German-born retired professor ‘struggling to live’

Published December 30, 2011, in the Record-Courier(Link)

By CAITLIN FITCH
TheNewsOutlet.org

It’s 5 p.m. on a Sunday and there’s no one at the FJKluth Art Gallery in downtown Kent.

A gray-haired woman wearing a black-and-white sweater, a long black skirt and black stockings walks around the room and periodically glances at the door.

“There are a lot of people here. Don’t you see?” said Heidrun Hultgren, with a nervous laugh.

If no one attends her planned lecture at the gallery, the rest of her month is going to be rough financially.

The out-of-work, 70-year-old art history professor depends on donations from lectures to stretch her monthly stipend enough to pay bills, buy medicine and to eat more than one meal a day.

At a few minutes after 5 p.m., three people are seated on folding, brown metal chairs in the gallery. Hultgren appears more at ease.

“Eat some food, have something to drink, look around,” she said, trying to make her guests feel welcome.

German-born Hultgren came to the United States when she was 24 with her husband, Frank, hoping to live the American dream. Through the years, the dream has faded, the economy has faltered, and her efforts to get by have fallen short.

She and her husband divorced, she lost her part-time teaching job and she has little contact with her three children. That’s just part of her story.

There is more, like the fact she has diabetes and often can’t afford insulin, that makes her story compelling.

Hultgren met and married her husband in 1964 in Germany. They moved to Ohio where they had three children. He worked as a research metallurgist at Republic Steel in Cleveland and the family lived a middle-class life in Burton.

“When I came here, I didn’t have to work because my husband made enough money to support us. But after my youngest child was in kindergarten, I went back to work.”

In 1985, Hultgren began teaching art history at Kent State University. She worked there as a part-time instructor until 2007, when she retired.

She knew that her retirement income would not be enough to sustain her so she negotiated a deal with Kent that allowed her to continue teaching on a part-time basis.

That arrangement ended in January 2011, when school officials told her that graduate assistants would be taking over the courses she had been teaching.

Hultgren is not bitter about what happened at the university, but she definitely misses the money.

She collects $1,400 each month in State Teacher Retirement Funds from her 20 years of teaching. She does not collect Social Security or any other income from her late husband because of their 1996 divorce.

She spends $600 for the mortgage on the home she owns in Kent. Another $400 each month goes for the car payment on her 2004 Jeep, which she can no longer drive because she cannot afford the gas and because of her failing eyesight. About $250 or so goes to other bills: electric, gas, insurance and phone.

She is left with about $150 each month to pay for insulin, food and anything else she might need. She must pay $103 for her insulin, with insurance making up the remaining $30.

Even before losing her teaching job, she faced financial problems.

“Since I was part time they only pay $3,000 per course. I taught usually four sometimes three courses each semester and one maybe in the summer.”

Her annual salary before January was $24,000. Now she earns about $16,800.

“I don’t have enough money to live on.”

Hultgren knows that there are people in worse shape.

She is grateful for Kent Social Services, where she eats lunch four days a week and dinner once a week.

“Only thing I have is that I do eat once a day. I eat one meal, and a can of soup. Social services really helps me out,” she said.

Christy Anderson, director of Kent Social Services, said Hultgren is one of the many people she knows going through economic difficulties, and doing the best she can.

“I’ve been working at Social Services since 1979, and these past two years have been the worst I’ve ever seen as far as poverty goes,” Anderson said. “Heidi is one of many who have had employment but as a turn of the economy lost their job and are struggling to live.”

“We see people who have next to nothing. She does her best and any way social services can help her or anyone else we can.”

Hultgren owns a home in Burton, where she and her family lived until 1996, when she moved to Kent. She is trying to sell the house, but her efforts are complicated by the fact that it has a faulty furnace and other problems.

“My house in Burton has many problems I have to fix, but cannot afford. I have tried to sell it, but in this market no one is buying,” said Hultgren. “I bought my Jeep in December and lost my job in January. After I went back to (return) it, they said they cannot buy a 2004 Jeep back, so I try to sell what I have but it is not working.”

In addition to neglecting the home in Burton, Hultgren’s meager finances also force her to neglect her health.

Her last stint in the hospital, in November, was due to a lack of insulin.

“I was in the hospital because my sugar was so high because I couldn’t afford insulin anymore,” said Hultgren. “In five years, I will probably be dead. I cannot afford my insulin and it is a necessity for my health. I will continue to try and sell what I have, but if I cannot, I don’t know what will happen,” said Hultgren.

“I just want to live.”

Hultgren said her children have not been helpful.

“They want nothing from you. It’s insulting because you put in all this work and they can’t be bothered.”

Her son Erik Hultgren of Brimfield could not be reached after multiple attempts.

Although life is bleak, there are times when there is some sunshine. When that happens she wants to extend the kindness by “paying it forward.”

“My friend once gave me two bags of groceries when I couldn’t get to the social services on time for lunch. Can you believe that? The next day, I go to the social services and a man there was upset that someone stole his sleeping bag. I went the next day to get a sleeping bag from the rescue mission for him, because it was terrible that someone stole from him the only thing he has.”

She thinks if everyone made such efforts, fewer people would struggle.

“There are so many people sleeping in the park or on benches … I could not believe. But if we do not help each other we will not progress.”

During her lecture at the art gallery, Hultgren pauses to catch her breath and find her place in the slide show. Her specialty is paleolithic to the end of the Medieval period, but she admits that her skills are diminishing.

“It takes me longer now to do things. My left eye has cataracts, so I can barely see. What took me two hours now takes me two days, this Power Point (presentation), I did in about five.”

The presentation is 111 slides long.

Near the end of the hour-long discussion, the crowd begins to get restless. A man gets up, goes to the the back of the room where the gallery manager stands a donation box, which contains the money Hultgren will get for her lecture.

The man puts some money into the box, gets a cup of cranberry juice and goes back to his seat.

Hultgren got $11 for the lecture.

German-born retired professor ‘struggling to live’ by The News Outlet

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