Meet Margaret Cugini

Profile by Annie Hoyer

Each week, we all receive an email from Margaret Cugini reminding us about kabbalat shabbat services. Who is this woman who takes the time to call us to worship? 

                  Margaret was born in New York City, in the Inwood Park neighborhood on the northern tip of Manhattan Island. When she was 7, her family moved to northern New Jersey where she spent the remainder of her childhood. Despite this, she always thought of New York as her home, and she returned to the city after college. There, she worked producing educational seminars for a computer software company.

                  In the late 1970s, her father became ill, and she returned to NJ to help her mother with his care. While at home, she found employment at another software company. She met her husband around this time, they married and eventually bought a home in Ringwood, NJ. Little did she know that this would be a short chapter in her life.

                  She was only 43 years old when her husband died at 44. The younger of her two daughters, Sarah, was still at home, and her mother had come to live with the family. Margaret stayed put for a while, but she knew she was going to make a major change. “My family had always vacationed in New England, and I was certain north was the direction I wanted to go.” Over time, she investigated Vermont (“too expensive – the yuppies had already gotten there”), upstate New York, New Hampshire and Maine.

                  She was so committed to changing her life that she sold her house before she knew where she was going. “What happens if you don’t figure this out,” her nervous mother asked, but Margaret remained confident the right opportunity would come along. Her plan was to buy an existing business and then improve it, making it her own.

                  But one day while touring Fryeburg, Maine, she fell in love with an old house, and the pull was too strong to resist. She bought the property but then had to renovate it so that it would work as a B&B. She had run a catering business after her husband’s death and felt that the hospitality business was a good fit. To help with the many expenses of a startup, she took a part-time job at Fryeburg Academy as the evening librarian. The job suited her, so that even after her business was successful, she remained at the school, retiring just last summer after 24 years.

                  She found being a B&B host enjoyable. “I met the most interesting people, people whose paths would never have crossed mine in life.” Because she had the connection to the Academy, she put up entertainers who’d come to give performances as well as parents of foreign students. Some of these people she’s still in contact with.

                  Margaret ran her B&B for 22 years, and it was only in the last few years that the repetition of the work dimmed her enthusiasm. Every tourist wanted Maine blueberry pancakes; they were by far the most popular breakfast. “I can’t count the number of pancakes I’ve made,” Margaret said, adding wryly, “I haven’t made pancakes since I sold the business and there’s a good chance I never will.”

                  As luck would have it, she found a buyer for her business in August 2019, just before the pandemic. Her timing was similarly lucky when she looked for her next home. Just as she began her search, she was able to buy a charming little home on a pond in Madison NH. The couple who’d built the cottage fully expecting to live there discovered they couldn’t stay after all.

                  Margaret was raised in a Reform congregation. Her mother was on the board for their temple. This sense of commitment seems to have rubbed off on Margaret. She, too, was on the board of the synagogue she attended (Barnert Temple in NJ) when Sarah was growing up. “I always feel a need to support the Jewish community,” she said. She first came to BHC in the early 2000s. She particularly remembers congregant Hilda Kate Meyer as being warm and welcoming, inviting her, for instance, to come to her home during the long break in the Yom Kippur service. She came to services for a while, then for about an 8-year period, she tried other synagogues.

                  In the late 1990s, she became an original member of a chavurah that Susie Laskin and Bert Weiss founded in North Conway. Although the fellowship did have services once a month, the emphasis was mostly social, being together for various activities like lectures and potlucks. Several friends in this group began attending BHC, and soon, Margaret returned as well. It’s a drive of an hour plus to get to Bethlehem from Madison, but worth it, she feels, to be part of a vibrant Jewish community.

                  Now that she’s fully retired, “I sit on the porch with a stack of books and rock a lot. I’m there all four seasons.” Surprisingly, after living with people in and out of her house for so many years, it doesn’t feel unsettling to be by herself now. “I’m a very private person,” she commented. “It’s not that I’m shy - I’m not - I just get my energy from my quiet space.”

                  Margaret is hardly a hermit, however. Her daughter Sarah’s family live in Boston and come up regularly to ski and visit. She adores seeing Sarah’s daughters, Emma (7) and Miriam (5), who stay with her and even attended day camp in the area.

                  In addition to her contributions to BHC, Margaret volunteers each week at both the Tin Mountain Conservation Center and the Gibson Center, an active senior center. “I’m a huge fan of the concept of tikkun olam*,” she remarked, “and try to behave accordingly. I am contented in my retirement and lucky to have found this special corner of New Hampshire to nest in.”

* Hebrew for “repair the world”