Hard Economic Times Bring Uncertain Future For Vermont Couple

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If there was a Matchmaker.com for people and places, The Havels and Vermont are a pairing made in heaven.

That’s what Steve and Anne Marie Havel thought when they moved here 10 years ago.  They liked the state’s politics, the rural lifestyle, the environmental ethic, all the alternative ways in which people make a living; practically everything about the state appealed to them. 

Now, on the 10th anniversary of their move, the Havels are questioning the wisdom of some of their choices. They weren’t prepared for how hard it would be to get by.

Steve grew up on Long Island.  According to family lore, the late writer and dissident Vaclav Havel was a distant cousin.  Anne Marie was raised in the city, on Staten Island. She’s in her 50s. Steve is soon to be 61.

They’d been thinking about Vermont for a few years but the 9/11 attacks gave them the push they needed.  Anne Marie had been laid off from her finance job a few months earlier and Steve’s work as a computer programmer went away in the economic slump that followed 9/11. 

They admit neither of them has a good head for business.  A few years earlier they’d tried to make a go of selling blue-green algae as a dietary supplement, but that failed.  Steve says it didn’t help that, "the media was telling everyone it was pond scum and a marketing scheme."

Until then Anne Marie had been making jewelry as a sideline.  They decided to move to Vermont and try to earn a living selling it.  They bought a house in the Rutland County town of Wells. 

The jewelry business sustained the couple and their daughters for a number of years.  They drove all over the country selling at craft shows and made just enough to get by. 

"Until the economy collapsed again we were doing ok," Steve says. 

But according to Anne Marie it was always a struggle.  Cracking the monthly mortgage nut was, "like torture," she says.

Because Steve was traveling to jewelry shows to help Anne Marie, it was hard for him to find part time work.  When the couple was home, Steve would line up an occasional cooking job while Anne Marie spent long hours in the cramped cellar of their house, working with an acetylene torch to create her broaches and pins. 

The recession devastated her jewelry business. Since 2008, she’s lost 40% of her sales.  The couple cuts corners as much as they can, but they’ve fallen behind.  The bills they can’t pay are going on the credit card.  Anne Marie uses her good credit rating to bounce from card to card to take advantage of low interest offers. They’re getting food stamps. 

Anne Marie and their youngest daughter are enrolled in the state’s Catamount Health Plan, which they can afford, but Steve goes without. He prefers a holistic approach. "We try to do things with natural healing," he says.

Now that the jewelry business can’t support them Anne Marie is hitting the road alone.  The 12 hour driving days are tiring, and setting up at shows is physically demanding, but Steve needs to stay home to look for work.

He’s finding it more difficult to get hired.  Even the seasonal cooking jobs seem out of reach.  Anne Marie believes her husband isn’t getting jobs because he’s in his 60s.  "He applies for jobs, he doesn’t get them. That’s what makes me think it has to do with age."

Steve describes one interview where he was quizzed about whether he could handle the physical demands of a kitchen.  He didn’t get the job.  "There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have," he says.  "I had the skills for it."

Lately he’s worked on and off at an organic vegetable farm. 

Anne Marie says the stress of their situation weighs more on her than on Steve.  "I’m the one that’s always thinking numbers and I’m the one that basically pays the bills, so I know what I need.  When it’s not enough I notice the difference in my sleep and my stress level."

Steve is more philosophical. "I’m not worried about it that much," he says. "I don’t think every negative can’t be converted into a positive."

Could things get so bad that they’d leave Vermont and try to make it somewhere else with more plentiful jobs and shorter drives to jewelry shows?

"Sure," says Steve.

"No," counters Anne Marie. 

The couple is exploring ways to increase their income.  Anne Marie is using her Website to boost jewelry sales online.  "And I’m writing a book," Steve says.  "I’m trying to get some internet sales from that."

The book is about ‘the real Jesus’, based on Greek and Hebrew texts.  Steve isn’t fluent in those languages so he’s painstakingly translating the texts using dictionaries. His interest stems from his experience living in a Christian commune.  "I think I have a whale of a book," he says.

Writing is part of the ideal life Steve envisions for himself.  In fact, add a little steadier part time work and what he wants isn’t that far from what he has.

"Kind of like it is, in a sense," he says.  "I would like to work with the ground and the earth.  Maybe do farmer’s markets, write, maybe sell some books and play some music."

Anne Marie is ready for a salaried full time job.  She’d love to be director of an art school.  Short of that, she’d also be happy just making enough money from her jewelry to pay the bills.

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