I was born in Lewiston, Maine, but I was raised in Norway. I loved growing up in Norway. I am an only child, but I had plenty of cousins that I spent time with.

My parents were great parents. My father was a performer of musical theater when he was younger and he worked as an insurance agent at Goodwin’s for many years. My mom was a homemaker. Both of them were avid golfers.

My mother, her mother, and her sister all worked together on Norway Lake running ten camps that they’d rent out to summer guests. They were called Shepard’s Camps.

My mother had me working at Shepard’s Camps at an early age. I helped to prepare the cabins for campers and spent some of those summers babysitting lots of kids at the lake and elsewhere. The camps helped bring my family together so they could do things together every year. Many of the families who came to the camps I’m still good friends with to this day.

I grew up in a very musical family. We went to lots of plays together, and I was involved in the choir at church and school. I always loved it. It was through high school choir that I also discovered acting and realized I enjoyed acting and singing on stage. With musical theater, I could do both. I decided that I would try it.

I think the productions that got me into musical theater were a performance of Little Mary Sunshine and a Broadway Variety Show under Cynthia Wescott’s direction.

I graduated from Oxford Hills High School, and then attended the University of Maine in Orono. I graduated from there with a double degree in Early Childhood Development and Elementary Education. I knew from my babysitting experience that I enjoyed working with young kids.

Not long after college, I spent a year in Palm Beach, Florida working as a nanny, but I missed the four seasons and returned to Maine in 1979. I taught elementary school for 30 years altogether—17 in public school and 13 at the local Christian Academy.

I started doing community musical theater with the Lewiston-Auburn Community Little Theatre (LACLT). I did a lot of musicals with them in the ’80s and ’90s. My all-time favorite role from those days was as Glinda The Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Because people were so familiar with the movie, there was no room for improvisation. I also performed locally through OHMPAA (Oxford Hills Music and Performing Arts Association) and Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School’s performances of Broadway musicals.

In 1981, to supplement my income, I became a Mary Kay Consultant and have run a successful business ever since. I love fashion and makeup, and I always was looking for a great skincare program. I love Mary Kay’s philosophy and products. As a bonus, with this job, I could work my everyday activities around theater and other things. I even had the privilege of meeting Mary Kay herself at the annual seminar in Dallas. She was a very God-centered, strong woman who had a very smart business plan that was eventually used at Harvard School of Business.

I was first married in 1988 to a man named Steven Richard. He passed away in 1991. After a while, my church started praying for me regarding a new relationship. God eventually turned things around for me when I met my husband Patrick in 2003. We met on a Christian Singles’ website. He’s from California, but he ended up moving here to Maine. He loved it from the time he got here.

Though he’s not quite as into theater, Patrick’s family on his father’s side was in the behind-the-scenes work of the movie business in Los Angeles. He and I became interested in family genealogy as he had been doing years of research on his family lineage. Together, we managed to trace my family’s ancestry on both sides back to 19th century New England. We traced my mother’s side back as far as the Mayflower. One of my favorites that we found is my great-great-grandfather, Frederick Robie who served as Governor of Maine.

Patrick and I got married in 2003 and have been happily married ever since. Through the marriage, I have three grown step-children and seven step-grandchildren who all live out West. Because of this, I don’t get to see them often enough.

I recently rejoined LACLT and just finished the performance season for their most recent production of Mamma Mia. Over the years, I took up golf like my parents and played off and on, mostly at the Norway Country Club.

These days, my husband still works full-time, but we love to travel. Two of our favorite adventures were two cruises we took together. One was to the Bahamas and the other was to Cozumel, Mexico. We were recently in California for our youngest daughter’s wedding. Patrick and I live in Norway with our dog and two cats. I also play golf on occasion, though not as often as I used to. I still enjoy doing community musical theater and running my Mary Kay business.

Theater is such a fun, healthy thing to do. I never thought of going beyond the community level. When you’re involved in a play like that, you meet new people, you spend so much time with them rehearsing together, and you become a family.