[Women] April meeting

[B.Lisk]

Thank you for sharing, Rebecca, you are most certainly a strong woman. We are blessed to have you with us and I thank you for all of your contributions and food for thought you give to FUUSM folks.—Brenda L.

From: Rebecca Phillips via Women 
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2020 4:59 PM
To: A List for the Women of FUUSM 
Cc: Rebecca Phillips 
Subject: Re: [Women] April meeting

Hello, all,

I am honored to know so many strong and wonderful women and to call you my friends. Like most of us, I have engaged in reinvention.

In 1983, I was tired of my work as a management trainee in a corporate bookstore chain in Tampa, had fallen in love with Marietta while visiting relatives in Beverly, and packed everything I owned (or everything that would fit) into a 6x8 trailer and moved to Marietta to open Mother O'Riley's Books.  Since I have absolutely no business sense, that adventure lasted only two years, at which point Elin Jones bought the store, transformed it into a downtown destination, and ran it until 2003. The Marietta move brought me into contact with FUUSM members, who quickly made me part of this community. It was through the church that I landed my position at WVUP (then Parkersburg Community College), after Jan Schlieper called to tell me that her husband had taken a position elsewhere and the college would need an English Lit person. Maggie Meyer was acting division chair, hired me, and I stayed for thirty years.

The next reinvention was traumatic and unchosen. In 2003, my husband (whom I had met in a FUUSM discussion group on UU history) dropped dead of a massive heart attack. I was 47, working lots of hours, checking in regularly with a variety of elderly and/or emotionally and sometimes physically fragile relatives, and adjusting to having a troubled teenaged nephew living with us. Adding sudden widowhood to the mix was not easy, but the support of my church and college communities carried me through.

Still standing.

Rebecca

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need"-- Cicero



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Women mailing list
Women at fuusm.org
http://fuusm.org/mailman/listinfo/women_fuusm.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://fuusm.org/pipermail/women_fuusm.org/attachments/20200414/9843905d/attachment.htm>