This Week’s Personality: Cathy Thiemens retires after 35 years in social services
LOUDONVILLE ‒ Cathy Thiemens has retired after a 35-year career in social services, all in Ashland County.
The Loudonville transplant, who grew up in Maryland, served for 21 years with Catholic Charities of Ashland County, many as its director, and more recently for 14 years with ACCESS, an organization that provides emergency housing for individuals and families.
Thiemens grew up in Pasadena on Maryland’s western shore between Baltimore and Annapolis.
After high school she earned an associate degree in liberal arts, with a concentration in social services, from Anne Arundle Community College in May 1977. A month later, she married an Ohioan, Heino Thiemens, who was serving in the Air Force.
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“How I met Heino was an adventure in itself,” Thiemens said recently. “On a whim, I accompanied a girlfriend who was visiting her boyfriend, who was stationed at an Air Force base in Plattsburgh, in way upper New York state. There I met Heino, and after 12 dates, many after long trips as we lived over 400 miles apart, we were married the 13th time we were together.”
The Thiemens land in Ohio
After Heino served two more years in the Air Force, the new couple moved to Euclid in suburban Cleveland.
“Heino landed a very good factory job, but he hated the factory environment, and the way the union controlled the work rules,” Thiemens said. “He had an uncle, Karl Kalthenger, who owned Karl’s Tavern and the River Room Restaurant in Loudonville, and he asked him if there were any job opportunities in his area. I had an influence in that request, as Pasadena was very much a small town, and I did not like living in the big city.
“Karl told us he was not aware of any jobs, but encouraged us to come down anyway, and he would find work for him to do until he found a full-time job,” she continued.
“Not long after arriving in the summer of 1980, Heino met Jerry Spreng, who had a plumbing and heating business, and Heino went to work for him, eventually taking over the business.”
Heino Thiemens died in May 2021.
“We complimented each other wonderfully. He took care of business, both the plumbing and heating business and our rentals, leaving me time ‘to go out and save the world.’ We were married for 44 years, and had three daughters, Mandy, Heather and Samantha, and now have three grandchildren.”
Thiemens reference to “saving the world” was her involvement in social services. Before that, she spent about a decade as a sales representative for Mary Kay Cosmetics. “I was good enough that my manager let me use his pink Cadillac on occasion, but it wasn’t what I had in mind as a career.”
Her career came up first as a volunteer.
“I heard about the new Child Assault Program (CAP) designed to empower children with skills to prevent assault,” she said. “I asked if I could volunteer for the program in the Loudonville-Perrysville Schools.
“The concept, back then, of preventing rape and child assaults was virtually unknown, but I had an immediate personal interest in it,” she said. “When I was 9 years old, I was assaulted by a 15-year-old boy.”
She said the approach of the CAP program was to teach young children about tools for avoiding strangers, coping with bullying and combating assault.
“Not long before then, in the late 1970s, assault was something people just didn’t talk about, or something usually caused by strangers,” she said. “This is flawed, as actually the majority of assaults are perpetrated by a person that the victim knows, often a family member.”
Her work with CAP began in Loudonville, “where I worked with kids my daughters’ ages, kids I often knew through my work as a Girl Scout Leader and school volunteer.”
A career begins taking shape
CAP was operated through Catholic Charities of Ashland County, and Theimens’ enthusiasm for her work evolved into a paid position, first as CAP coordinator for the entire county, and then as director of Catholic Charities.
As director, she worked to provide the CAP program for more than just elementary school children. She developed programs for teenagers, and for special needs children, who, alarmingly, were found to be victimized 10 times more often.
“We learned, through interviews with victims, that as many as 90 to 95 percent of all female children experienced some kind of sexual assault in their youth,” she said. “So we created programs to provide emotional and psychological support for victims. One of the first support groups we created was in Loudonville, funded by a grant from the Mohican Area Community Fund.”
Her involvement with Catholic Charities led to her work with Tom Woll, president of Ohio Catholic Charities, who told her “if a program is truly needed in a community, funds will become available to run it. This line of thinking seemed to work, as most of the programs that started as ideas became reality through grants or donations, usually from local sources.
“I found myself applying for literally hundreds of grants, some of them huge ones, and although we never landed a really huge one, we were successful in many applications and got lots of programs started.”
Among the successful programs she was involved in were the school-community liaison program now present in all schools in Ashland County, the Golden Center and multigenerational mentoring program that was started at the Loudonville Public Library with a big push from the late U.S. Rep. Ralph Regula, and the Focus Center, a partnership with Zion Lutheran Church of Loudonville to bring independent (non-school related) counseling services to Loudonville.
Thiemens worked with Catholic Charities until 2008, when the Great Recession caused a huge funding falloff that forced the Ashland and Wayne County Catholic Charities to merge, and resulted in her getting laid off.
She worked briefly at ladies clothing stores, Lane Bryant in Mansfield and with Angie Heimberger of Four Seasons in Loudonville, before another social services opportunity arose.
There was no organized program in Ashland County to provide emergency housing for homeless individuals and families, complicating what Thiemens says is a continuing shortage of affordable housing.
In an attempt to resolve this issue, the Ashland County Committee for Emergency Shelter Services (ACCESS) was created, beginning with a $20,000 grant to start a program that led to her being hired as director.
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Steps were taken to find solutions, including an individual purchasing four one-bedroom apartments for emergency homeless use, and development of strategies to provide transitional housing where needed.
“We continue to strive to find housing,” she said, lamenting a shortage of subsidized housing in the county. “There is some, but not enough to meet all needs.”
In her work with ACCESS, she also learned a hard lesson.
“It is vital that everyone treat disenfranchised persons with respect,” she said.
She also enjoyed working with ACCESS because it is a faith-based program, multi-denominational. “Jesus told us to love one another,” she said. “In ACCESS, we are doing what he told us.”
While now retired, Thiemens said, she still provides advice and guidance to associates in social services when asked.
In retirement, she still works a little with Angie Heimberger in the women’s clothing department, spending much of what she makes on clothing.
“All along, I have loved being able to help people,” she said. “I want to help everybody!”
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Cathy Thiemens retires career with ACCESS, Catholic Charities Ashland
