Dena was born in New Jersey and lived in Hackettstown until she was eleven. She shared that Hackettstown is where M&Ms are made!! Then, she and her Mom, Dad and 5 siblings moved to Glendale, Arizona.
While Dena lived in Petersburg, Alaska, she attended Petersburg Lutheran Church for 15 years. She was a member of the Alter Guild and in charge of training the children who wanted to be acolytes.
Dena holds a Special Ed/Education degree which allowed her to work at a variety of jobs. She taught a Kindergarten-2rd grade class in Arizona; worked with families who had children birth-3 years of age with special needs in Alaska; taught Special Education classes in Hawaii; taught a class of children with Autism in Utah; worked with a Bookmobile librarian in Utah; and set up and ran a Charter School library in an elementary school in Utah. Her favorite “job” was working with the Birth-3 Program because she was able to work directly with a family, in their home, to help them make a difference in their child’s life.
Currently, Dena is retired. She volunteers at the Salish Middle School Library on Tuesdays, covering and repairing books, shelving books, helping with inventory, and “whatever else needs to be done!”
Dena and her husband Kermit have been married 41 years. When they met in Alpine, Arizona, Kermit worked for the Forest Service fighting forest fires. They moved to Petersburg, Alaska on their first-year anniversary and stayed for 21 years.
Kermit and Dena’s daughter, Tiffany, was born in the “condemned” hospital in Petersburg, Alaska and still lives in Petersburg. She owns a Bookkeeping and Payroll Business and has 2 “fur” babies. Meho is a 6-year-old dachshund mix and Fred is a 2-year-old cat, who thinks he is a dog. Their son, Matthew, also born in Petersburg, but in the “new” hospital, now lives in Mountlake Terrace and works in downtown Seattle as a designer at Rolluda Architecture Firm. Dena adds, “He keeps himself quite busy and even though he lives close, we have to get on his schedule to see him.”
In her leisure time, Dena loves to cross-stitch “as it relaxes me”, and she likes to read, go for walks, and scrapbook, although “I have not made enough time for it lately”.
Dena says she feels very comfortable at St. Mark and advises to “just continue to do what you (we) do…greet people at the door, invite them to coffee, wear name tags (it really helps – I have a hard time with names)”. She recognizes that, “St. Mark does so much outreach and I was impressed by that. I think it is important to look outside ourselves and serve others. People here CARE about others, We help within the Church as well. I feel welcomed and cared about. I feel LOVED!”