Archives for 2016
Helen S
The child of two generations of farmers, Helen was raised in Bloomington, Illinois. Her grandmother set a precedent for women in the family when she went to college and graduated in 1906. Helen’s mother also went to college, became an accountant, and moved off the family farm to live in town. Helen was named after her mother’s sister Helen who died on the operating room table during thyroid surgery in 1937. “The farm was big to me” she said in describing spending summers on her grandparents’ farm.
Although Helen’s father thought she should work in a bank, Helen insisted on going to nursing school to become the first nurse in the family. After finishing two years of nursing school in Champaign, Illinois, Helen moved into a dorm in Chicago to complete her Bachelors Degree in the Science of Nursing. The school had no place for girls in the dorm so they erected a wall to segregate the men and women. Laughing, Helen recalls the wall came down the first day of school.
After graduating from nursing school, Helen married a man she knew from high school and moved to Birmingham, Michigan, then to Chicago where her husband was employed by the Chicago Art Institute. Their next move brought them to a 108 acre farm in Alfred, New York which they bought for $17,000 in 1969. Helen’s first exposure to Quakers took place in New York. Helen was raised in the Disciples of Christ Church. “I was taken with how Quakers talked and how outspoken they were.” Quakers in that area met in homes rather than in a meetinghouse.
In 1972, Helen and her husband adopted a baby girl whom they named Melissa Kerry America. Within a few years, they spent a year living in Great Britain (Wales, Scotland) while her husband completed a term as a Fulbright Scholar.
Helen enrolled in a Masters Degree in Nursing program at State University of New York Binghampton after they returned from abroad. It took her 2 hours and 45 minutes to drive one way to college for classes. She persisted and earned her Masters Degree and completed a nurse practitioner program. At this point while she was taking her daughter trick or treating, the dean of the school of nursing at Alfred interviewed her for a job. Helen was wearing a clown’s outfit when she was interviewed for a job teaching at a school of nursing. She got the job. “That job taught me how to teach”, she explained.
Next, Helen and her husband moved to Minneapolis where she taught at a community college for a year. Then she got a job working at the University of Minnesota Hospital on a unit that was filled with AIDS patients. This was in the early days of the epidemic when the disease was not well understood. Many of the patients also had tuberculosis. Helen and many of the hospital employees tested positive for tuberculosis.
After 29 years of marriage, Helen got a divorce. Noting the weather in Minneapolis varied between -59˚ to 108˚, Helen talked to her mother about moving to Florida. “In the autumn of my life, I wanted to be outside as much as possible.” Her mother refused to move so Helen got a job in the prison, where she found many of the inmates had AIDS. Then she took a job teaching in a community college. She worked there until she retired 8 years ago.
In 2008, their plans were finalized and they moved to Florida in 2009. Helen’s mother died at age 92, 5 months after they moved to Florida. Helen lives in Deep Creek Development in Punta Gorda.
Helen rediscovered Quakers after her mother died. (There were no Quakers in the Midwest near her.) “I felt like I dropped in on an interesting meeting”, she said after she began attending Fort Myers Monthly Meeting. “I am happy to be a Quaker.” Helen shared that being part of a spiritual formation group within the meetinghouse community has helped her.
Currently Helen is dating a physician named Bob whom she has known literally almost all of her life. They walked to kindergarten together; their great grandparents knew each other. Bob lives and practices in Bloomington, Illinois, where he is entrenched. And he visits Helen in Florida.
Helen traces her interest in Quakerism to the point in college where she began questioning her religion. “I saw that Quakers were clear about what they believed, and I found it appealing that there were no levels between a Quaker and God. It made sense to me that you have responsibility to figure out your values. I got into Quakerism late in life and have made great changes in how I live. I am so much farther along the path than I was 5 years ago.”
Richard
Instead of being known as Friend Richard, Richard might have been called Father Richard. After growing up in a Catholic family and going to a Catholic school, Richard enrolled in a Catholic seminary to become a priest. Partway through his seminary training, he become disenchanted with the separation between clergy and the laity and withdrew from the seminary. He then went to college.
Silk screening romance
While enrolled at University of Rhode Island, Richard met Suzanne at a summer job sweatshop. They toiled on the fourth floor of a non-air conditioned old building squeezing dye through a mesh onto sweaters and shells. The work experience was terrible, but it resulted in a lifelong relationship.
Working years
Richard graduated from college with a degree in sociology and a minor in community organization. His first job after graduation involved working for the Urban League in Rhode Island, focusing on housing issues. He also gained experience in planning programs by working for the United Way and then entered the state government in a financial role assisting with the state budget. This was a stepping stone for a job as Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Corrections.
Richard’s role in Corrections for 20 years put him at the policy table and gave him an opportunity to emphasize the importance of nonviolence training for correction officers and to focus on the impact of violence within the prison community. Outside of his job, he volunteered to work within the realm of victim/offender, a form of restorative justice. The program addressed the human dimensions of the harm created by the offender and got the victim and offender together for a facilitated discussion aimed at insight, remorse and forgiveness. Richard also spoke to faith communities throughout RI about the role they could play in a restorative form of justice.
As Richard’s familiarity with the Department of Corrections grew, he recognized the critical importance of what happens when the inmate is released back to the community. He realized that three factors are critical for a successful reintegration process: a job, housing and positive connections. He spent the last 2.5 years of his working life dedicated to establishing reintegration councils statewide, pulling together the police, probation, social service agencies and faith communities.
Family life
Suzanne and Richard have two children: a daughter who lives in Seattle and teaches eight grade math in an alternative school, and a son who is a journalist at a Massachusetts newspaper and lives in Rhode Island.
When the couple are not in Fort Myers, they live in a 480 square foot Rhode Island cottage that originally was part of a tent village on a farm a walk away from the beach. This seasonal cottage is on leased land, and has a definite season. The water and mail are shut off on Columbus Day and everyone scatters until the following May. The Frechettes spend much of their time outside during the 5 months a year they are there. The Frechettes have family in Rhode Island. In addition to their son, Richard’s parents are in Rhode Island.
Discovery of Quakerism
“Isn’t that a nice historic building” the couple thought when they passed the Smithfield Monthly Meeting, 5 miles from their house. One day they discovered cars in front of the meeting on a First Day and realized it was more than a historic building. When Richard first started attending the Quaker meeting, he realized he was always a Quaker. His beliefs fell into place as he recognized that the Meeting had what he was searching for. He could not articulate what he needed until he became immersed in the Quaker community. Within 3 months, he applied for membership.
Fort Myers
In 2009, Richard and Suzanne made plans to visit friends in the Big Pine community in Fort Myers. Although they planned to arrive on a First Day, they came a day early and decided to check out the Fort Myers Monthly Meeting on First Day. A group of Friends gathered for lunch afterwards, and spend a few hours talking. Richard and Suzanne realized they could be very comfortable within the Fort Myers Monthly Meeting community. When they discovered their friends wanted to sell their space in Big Pine, Richard and Suzanne leapt at the chance to buy it and within days, completed a closing on the property.
Quaker values
Richard is drawn to several of the Quaker values: the universalist sense of God within, the ability to connect to God without an intermediary, and the sense of community. He realized he was first a member of a Quaker community, and then he could declare he was a Quaker.
Worship
