Barbara Sampson:  

Life After graduating high school I worked as a bank teller, moved to North Carolina and worked as an administrative assistant at a pet product distribution company for a couple of years, and then moved back to New England and got married. I found a job as a customer service representative for a wholesale food distributor, had 2 daughters, and then went back to admin work for an Antenna & Cable manufacturing company in Massachusetts. My marriage fell apart in ’96 so the girls and I moved back to my parents’ home in Salem for a year. I met the sweetest man I have ever met, and the girls and I moved to Merrimac Mass with him in 1997. I taught myself HTML while being bored at the admin job and transferred to a marketing position within the company. The company was acquired by one, then another large corporation, downsizing followed and I was laid off in 1999. Two weeks later, I landed a position working for an internet publishing company as a web site manager and for the first time in my life I could honestly say "I love my job!" The deadlines were crazy and the stress level was high, but I worked out of my home with flex hours and took home a sweet paycheck. My son was born in 2000 and within 6 months, my husband was diagnosed with throat cancer. In 2001, the VC money was too much for the owners of the internet company to pass up, so they sold out and 6 months later, my fellow co-workers and I were all unemployed. My husband was fighting a second recurrence of cancer, so I remained at home to take care of him and our 1-year old son. In September 2002, my husband sadly lost his battle with cancer, so I decided to leave New England and go to a place where I could start the next chapter of my life. Becoming a widow at 41 with 3 children still in school was tough, and I just could not afford to stay where the cost of living was way more than I c...Expand for more