Part 3 of 5 in a series

Despite a college degree and experience in her career field, Ann Compostella found herself struggling after her divorce.

She had stopped working when her daughter, Angelica, was born, and for three years was a stay-at-home mom. But when she and her husband divorced in 2001, she returned to the workforce.

“It wasn’t just getting back out to work,” said Compostella, “but three years of not working and then having to get out there again.”

Compostella secured a position at Behavioral Health Rehabilitative Services, working with kids in the home and community.

“I was making no money,” she said. “I was just getting by. My supervisor kept hounding me to go back to school. In order to become a supervisor or get into management again, I needed my master’s.”

Compostella, of Nesquehoning, had a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from Lock Haven and experience in the field of human services. She’d worked at KidsPeace as a supervisor in residential treatment before she married and relocated to Clearfield County.

In the few years that she didn’t work, there was a huge shift in her field. Before that, it was possible to become a supervisor or work in management without a master’s degree, but that had changed.

“I didn’t think I could do it,” she said. “I was away from my family. How could I work full time and go to school full time and afford it?”

Her daughter was also involved in a lot of activities, in addition to getting ready to start kindergarten.

“I had no idea how to make that work as a single mom.”

Back to school

In early summer, Compostella said her supervisor called her on a Saturday morning and asked if she was free.

“He came and got me and took me back to Lock Haven, where he also got his master’s degree. It bothered him that he was making more money than me, even though I had more experience. He took me to college to meet the dean, and I enrolled that day.”

It was 2003. Compostella returned to school that summer, but before she did, she sat down with her daughter to explain what she was doing.

“She’s very smart. I wanted her to understand why I was doing what I did. It was very important to me to show her that a woman could succeed on her own, not be dependent on someone else to make it, and also the importance of education in being successful,” said Compostella. “I wanted her to grow up and realize she could be independent and not have to rely on anyone else.”

While it might have made it easier on her to move closer to her family in Nesquehoning, Compostella made a conscious choice not to do so.

“Part of the reason I stayed away from family was also in order to be independent,” she says. “A lot of the struggles were chosen, but they mattered and were important for me to teach my child that.”

Funding her degree was an additional strain.

“I have student loans which I’ll pay until I die,” she said.

Compostella worked full time, while attending grad school. In her second year, she was offered a graduate assistantship. In addition to her job at BHRS, she worked another 20 hours a week in the political science department. The payoff, however, was that it paid her tuition that year.

Compostella was able to take some of her classes online, but for the others, she had to drive an hour to Lock Haven. She was able to adjust her work schedule to allow her to leave at 2:30 p.m. on days she had to be in class. She’d return home around 9:30 p.m. A former co-worker would come to her house to take care of Angelica.

Her schedule was no less busy on days she didn’t go to campus.

“I’d get up at 5:30 a.m. and get ready for work. I’d bring her to the sitter to get on the bus, and then I’d work until about 5, then go pick her up.”

About 99.9 percent of the time, she and Angelica would eat out.

“She had activities every night: martial arts three days a week, swimming classes, plus a sport every season. She had baking class on Saturdays. Friday evening was our night to do nothing.”

After whatever activity Angelica had, they’d return home and it would be bath time, then they would read, sing and lights out at 8 p.m.

“Then I would get ready for bed ... from 9 to 2:30 a.m., I would do my schoolwork,” she said.

Not just a better life, but a good example

“I think I was running on steam, but I wanted it. I was a terrible undergrad. I had no direction. As a grad student, I was driven. As a grown-up, I knew what I wanted to prove and what I wanted to show my daughter, that hard work and education was meaningful.”

Angelica is now 20 and a student at Mansfield University where she is studying to become a marine biologist, got that message.

“She always took her learning very seriously,” Compostella said. “I was never a parent who had to overly supervise her homework or her studies. She would come in from school, get a snack and then sit down and do her homework, then come out and show me. And she was very successful.

After three years, Compostella earned a master’s in liberal arts with a focus in behavior and alternative education. She graduated in May 2006.

With her master’s in hand, Compostella and her daughter relocated to the Finger Lakes region of New York where she took a job working with adults with traumatic brain injuries. After a year, she moved on to Ontario ARC, where she worked with adults with developmental disabilities and was tasked with opening a new house as a residence manager for those adults.

“I couldn’t have gotten that job without my master’s degree,” she said. “It was one of the best experiences of my career.”

While in New York, she reconnected with a former acquaintance from Nesquehoning, Gene Compostella, through family and on Facebook. It had been 26 years, but he came to visit her. Three months later, he moved from Florida to New York.

“It clicked,” she said.

A year later, in 2011, they moved back to Nesquehoning so they could be closer to their families, and in 2012, they were married.

Compostella took a job with ReDCo Group as a therapist for the family-based team for Carbon County. It was another position she wouldn’t have been able to attain without her master’s degree.

A few months after the wedding, her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“I stayed at ReDCo. They were very flexible. They allowed me to provide the care she needed and to do what I needed to do. Without my degree, I wouldn’t have had those options. I took care of her for two years.”

Angelica was a senior at Panther Valley High School when Compostella’s mother died in September 2014.

After Angelica graduated, Compostella left ReDCo and took a position with Pinebrook Family Answers as a family-based mental health services program supervisor.

“It’s an amazing agency,” she said. “I was very fortunate to find that position. It came at the right time.”

Compostella is certain that everything she has been able to do over the years is because she went back to school for her master’s degree.

“I was able to have opportunities that would not have existed,” she said.

“I believe my daughter might not have developed her love of learning if she had not seen me going back to school — at least not to the extent that she did,” she said.

“My goal was never to get rich — just to be able to pay the bills and not worry so much. I didn’t want my daughter to have to do without the things she needed because I didn’t have the money. The most important part was that I knew my going back to school would be a life lesson to her in achieving her own success as an adult,” she said.

“I wanted to be a role model.”