Feature Writer Susan Roe – Introduction
Hello everyone, my name is Susan Roe and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself before submitting my first article for this wonderful magazine. I am 47 years old and I have been blind for nearly 32 years. My blindness was caused by deturerating and detached retinas, which after numerous operations just wouldn’t stay attached. After ten months of home schooling, I was eager to return to high school along with the rest of my friends and cousins.
My blindness has most certainly not slowed me down nor hampered me in setting and achieving a few pretty good life goals. I received training for a dog guide from the Seeing Eye in New Jersey right out of high school, just before I moved into my first apartment and started classes at the local community college. I was so excited to be the first in my family to attend college and receive an Associates Degree in Business Management from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. The process was challenging and I can admit that walking to school in all sorts of weather almost kept me home from classes, but my dog Posie and I were never late to class.
I later moved from Richmond, Virginia to Virginia Beach and found a part-time job with the Virginia Beach Police Department, Special Operations, where my duties were answering phones, transcribing auto fatality and boating fatality reports, interviews and recorded transcripts for the Hostage Negotiators. I worked for the police department for 17 years and moved back to our family farm with my husband after he retired twenty years with the Navy.
I currently work from home, a wonderful log cabin, managing Dogwood Farm and my growing farm fresh egg business. I am active in our NFB of Virginia Richmond local chapter. I also make hand knitted and crocheted items for the Webb of Hope, a charity directed through the Red Cross. Best of all, I wrap the wonderful aspects of life into one glorious package I like to call “Hands on Living.” This concept is what I would like to share with the Matilda Ziegler Magazine readers. There are tips, tricks, and techniques in everyday living and no matter what’s happening here on the farm, we always seem to end up in the kitchen, around the table and sharing our day with each other and that is what I’m hoping to do with you as well.