I’ve Danced My Life Away

Coming Home to Camden

It was a very sad time. I was married for 58 years, and my husband was an engineer so I went with him everywhere. We lived in Sudbury, Massachusetts in that house for 30 years. He built it himself and it was beautiful. After he retired we went to Florida and we were down there almost 20 years. I began having heart trouble and things like that, old lady stuff, so we moved farther north in Florida to avoid the pollution that was in Ft. Lauderdale because I was on oxygen at that time. We came up here and stayed summers for quite a while, but then we went to Concord, New Hampshire and went into a retirement home. We were in a retirement home in Florida for quite a while, and then we went to Concord, New Hampshire and that’s when my husband became sick.

He died of leukemia almost 5 years ago, and it was very bad. He was sick for two years and I was a basket case. We stayed in Concord because the Hitchcock Lahey clinic was there and they were treating him. There wasn’t very much they could do to him except give him blood. After two years he died and that’s when I became a basket case. I was really in bad shape. My nephew Brian Smith came up and said, “You can’t stay here.” Oh, it was awful, and my nephew came up and he said, “Come home.”

Well, I came home and my kids [her students]-I must have done something right when I was teaching because my kids are wonderful, wonderful to me. We adopted a boy -I didn’t tell you that. We adopted a boy, and he was 21 when we adopted him. He was a friend of ours and we both liked him very, very much, and we had tried to adopt children before but it wasn’t possible. I was too old for one thing. So I came home and Muriel, bless her dear heart, arranged a breakfast down at the Spinnaker with several of my students. She thought it was such a good idea that she had another one the next week, and then on and on! That was a pretty big group. We’d meet every Sunday and have breakfast together - many of my kids and their friends who have joined the group. I’ve met so many, many lovely friends here. I guess I survived. I guess I must be a survivor, but I don’t think I would have if I’d stayed in Concord.

BD: And she still dances-
ED: (laughs) You’re still dancing!
FS: Every chance I get! If anybody drives in the yard and wants me to do anything I have my hat on ready to go! (laughs) Well, that’s the story of my life.