Hi, I’m Cyndy Hoskey, a retired  educator that can’t seem to stop teaching.  I live in Westerville and I have three children, son, Mark and his wife, Cindy, of Chesterville, Oh.; daughter, Ellen and her husband, Nigel, of  Phoenix, Az. and daughter, Barbara and her husband, Mel, of Jackson, Mi., four grandchildren, Stacy, Amy,  Matt, and Brianna,  two granddogs ,three grandcats and two cats of my own. 

I was born Cynthia Hunter Kay  in Waterbury, Connecticut,  three score and seven years ago..  Why such an elaborate name for a new baby? Well, it was my mother’s dream to name her first daughter after her great-grand mother, so I have been called “Cynthia” only by people that” don’t know me“, ever since.  We lived on the Kay farm in Cheshire ,Conn.. with my Dad’s parents. My Grandpa Kay, unhappy with my name, said that “Cindy  is a dog’s name“. He had offered Mom one hundred dollars(a pretty penny in those days and she refused it) to name me after an ancestor of his. I was a child with a mind of my own and it was suggested that if you wanted me to do something, just tell me to do the opposite.( I find this hard to believe since I am such a ”nice cooperative” person today) All through my childhood I heard my Mother say that she “hopes I have a child just like me!!!“ There are old  photos of me at the farm sitting on a rock surrounded by poultry and it surely  must have been meaningful , for my home decor is brimming with these same kind of critters today.  When I was two,  we followed  Dad’s older sister’s family  out to Columbus, Ohio where he was assured of a job, Tool and Die maker.  Every summer, after the end of WW2, we traveled HOME, as my parents called it, to Conn. With Mother’s encouragement, I developed a hunger for reading(I still feel that way today) at an early age and haunted the local libraries with her.  Picnics , concerts, and  swimming also rounded out those early years before my sister Edie was born. AND even with Edie aboard, we girls  still enjoyed that kind of life but, I must say that housekeeping was not a priority

 We  lived in the old Beechwold area of Columbus on Garden Road . Here my brother John and sister Jane came home from the hospital. Now, there were four of us to go swimming at Glengary pool every day all summer long with Mom. Do you get the idea that swimming was important to our Mom?

( She will later invest forty eight years into a swim teaching and coaching career in the Worthington area and at Columbus Academy and even have the Barb Kay Mini Swim Meet named after her) but at this point she just made swimming a daily part of all of our  lives. And I mention this because I am still teaching swimming today, because of her.

In 1951 we moved to Worthington, and I enjoyed having friends from the old neighborhood meet new ones from Worthington.  I had great times in my high school years and graduated in 1955 (and am currently serving on a committee to put together our 50th class reunion).

I ’ve always been  very interested in music (voice, guitar and piano) and attended OSU School of Music for two and a half years. In 1958, I dropped out of college to marry a high school sweetheart and from this marriage came my greatest treasures, my son and daughters. My husband was a State Highway Patrolman and in 1968 ,when we were stationed in the tiny hamlet of Chesterville, Ohio, I applied for an elementary teaching position in the Highland Local Schools system.  They hired me on the basis that I would complete my B.A. in Education.( Sadly, the marriage was not to be, and I found myself alone, raising my three, teaching grade school with a “great accent on music“, and going to OSU for six summers to complete my degree.) Thank God for my parents who allowed me to bring my gang down to stay with them every day (joining Mom and my youngest brother Kody at the pool) ) while I hit the books at OSU  six Summer Quarters. I got my BA in Education in 1973(giving me the right to earn what other “six year teachers” were) and life became a little easier for us.

In 1988, with son  Mark, now  married, and Ellen and Barbie in college, I decided to sell the house in Chesterville, circa 1840, on the National Register Of Homes , to Mark and his wife, Cynthia.(I’m now, Cyndy Hoskey and she’s Cindy Hoskey) and purchased  a condo in Westerville.  I still taught  in Chesterville and traveled about seventy five miles a day round trip to do so. BUT, I loved being back in civilization ,with theaters, restaurants, wonderful libraries, places to go and people to see and soon began attending OSU again working on my Masters Degree. in Children’s Literature which I completed by 1994. Every summer I taught swimming for Mom and when I retired from Highland in 1999, I began teaching swimming  for her, three times a week. I also volunteer both at the Statehouse doing tours with school groups and at the Ohio Historical Center doing programs in the Museum and the Village.  Recently  I joined a group A Circle Of Grandparents, and have adopted a fourth grade class in Worthington Park School. I enjoy visiting them each month with a character- building -themed -lesson.