CLAREMONT — In her early 40s, Thelma Shulins decided to go to college.
This was the 1970s and the field of study she chose to pursue at Keene State — women’s studies — was just emerging as part of the growing women’s rights movement that was sweeping the United States.
“She got married a week after she turned 18 and her family background, she had five older brothers who all are in the military during World War II and they all came home and either were married or got married immediately after coming home. Certainly going to college wasn’t in the cards at that point. She had a boyfriend and she wanted to be married like her brothers,” said Debbie Shulins, a daughter who now lives in California.
“Later in life, when she saw my sister and I go off to college, she saw that it wasn’t too late for her. Knowing her history, I think she was in that historical moment where things were changing for women.”
Those who knew Thelma Shulins best weren’t surprised by her decision.
“It wasn’t easy during the winter months because of the weather. She was determined. She always wanted more education,” said Sylvia Michaud, Shulins’ closest friend in Claremont. “She was always interested in that and always wondered why we weren’t getting the pay that we should, that men were getting. She just wanted to work on that. She was always ready to learn about everything. She was very inquisitive about life.”
In 1977 at age 46, she graduated cum laude.
“She took it so seriously. She was one of those students that an A-minus destroyed her,” Debbie Shulins recalled. “She worked to get the best grades she could. She took a huge amount of pride in being a college student.”
After graduating, Shulins put her degree to use through mentoring women in the Claremont area through a variety of nonprofit organizations including Women’s Supportive Services. In 1987, the Claremont Business & Professional Women’s Organization, honored her with its Achievement Award.
“She helped women find opportunities,” Debbie Shulins said. “She was under the radar I think in many ways. She was able to operate within the system and help people without calling a lot of attention to herself or her beliefs. She was pretty pragmatic.”
Shulins, who died on July 4, 2020, at 88 following a long illness, was was born in Woonsocket, R.I., where her mother owned and operated Sadwin’s, a department store that took up the whole block it was on. Thelma and her husband, Arnold Shulins, met at Lake Sunapee, where Thelma Shulins would spend summers with her family.
“Thelma was probably 14 at the time and I didn’t pay much attention to her. A year or two later, she blossomed and I paid attention,” Arnold Shulins recalled. “It’s been heavenly bliss every since.”
After marrying in 1949, the couple spent a few years in Rhode Island before deciding to move to California. They made a stop in Claremont to visit Arnold Shulins’ parents and realizing they needed help with their Pleasant Street retail fabric and dry goods store business, chose to make the city their home. As co-owners of the business, the couple grew Shulins Inc. into a wholesale business.
Thelma Shulins was a young mother: She gave birth to her oldest daughter, Debbie Shulins, when she was 21 and Nancy Shulins was born two years later when Thelma Shulins was 23. Her youthfulness made her a favorite among her daughters’ friends.
“I think I must’ve spent as much time at the Shulins’ home as I did at my own,” said Martha Esersky Lorden, of Hanover, who met Thelma Shulins when she was four during a tea party with her mother and Nancy Shulins. “She related very well to Nancy’s friends because all our parents were much older. I never saw any two parents love and dote on their children like Arnold and Thelma did. I was privileged to sort of bask in that warmth and love and welcoming-ness.”
Thelma Shulins was very involved in her daughters’ lives and took to activities with relish, including those she had no experience with.
“There’s always almost like a screwball comedy element to it … My mother taking us camping, my mother knowing nothing about camping,” Nancy Shulins, a journalist based in Norwalk, Conn., recalled, adding that Thelma Shulins had instructed their group to pitch a tent on a wooden platform before someone came to help them. “It was a real I Love Lucy moment.”
At one point, Nancy, Debbie and Thelma Shulins conspired to bring home a puppy when Arnold Shulins was away on a business trip.
“The plan was we were going to have the dog all trained by the time he got home from his business trip. This is partly where the I Love Lucy refrain comes from. By the third or fourth day, we had not made a lot of progress but she scratched the heck out of my mom’s face,” Nancy Shulins said, which her dad saw as soon as he came home. “He said ‘take her back.’ And so we took her back and made his life a living hell. Then we were told to go and get her.”
The dog and Arnold Shulins grew to be best friends after that.
In addition to working at the store and their home, Thelma Shulins managed a dental office in town once Nancy and Debbie were in grammar school.
“I remember just being traumatized that she was going to work. A lot of my friends’ mothers were home,” Nancy Shulins said. “She wanted to do more with her life. She wanted to earn money. She wanted to be out in the community.”
That was something that Sue Moss Alterman, who met Thelma Shulins when she was 13 and babysat Nancy and Debbie Shulins, admired most about her.
“I knew very few people whose mothers worked outside the home at the time,” she said, adding that it was the same when Thelma Shulins went for her degree. “At that time it was just unusual. I don’t know anyone else who did that or did something like that. I was just impressed afterward to hear.”
When Alterman attended Boston University, her family moved to Florida and she would sometimes stay with the Shulins during breaks.
“They treated me like a grown-up daughter, a part of the family,” Alterman said. “I knew every part of the house.”
Thelma Shulins was also known for her cooking and homemaking skills. To this day, Alterman still uses regularly uses her recipes, including her famed sweet and sour meatballs.
“Some of my husband’s favorite recipes say Thelma Shulins on them,” Alterman said.
When Arnold and Thelma Shulins retired, they began splitting their time between Florida and Claremont. In addition to her charitable work through organizations including the American Cancer Society, Thelma Shulins painted in oils and played golf.
“She was interested in art and literature, very interested in current events,” Arnold Shulins said. “We had a wonderful life and I was very proud of her. As I say, everybody that met her liked her. She was very lovable.”
She enjoyed dancing, singing and entertaining. She always had time for the people she loved.
“Thelma and I became very close, like sisters. We laughed together, cried together and talked every day. She was just a wonderful, wonderful friend. Very compassionate, intelligent and had a great sense of humor, which I do too,” Michaud said. “I think she just wanted to be active and love life. She really did. That was Thelma. She got involved in one thing and if that wasn’t enough, she got involved in something else.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
