Heart of the House – Maria DeRee
Maria DeRee, one of two new members welcomed to the Unity Church Board in 2014, came with her parents from the Netherlands to the United States in 1954, settling near relatives in Wichita, Kansas.
In 1961, Maria and family moved to Clearwater, where she entered the 9th grade at Clearwater Junior High. In her sophomore year, she was a part of the first student body at Clearwater Central Catholic. The next move was to Daytona Beach, and from there to Canton, Ohio, where her father, who had been a CPA in the Netherlands, accepted a position as an accountant at a country club.
In Ohio, Maria studied at Kent State University and the University of Toledo and worked in retail positions, but the bulk of her career was in the insurance industry, starting with Met Life and, for a longer period, serving as a commercial field representative at Buckeye Union Insurance Company. In Michigan, she owned a Northern Spirits Gift Shoppe in historic downtown Manistee. The business, which she recently sold, offered a large selection of sterling silver, as well as an extensive line of beads and yarn. Maria, inheriting her mother’s artistic talent, has been making jewelry for 21 years, and her crystal necklaces, symbolizing the Twelve Women of the Chalice, are available at the Unity Bookstore.
In an interesting aside, Maria commented that her diverse occupations today—making jewelry and working in an accounting office—reflect the background and aptitudes of both parents, who bought the Largo mobile home, where she now lives, when they first came to Florida so many years ago. With her, lives a formerly feral cat , the skittish Squirt. Family members living in the United States include her daughter and brother in Ohio, and her parents’ memorial is at Serenity Gardens on Indian Rocks Road in Largo. In the Netherlands, there are many cousins.
Maria first attended a Unity church in Traverse City, Michigan. Always a Truth seeker, she had been the one with “too many unanswered questions” in the Newman Club for Catholic youth. When she visited Clearwater again in 2006, she found Unity Church of Clearwater and has felt at home here ever since. At that first service, she said she “cried and cried— Leddy hits the nerve but in a very good way.”
“This church and Leddy were major decision makers in retiring here,” Maria added. In the Unity path, there are connections to her own thought processes. The past has brought her here, Maria says, and “I like where I am and who I am. Our experiences lead us.” Dysfunctional past relationships led her to counseling and Al –Anon, for which she is forever grateful. “I still have a lot of work to do,” she concludes, knowing that that work will be accomplished and wholeheartedly agreeing with Dieter that “freedom is a choice.”