be expected to know in kindergarten in the public schools. My inclination is more to let the learning come naturally.

Before working at Trinity, I was in business administration. But I knew I didn’t want to stay in an office environment.

 

How Long In Newtown: We’ve lived on Boggs Hill Road since 1978. That’s 25 years, I can hardly believe it.

I was born in Bridgeport, the Park City area, and it was really beautiful then. We moved when I was 3 to Westport. That was in the 1950s, and Westport was really a big family town with lots of open space, farms, and resident artists. When we first moved to Newtown, it was very much like the way Westport used to be, but without the beach.

 

Family: My husband, Allan, is a trim and restoration finish carpenter.

We have a daughter, Meghan, who is 23, and a son, Evan, who is 20. She’s a phenomenal cook. She just knows exactly what goes together and tastes best. My son, who turns 21 on New Year’s Eve, is at the University of Vermont. He loves building furniture and making clothes.

When they were children, I taught them both how to sew, and they can whip up anything on a machine, even follow patterns.

 

Hobbies: We share hobbies like cooking and gardening, and I’m always doing a little writing, keeping journals and so on. I like to keep up my correspondence by snail mail. Something about having a handwritten letter to read, I think it’s important.

My husband and I like to go out kayaking. We “dock and dine,” which means we bring a lunch and then tie up somewhere, or float into the sea grass and eat it.

He also rides motorcycles and I go along. He has a Moto Guzzi.

 

Pets: We have a cat named K.C. He lives in a cathouse on our porch, and he just comes and goes as he pleases. Before that we had Milkweed, another cat. We never have to go looking for a cat. Cats find us first.

 

Favorite Book: I like inspirational books. A favorite was The Secret Life of Bees by Susan Monk Kidd, and A Walk To Remember by Nicholas Sparks. I’m also on the trail of books by Jean Stratton-Porter.

 

Organizations: I’m a trustee for the Newtown Historical Society, an organization I’ve been a member of for 14 years. Right now, I am coordinating the society’s docent program.

In the past, I’ve been a Girl Scout Leader for a senior troop with my friend Sandy Brown.

 

Most Vivid Memory About Newtown: I remember when we first moved into our Boggs Hill Road home in 1978. It was a really snowy winter, and we didn’t even know what our own back yard was like –– what was out there under all that snow.

When we drove up Route 25 from Monroe, we saw a sign in Newtown that said, “Congested Area Ahead” and I had to laugh. I thought, What are they thinking? After where we’d come from, this is hardly congested. That was in 1978. In those days, Poverty Hollow was a dairy farm.

I used to love to go to Mrs Anderson’s Bakery in the Queen Street Shopping Center. I’ll never forget her sticky buns and the glass case by the door full of pastries.

 

Favorite Vacation Spot: Our traditional favorite is Maine, where we have a house. We go to Keoka Lake.

My favorite “pinch me” moment, though, was on our trip to Italy, sitting by the Mediterranean Sea off Cinque Terra and having tea. I could not believe I was really there.

Personal Philosophy: I just read a tea bag tag that pretty much sums it up on many levels. It is, “Kindness is the oil that takes the friction out of life.”