SUSAN BARTELSTONE
Pursuing a Life of Service
BY FRED CHERNOW
Photo courtesy of Susan Bartelstone
WHAT DID YOU DO AFTER HIGH SCHOOL?
My college path started out conventionally,
as well. Syracuse University had opened the
highly-respected Newhouse School of Public
Communications and off I went intending
to major in journalism. Three months into
the semester, President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated (I was in my dorm cottage with
all my dorm mates, crying as we watched the
events unfold on TV) and it threw me totally
off-kilter. After his death, with all the social
upheaval taking place, classes, homework, and
tests lost their allure.
I decided to take a year off to “find myself.”
Got an apartment in Greenwich Village with
two friends from high school and a mundane
job which paid the bills. I was 19-years-old
and looking for my life’s direction. I sure did
find it, in a most unexpected way.
During my year in The Village, I had a bad
breakup with a guy I was casually dating which
involved physical assault, stalking, and emotional
bruises. Fortunately, I wasn’t raped or
even seriously hurt, but I knew instinctively the
outcome would’ve been very, very different if I
had known how to fight. It was a great lesson
and I became determined, at some point, to
learn how to protect myself. Two years later,
by the way, I saw the same guy’s picture in the
newspaper and this time he DID rape the girl. I
still have the newspaper clipping as a reminder.
Anyway, I left the Village, returned home
to Roslyn, got a job in the public relations
office at Hofstra University (where I graduated
with honors), and
married a nice man
who was studying to
be a math professor.
So began life as a
student and working
wife, putting both
myself and my husband
through school.
After a few years
of marriage, the 2nd
wave of the Feminist
Movement, with
its revolutionary
message that there
wasn’t only one
acceptable lifestyle
for women, really
hit me. I realized I just
wasn’t cut out for married life or motherhood
and started moving towards divorce. Happily,
my ex and I are still in touch regularly via email.
He lives out of state with his second wife, many
kids and grandkids. Oy, do I get pictures!
Along with the divorce, I decided it was the
time to make good my vow to take martial arts
and learn how to protect myself. From the
moment I stepped into my first dojo (school),
it was as if my whole life had been out of focus
and everything suddenly became crystal clear.
I LOVED martial arts, I loved working out and
loved getting physically strong and confident.
I also changed professions several times
after my divorce, becoming a certified Crime
Prevention Specialist and building a business
teaching self-defense to women and crime
prevention skills to corporations.
Over the next thirty years, I acquired 17
years of combined training in self-defense,
WWII Combatives and martial arts and taught
safety skills to employees at top corporations
and organizations, like the U.S. Post Office.
I also lectured to thousands of women and
men in schools and community organizations;
wrote hundreds of articles on various
crime prevention topics for such sites as the
Yahoo homepage, MainStreet.com, Time
Out New York, Self, and Shape magazines,
the Today Show and America’s Most Wanted.
I even designed a crime prevention course
for cab drivers and hosted an internet radio
show, called “Crime Prevention 101,” on the
VoiceAmerica network, which was nominated
for a U.S. Attorney General’s National Crime
Victims Award for Outstanding Educational
Programming in 2010 and led to my periodically
serving as a guest host on WBAI Pacifica radio.
After all those years living and breathing
crime and violence 24/7, I walked away from
my business to, yet again, find another path.
After trying a bit of this and a bit of that, political
advocacy turned out to be natural next step
in my career, and I reinvented myself as an
Advocacy Initiatives Consultant, specializing
in domestic violence issues.
WHAT COMMITTEES HAVE YOU JOINED
AT NST?
I joined the Political Action Committee in
2014 and loved it right from the start. Under
the wonderful leadership of Dr. Stanley
Goldsmith, and lots of new committee members
with powerful political contacts, I think
we have a commanding group and are going
to get more accomplished than ever before.
ARE YOU RETIRED?
Reluctantly, I am mostly retired since 2013.
I had to give up my career because of family
priorities.
WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL GOALS FOR
2018 OR BEYOND?
I’m looking forward to resuming teaching
my one-hour “Crime Prevention 101” lectures
for adult education programs and local groups.
I’m also eager to get back to work again and
see what the next chapter will be.
With my background and experience, there’s
more I can do to make people safer and
improve their quality of life. I’d love to work
for one of the politicians which serve our NST
community. Barry, Tony… are you reading this?
Sounds like the perfect goal for an unconventional
woman pursuing a life of service,
don’t you think?
My life has been an unconventional one,
but one of service with many rewards both
tangible and intangible. Things didn’t get
interesting for me until I was 29, however.
Growing up in the ’50s, my childhood
started out ordinarily enough and was like
most girl… except that my parents were a
bit different. My mother was a highly-successful,
Type-A businesswoman and she and
my father worked together in the insurance
business for years as partners. I also have
a sweetheart of a brother who lives in New
Mexico, where he’s a successful landscape
and fine arts photographer and my best friend
in life. We lived in Oceanside, L.I. I was 15
when we moved to Roslyn, and I graduated
from Roslyn H.S. in 1963. I loved Roslyn
because it was the perfect place to indulge
my adventurous, fun-loving side.
Susan Bartelstone
4 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ March 2018