Guinea pigs, homeschooling, and six brothers

Recently, 51-year-old Cindy Tinsley took time to tell us about her life.

Q: When were you born and where did you grow up?

A: I was born in 1950 in New York City and brought up in Connecticut. My parents lived in Connecticut close to the border.

Q: What was it like growing up?

A: We had a really big house in a fancy neighborhood. There were seven bathrooms in our house. We lived on about an acre. We had a rose garden and a perennial garden and the backyard for baseball. And there were hired people where we grew up so I used to hang out with them because it was safe. I thought it was interesting, what they were doing, so I liked learning it.

Q: Did you have many siblings?

A: I had six brothers, three older, Wally, Ronny and Norris and three younger, Denis, Alex and Mace. It was challenging. One of my brothers, Denis, realized it was unfair if they all beat up on me at once, so he was always on my side. We played with cars and trucks. I liked horses, though, like a lot of girls like horses. My favorite brother and I would take lessons and go riding together. I was always told by my older relatives that I would eventually be so happy to have all those brothers and though I found that hard to believe, they were right! As we grew up it became more and more obvious. I loved being from a big family. My second oldest brother, Ronny, was a natural teacher and an amazing student. Ronny was really instrumental in bringing us up because our parents were really busy. He was a good father figure. When I was 7 and Denis was just 5, Ronny used to get us up at 5 a.m. for him to teach us algebra before he had to leave for school. We all have always enjoyed math. Two of my brothers now live in Connecticut and one lives in Canada. Ronny, Norris and Denis I lost.

Q: What did your parents do?

A: My father had a factory and made toiletries. He was a designer. He made toiletries especially for children. Little Lady was the brand. Little Lady for the girls and Young Lad for the boys. It was really adorable. My mother taught high school biology for some of my early life. She always liked to take classes so she was always taking classes at universities, at NYU or somewhere else in New York. She taught math, as well.

Q: Was there anything you wanted to be when you grew up?

A: I've always enjoyed being with kids. From the time I considered it, I wanted to be a mother. Until it worked I decided I could be a teacher. But all I ever really wanted was to have my own kids.

Q: Where did you go to school?

A: I went for 12 years to an all girls school. We had to wear uniforms. I was Jewish and this was not a Jewish community. The majority of other girls were Christian and very fancy and belonged to country clubs, so I was in the minority.

Q: Did you get into mischief or play pranks?

A: I was very good. I took care of my brothers. My mother wouldn't let me go to school until my two younger brothers were ready and could go to school, too. I took care of them. My very younger brother is thirteen years younger than me, so he wasn't in the picture yet. It didn't bother me, I never thought about it, I guess that's why I like kids. I'd read them books and play with them. One of them is the one that supported me so much.

Q: What have you had for jobs?

A: I was a nanny to a family with three kids. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work but in my mind it was a lot of fun. I've also taught school, all different ages. Every job has been in some capacity teaching kids or taking care of kids. I also home-schooled my children until they went to high school. As an adult I felt fortunate to have my first teaching job in a newly-forming public school in the hills of MA and be able to develop curriculum and policies. I gained the confidence and experience I needed to home-school my kids and quite a few others.

Q: How did you meet your spouse?

A: That's a really crazy story. One of my brothers moved up here looking to start a school and a commune and he found a place in West Paris that he thought would be right so he bought the place. He saw Forrest hitchhiking with his girlfriend. My brother said “It's getting dark, you can't hitch into the mountains. Why don't you stay the night? ” So they spent the night and they stayed here and lived here and when she left, Forrest built a house here. And then I met him because my brother already knew him. That brother always used to say that he was going to find me the right husband.

Q: What did you do when you got married for work?

A: I substitute taught. Forrest is a carpenter. He built our house. He built it out of found materials that he got off jobs. My brother Denis left us two stores in Amherst and North Hampton, Massachusetts.

Q: Do you have children?

A: I have three children, Reed, Sienna and Tyler. My children were home-schooled until high school. It was a mutual agreement that they would go, to get them ready for college. They played on town teams as children, like baseball. I started volunteering for the extension office, I've done this for maybe 25 years, and every spring and fall we have a program of five or six workshops and that was a place for home-schooled kids to meet other kids and socialize. The LOOK program was another opportunity for them to socialize. That was fun for me to do to for the sake that I introduced all those options for kids, but a lot so that my kids could have that opportunity and not live solitary lives.

Q: Did you do much traveling?

A: I haven't been very many places. I went to Europe once and I've been to Jamaica twice. My brother took me and my family to Jamaica. I was 12 years old when I went to Europe. I've also traveled around the United States when I was younger, on a few road trips. I went to California and the Southwest a bit. Everywhere is nice, but I really like the trees and the mountains. I never wanted to live in a place that didn't have that. I really like being able to have a garden. I've always had a few gardens going.

Q: How did you come to settle in Maine?

A: I always loved nature, especially children and growing plants. I felt the energy of New York City and appreciated the move to Northampton, MA when I was older because there were more open spaces and less traffic and population density. It felt the same way as I moved north to Maine and I feel so grateful to be able to see the mountains, the trees, the wildlife and the sunrises and sunsets just outside my window. Every trip out offers me natural beauty.

Q: Did anyone influence you to the point of changing your direction in life?

A: I suppose having the family that I had. The family I grew up in everyone thought you have to marry a doctor or a lawyer or you're not doing the best you can do. But that wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted someone who physically was really together. I suppose my brother, Denis, we were like partners. We influenced each other. When we were 7 we were given two guinea pigs and we couldn't decide who would have which so we decided, from then on, that everything I had would be his and everything he had would be mine. When I moved to North Hampton he moved there to be near me.

Q: Do you collect anything or have a hobby?

A: I have a lot of hobbies: drawing, cooking, sewing, gardening, a lot of things. My passion is teaching kids. I relate well to them so they want to know what I have to offer, it seems like.

Q: Are you a part of any organizations?

A: I do a summer enrichment program called LOOK, Learning Opportunities for Our Kids, I've done that for 21 years. And the ARK program, Area Resources for Kids, through the extension. We try to offer opportunities for kids to try out things, in all kinds of areas. A lot of art. I also volunteer at Fare Share Market and the Alan Day Community Garden. My brother was one of the ones that started Fare Share so I feel dedicated to it because of him.

Q: What was the last book you read?

A: "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. It's about how nature would take over if humanity died out.

Q: What subject do you wish you knew more about?

A: I can always learn more in any subject. Plants, I'd love to learn more about. Animals. Psychology always interested me. Life is a time when you can just continue learning whether you're reading books or taking classes or you're just being observant and care about the world around you.

Q: What is the one thing you could not give up?

A: I could give up any material things, because it's just material, but it would be hard. It would be hard not to have my sewing machine. This necklace, my brother brought it back for me from Nepal when he went to visit the Dalai Lama. Probably the jewelry that Denis gave me.

Q: What is the one thing you would happily do over again?

A: I would happily bring up kids all over again and take them to the Phish festivals. It's interesting because you're basing what you do on what would interest the kids. The first one I think Tyler was 8 or 9. And bringing my kids into classrooms to help teach because now they're all so good at teaching kids.

Q: What would you like people to know about you?

A: That I'm really real. Growing up in such an affluent society like I did, I learned that people's happiness does not depend on material goods. A lot of people were unhappy there. The most important thing is how you feel and how you share your life with others and not how you look or what you have. I want to be remembered for my caring nature.

Q: Last day on earth?

A: I would probably do something outdoors with one of my kids.

Q: Anyone could walk in the room?

A: My brother Denis. He always wanted to fly and he did all these crazy things like hang-gliding and he was very daring. He liked to live life on the edge and his plane crashed. I'm really lucky to have my nephew Toji, his father died when he was 10, so we've been there for each other. I'm pretty close to my other brothers, too.