Susan Sheehan says some people -- including her mother -- used to wonder if she had found a career path. Now they are beginning to discern a pattern: A job has to grab her heart, Sheehan says. It has to inspire her.
What might not be obvious is why her heart responds to the Red Cross.After three years as director of the Salt Lake YWCA, Sheehan is moving on to head another nonprofit next week, the Great Salt Lake chapter of the American Red Cross. In years past she has coordinated financial aid and scholarships at her alma mater, Colby College, and the University of Utah. From there, she went to work for government. Once again she managed finances while also helping people -- displaced workers, disadvantaged teens, single moms seeking a job.
But the story behind why Sheehan loves the Red Cross hasn't been told before, she says, because it's not really her tale. The story belongs to the couple she calls Oma and Ompa (grandmother and grandfather). Until recently, they didn't talk about the war years, especially outside the family.
This all began 50 years ago when Ompa was a young man in Germany. He was a soldier, as were most young men in those days. As World War II ended, he was wounded and captured by the Russians. He was put in a prison camp, where his leg was amputated. He got dysentery and grew steadily weaker.
By the time his young wife learned where he was, he'd been sent to a hospital. He weighed 96 pounds. He was dying. He had accepted it.
But Oma would not let him die. She set off on foot from their home in Berlin to try to save him. She carried with her all the food she could find -- milk, bacon, bread.
The countryside was full of soldiers. To be seen on the road was to risk being raped. Oma hid in the day and walked at night until, eventually, she found the prison hospital where her husband was being held. There she realized a new obstacle: She had no way to get in.
A Red Cross nurse loaned her a uniform.
Posing as a nurse, Oma found Ompa. She gave him the food and love and encouragement he needed to live.
Because Oma and Ompa are LDS, in time they came to Utah and, in time, their grandson married Susan Sheehan. Now Oma and Ompa live nearby and they take care of Sheehan's two children, their great-grandchildren, ages 5 and 9.
So the Red Cross meant something to her before she ever took the job, Sheehan says. She thinks of the Red Cross and a nurse comes to mind, a nurse who showed mercy to people she loves, at a time in history when few felt merciful toward Germans. Sheehan says, "This organization has touched many generations with compassion.
"One of my goals for the Red Cross is to get their very valuable work noticed."
Meanwhile, her goals for the YWCA have, for the most part, been met. "We realized the agency's 10-year plan in three years," she says. "That feels good."
The Kathleen Robison Huntsman apartments -- for women and children -- opened in 1997. This year saw the groundbreaking for a new day-care center and home for pregnant teens.
The buildings called for her best administrative and technical skills -- so they were personally satisfying. But equally important, to Sheehan, are the employees. "Staff development," she says. "When I came here, we didn't have one licensed social worker on staff. Now we have five."
Sheehan gives an example of the necessity of long-term housing and intensive counseling the YWCA now offers. A year ago a mother came in with three children. She'd been abused and her children displayed classic signs of having witnessed it. The 10-year-old boy was angry. He couldn't stand to be touched. The middle child, a little girl, was completely withdrawn. The baby, a 2-year-old boy, seemed to have attention deficit disorder. "He was completely out of control," recalls Sheehan.
Today, after much treatment, Sheehan says, the oldest boy is much happier and more affectionate. The little girl is less withdrawn. And the youngest is "what I would term completely normal for his age," she says.
After she leaves the YWCA, Sheehan will miss watching this kind of healing. And she'll miss the staff, she says.
Yet, she says, it's time to leave. Three years of seeing distraught women and children takes a toll. "I was feeling an increasing sense of sadness," she says. "And I was concerned that I wasn't able to leave it at the office." She still believes in the innate goodness of people, she says, and she still likes men. She didn't want to change.
At the Red Cross, of course, she will still help people in trouble. The difference is that many of those the Red Cross helps are suffering because of a natural disaster, not at the hands of someone in their own family. Sheehan leaves feeling confident that the YWCA will continue to save lives and promote healthy relationships, confident that the board will find a capable replacement for her -- and confident that the mission of the Red Cross will inspire her best efforts.