Meet Your Neighbor
Anne Sweidel
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Date of birth December 10, 1939

Likes most about Nantucket The natural beauty, the history and the sense of community.

Likes least about Nantucket The difficulty of getting off the island to visit family, but coming back and calling this home makes up for that.

Favorite TV show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Anne Sweidel has lived in many places, but Nantucket is her favorite and where she intends to stay. Born in Shamokin, Pa., Sweidel was raised there and on Long Island, N.Y. After high school she went to the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cortland, N.Y., majoring in early childhood education. Her first job as an elementary school teacher was on Long Island in 1961, the same year she met her former husband at Jetties Beach when she was vacationing on Nantucket with a friend.

The couple wed in 1962 and lived in Chicago, Ill. where she taught and earned her master's degree in counseling from Roosevelt University. Sweidel remained in Chicago until 1965, then in 1966 her first daughter, Stacy, was born in New York City and in 1969 her second daughter, Suzanne, was born in Baltimore, Md. From the early 1980s, Sweidel returned regularly to Nantucket with her children while teaching in Atlanta, Ga. In 1999 she moved to the island as a full-time resident and has been happy about that decision ever since.

"For all the reasons why I love this place," she said.

Sweidel likes to stay busy, and her first position here was as a part-time case worker with the local office of Elder Services of the Cape and Islands. Next she worked as a receptionist with a real estate company and is currently an interpreter for the Nantucket Historical Association.

"I love that because I feel like I'm still teaching and learning," she said.

In that job, Sweidel explains Nantucket's history through talks and gallery tours at the Whaling Museum and walking tours of downtown, all of which serve to bring the past to life and spark the interest of her companions. That keeps her occupied two or three days a week from April into October and about one day a week in the winter.

When she is not working, Sweidel gives to the community through volunteerism. She has participated in programs at the elementary school, and as a court advocate for A Safe Place, and is presently on the board of the Nantucket School of Music and tutors and teaches with the Literacy Volunteers of America which holds free English as a Second Language classes at the Atheneum.

Sweidel enjoys spending time with friends, walking, reading, playing bridge and traveling.

"My favorite place to go now is San Francisco to visit my seven-month-old twin granddaughters," she said of her daughter Suzanne's new

family. I