| | Our 2022 Community Partner
While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2022 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero Today. |
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| | Hometown Hero: Malinda Ritchie has given a lot; someone thought she deserved a ‘thank you’
By RAY DUCKLER Monitor staff
Malinda Ritchie Weir of Chichester grew up poor in Pennsylvania.
These days, however, she sees herself as a rich woman, immersing herself in a life featuring enough altruistic activities to impress Mother Teresa.
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| She volunteers in her hometown, comforts the sick as a registered nurse, comforts the sick and injured as a nationally registered paramedic, raises two children as a single mother, cherishes the community spirit she’s discovered since moving to the Granite State, served her country in the Army thousands of miles from home, and leads a pair of Girl Scout troops, which she says is her favorite out-of-home activity.
She’s the latest entry in our Hometown Hero series, nominated by a friend of 20 years, Dr. Bette Bogdan, who said, “She’s authentic, empathetic. She emulates those attributes that you want in a neighbor. I don’t know how she does it, but she does it all well.”
Ritchie Weir had no idea that her friend had nominated her until the Monitor called seeking an interview. “What in the world was she thinking?” Ritchie Weir asked.
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Meanwhile, Ritchie Weir, 45, continues her daily routine and has no plans to slow down. “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel exhausted.”
No wonder. Ritchie Weir has been challenged her whole life and has chosen to challenge herself as well. Growing up in Titusville, Pa., money was tight. The family had enough milk for her baby brother and no one else.
Her grandmother sent her grandchildren home with a big bowl of spaghetti, covered with Saran Wrap. The family, unable to pay rent, moved around Pennsylvania a lot.
Her mother didn’t play a large role in her life. Her dad had full custody. She was at the local swimming pool when her uncle came by to tell her that her father had died, killed by a drunken driver.
“Looking back now, I recall the grave nature of my uncle,” Ritchie Weir said. “I thought (my dad) was invincible. You just don’t understand the ramifications at age 11.”
A photo of her father playing Army soldier as a kid touched Ritchie Weir in some way. She had a lot of potential and she knew it.
“That photo of my dad sparked my interest in the military,” she said. “That and needing to get out of town called to me.”
She served active Army duty for six years, traveling to Bosnia, Saudi Arabia and Korea. She did aircraft structural repair, working on helicopters, then she earned three associate’s degrees and the Army picked up most of the tab.
“I’ve always been a hard charger,” she said, “A do-it-on-my-own, gonna-succeed kind of woman.”
She and her now ex-husband moved to his hometown, Chichester, 20 years ago. Soon, Ritchie Weir got active in the community. She joined the fire department and worked her two jobs, as a paramedic and a nurse. She raised her two children, juggling duties at home with her work schedule.
She took charge of the annual Trunk or Treat festival in town, in which 40 to 50 parked cars displayed scary stuff from their trunks. She spearheaded efforts to invent a spooky Halloween Walk, and she jumped into the committee that made Old Home Day happen.
She was a Girl Scout herself, but only for six months, Ritchie Weir said, “because the fees were too much for the family to afford.”
So now, she makes sure her kids have a blast in scouts, arranging and coordinating activities such as face painting, meeting Santa for breakfast and seeing the sand castles at Hampton Beach. All while volunteering, of course.
To make it work, Ritchie Weir said she must detach herself from her job as an emergency room nurse at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. She said COVID and staffing problems have made life difficult.
“Emergency medicine is hard,” Ritchie Weir said. “In the ambulance or ER, Manchester is a rough clientele. It sucks the soul out of you. There are not enough beds upstairs.”
Still, there’s enough fuel in Ritchie Weir’s tank to keep her moving. Old Home Day is on the horizon, and Girl Scout camp starts in the fall.
“She is the one always running to help,” Bogdan wrote in her nomination email to the Monitor. “COVID has been hell for our nurses. Malinda has been a rock throughout this and deserves to be recognized.”
Said Ritchie Weir, “I do a lot but, not anything that I don’t want to do.”
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