By Zoe Morrison, November 2019
Cindy became interested in cooking during high school years. At Sprague she had Home Economics class where she learned to cook. The school also had a daycare center which students
staffed. Throughout high school, she babysat local families and juggled work at a senior care facility besides class studies.
In 1985 she married her high school sweetheart. The newlyweds moved to Milton Freewater Oregon, where she took a job at a nursing home and helped her grandmother-in-law whose health had deteriorated. The next four years were busy with caregiving, work and the birth of two children, a son in 1986 and a daughter in 1988.
In 1989 the family moved back to Salem. Her husband worked at Fred Meyer in the Home Electronics department. Maybe it was the busyness of their lives or simply growing apart, but then she & her husband divorced in 1991 though they reconciled and remarried in 1992, moving back to Newport . They were together until 1999 when the marriage finally ended.
In 2002, she returned to Salem, and began working at a retirement community. Diagnosed in 2006 with Crohn’s disease she has found herself navigating the ups and downs of the illness and subsequent hospitalizations. Coming out of this scare healthy has made her very appreciative of her health.
Cindy has spent all of her adult life working. Aside from raising her children, she has worked at retirement communities, mostly in the kitchen, Walmart & NORPAC. In 2006 she began working at the Senior Center and has worked for the Marion Polk Food Share Program since then. She also works in the gift shop, helps out with bingo, assists with the Rummage Sales and folding the newsletters. Wow! This grandmother of two granddaughters sure keeps busy, just as she likes!
Cindy is thankful for her friends at the Senior Center, and that she lives near to her parents.
Check in with Cindy to hear about her latest latch hook project, her recipe of the month or find out about her latest antiquing find discovered during a recent trip to the coast.