Depending on where you run into her, Susan Price might be a farmer; or a Wild Woman of Waldoboro; or an artist; or an activist; or a teacher. She is all of these in one. Susan says her teaching job is the best of all worlds because it’s working one-on-one with students at RSU40’s Middle School, in addition to teaching small groups of children in the Composite Program. See her on her farm, where she now helps her daughter Morganne tend their five sheep and five lambs, plus any of their 15 chickens and roosters. (They have cut back from raising pigs Cornish Cross birds, and rabbits, but her son Yannick still raises goats.) Or perhaps you’ve seen her painting. She’s a member of SoWA (South of Waldoboro Arts) working in watercolors and acrylics. At BugTusselAnnex, she’s attending meetings for the Waldoboro Dems. And at the Narrows Tavern, she sits alongside the other Wild Women of Waldoboro. Susan Price arrived here in 1999 via Ohio and Massachussets which might lead you to think she’s a relative newcomer. But ask anyone, and they’ll say that she’s an integral part of Waldoboro’s fabric.
I’ve been on both sides of the money fence. I grew up with money. My father was a very successful businessman who had come from nothing. And he was the kind of person who never forgot that. When he went into his factories, he knew people by name, and if he knew that their cousin or mom or brother, sister or whomever, was in the hospital, he would stop and talk to them and ask them how they were doing. He saw people as they were. He saw each person’s value, and it didn’t matter how much money they had or didn’t have.
I think I have that. I think it comes from his example but also because I’ve lived on both sides of the fence. I’ve had both stable times and times when I’ve been very poor.
The most recent time started when I stopped teaching in 2010 because I was burnt out. I was divorced at that point. And so, I ended up doing a lot of jobs from working at the Olsen House, the Farnsworth, and for five years, at Wallace’s Market. But they all were jobs that couldn’t support me. I was really struggling financially. I even went back to teaching, as a substitute. It helped but I had still a hard time making my mortgage, and I had a backlog of debts.
At one point, after I’d left Wallace’s, I was working jobs where I didn’t have access to food. And I realized, “I’ve got to go to the Food Pantry. I don’t have any food.”
So, I called them: “Hi, this is Susan Price,” never dreaming anyone would know me.
But the person who answered said, “Oh, hi! Susan!!! How are you?”
I died inside. But I went ahead and said, “I am in really bad straits. I’m substitute teaching, but I’m so far behind on my bills that I can’t make ends meet. What do I need to do? Should I fill out paperwork?”
And she said, “Of course not. It’s the first and third Tuesday, 12-3,” and so I went. And if I couldn’t get there until 3:15, they would still hold food for me. They are amazing. They were there when I couldn’t afford groceries. I think this past December was the last time I went.
But it was still touch and go in those years, even with the Food Pantry’s help. I was able through LIHEAP (Low Income Energy Assistance Program) to qualify for a subsidy for heating oil, and that helped a lot. Both of those things helped me hold on to our house.
This is why I still think Waldoboro is at its best right now, because there are resources for people when they need help. And by that, I mean both financially and emotionally. Our schools have so many more than they used to have. And the arts are thriving, too.
But there have always been kind people here. Many people have shown me kindness, so many I can’t even count them. People have come and done carpentry for me when I was struggling, like Jim Derby who did some a while back and wrote at the bottom of his bill, “to a good woman of our community,” because he’d substantially reduced his bill to me. Others have loaned me money when I didn’t have enough to reach for the next paycheck.
And then there are people like Marsha Knight at the Dollar Store who is always doing something, like the time she was collecting sweatpants and sweatshirts for Waldoboro Green and another nursing home in Jefferson. And Alexa Stark, who holds fundraisers to buy water bottles and snacks for the kids in the school. And then, as I’ve said, there’s the food Pantry, an amazing resource for a lot of people need in this community.
I am lucky in my friends. Mary Sidelinger is my inspiration because no matter what she is struggling with, she always has a smile on her face. And that just pulls me out of my own emotionally challenging moments.
Many of my friends are my political opposite, but our friendships are deeper than politics. We are there for each other, and if I needed them, I know they would be at my side in a minute. That comes from my father: seeing people for who they really are.
I’m 70 now. I still feel passionate about a lot of things, but the years have tempered me. I was very wild when I was young. Back in college I majored in fine arts, but as I like to say, I really majored in beer and boys. And man, that was the age of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I took risks I’d never take today, like hitchhiking all over the place. But my life was like that then, and I did it all. I had fun. And I’m lucky I’m alive, and lucky that it was back then.
I didn’t have kids until I was 37 and 39. I was 30 when I married Mark and 38 when I married Reggie, and about fifty when we divorced.
I look back and see how I made a lot of mistakes, even into my mid-50s, when I chose a bad partner for a while.
But those things in my past have made me into who I am today. I think I’m at the best moment in my life right now.
Forgiveness was the key. Other people forgave my mistakes, but I had to forgive myself. And that was tremendously hard. It took years. But I gave myself time. And time heals.
Leave a Reply