For Sadie Halliday, it’s all about creating that work life balance.
Her daughters, Lucy, 13, and Sarah, 10, are her world and spending as much time with them as possible is something that is more important than anything.
It’s why she decided to help start the 4-H program, the Monadnock Mountaineers, so Lucy could continue her passion for working with large animals, most specifically training working steer. It’s why she spends, during normal times, many nights traveling back and forth to Monadnock Gymnastics in Peterborough for her youngest, Sarah, to pursue her love of the sport.
Her job as a realtor at the Bean Group in Peterborough is demanding and has crazy hours, but Halliday always makes sure she’s there time for her two girls.
“It’s that balance of doing what I need to do to take care of them and being present,” Halliday said. “It’s not that real estate is all that flexible, but I can make my own schedule.”
She sees her little girls growing up and doesn’t want to miss a moment with them before they head off to make lives for themselves.
Over the years, Halliday has been involved with a lot of organizations having served as president of the Jaffrey-Rindge Rotary Club and the Rindge Chamber of Commerce and on the board of Cathedral of the Pines, but now it’s all about enjoying the free time she has with the two most important people in her life.
“My kids are at that critical age where I don’t have that much time left with them,” Halliday said. “And all those amazing organizations will be there when I’m an empty nester.”
Halliday’s parents moved to New Hampshire when she was five, first settling in New Ipswich before making the family home in Rindge. She went to Conant High School, graduating in 1992, and outside of a semester in Oxford during her undergraduate studies at Keene State, she lives and breathes the Monadnock region.
Her parents, Tim and Anne, still live in Rindge, but have purchased a home in Idaho that one day they will begin spending more time at. Her four siblings are scattered all over – from Newmarket to California and Colorado – but Halliday has never given much thought to moving anywhere else.
“I’m just grateful to live here and raise my kids here,” Halliday said. “I love this area and it’s why I live here.”
Being a native has undoubtedly helped in her second career as a realtor. She knows what makes this region tick and because she views her job as much more than just finding a house for someone, it allows her to talk from experience about what makes this area special.
“You truly are helping people,” Halliday said. “And I feel I’ve built some pretty great relationships over the years.”
Last year, Halliday was named the 2019 Contoocook Valley Board of Realtors Realtor of the Year, a recognition she was nominated for by her peers at Bean Group, where she was her office’s top producer.
“It’s nice to have that success and have my coworkers notice it,” she said.
Before entering into the world of real estate four years ago, Halliday spent 15 years at Monadnock Community Hospital in philanthropy and community relations. It’s what she set out to do after receiving two Masters degrees, an MBA and an MS with a concentration in Healthcare Management, and she enjoyed the work, but about four years ago “I was just ready to do something different.”
She has a lot of friends that still work at MCH and Halliday has found herself wondering what it would be like to work there during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As someone who likes to be involved and always looking to help, she decided to find a pattern for masks that her 4-H kids could sew. But through a conversation with one of her close friends, Laura Gingras, vice president of philanthropy and community relations, Halliday soon found her way to make a difference.
Gingras told her that many people had been asking about sewing masks and with the hospital dealing with so many twists and turns due to the coronavirus, Halliday decided to be the one to coordinate the mask making effort.
“That was one small piece I could take,” Halliday said. “I’m not going to work every day, putting my life on the line,”
As of Monday, the mask-making project had collected close to 6,000 masks, including 299 from Halliday’s mom, Anne.
“It’s this community,” Halliday said. “We put the need out there… and it’s everybody who helps.”
The interesting piece is that Halliday isn’t much of a sewer and has only made two masks, but Sarah has carried the family’s production by making quite a few.
Life is filled with highs and lows and nine years ago, Halliday went through one of the lowest of lows when her husband Bradley Jackson took his own life in February of 2011, leaving behind his wife and two young children, as well as two children, Nicole and Timothy, from a previous relationship.
“It’s always hard for people to hear,” Halliday said. “There’s a stigma around talking about it.”
It happened during the economic recession and Halliday said her husband, who owned a couple of businesses, “was struggling with it.” With people losing their jobs at an alarming rate due to the pandemic, Halliday worries that others may have that same helpless feeling her husband did. But she has some advice.
“People are struggling right now, but there’s no shame in asking for help,” Halliday said. “Never be afraid to reach out to the people around you.”
Halliday said it took a couple years before she started feeling like herself again. But during those tough times, she had “so many little angels that helped us along the way.”
She remembers coming home after snowstorms and her driveway being plowed, people helping her with the girls, and groceries and food being left at her door.
“I could tell you story after story of people who showed up to help me,” Halliday said. “People were really there and showed up in a way that’s meaningful.”
And as a single mom, it’s why Halliday puts so much emphasis on her girls.
“That’s so much of what kept me going,” she said. “My goal was always just to make sure things were good for my kids.”
When Lucy showed an interest in the 4-H program run by Lee Sawyer at Silver Ranch in Jaffrey, Halliday embraced it. She never was part of 4-H growing up, but saw the passion her oldest daughter had for it.
When Sawyer gave her what equated to an ultimatum, Halliday stepped up.
“He said either you’re going to do it or no one’s going to do it,” she said.
She helped create the Monadnock Mountaineers about six years ago and now Lucy is training her fourth team of working steers. Halliday said they’ve been fortunate to find farms looking for 4-H trained teams.
“They haven’t gone into the freezer yet,” Halliday joked.
They moved around a little bit after her husband’s death, that included gutting an 1800’s Dutch Colonial in Rindge all the way down to new plumbing and electrical. But it didn’t have the kind of land she wanted or needed to have animals.
So Halliday set out to find a property they could stay in for a long time. What sold her daughters on the 50 acre Sharon property was the barn. Halliday said they could have cared less about the house and were most excited about water and electricity in the barn. And having all that land lends itself to Lucy’s steer and the family’s horse.
“They made me promise we wouldn’t move for 20 years,” Halliday said.
Halliday said her daughters are at an age where they can poke a little fun at her expense.
“They can troll me better than anyone on the planet,” she said.
Halliday is in awe of the work that local organizations do to provide for the region. She worked the after hours call line for what is now known as the Monadnock Center for Violence Protection in college.
“There’s so many nonprofits in our area that are doing such great work,” Halliday said. “There are so many needs and there are so many people working to meet those needs and that’s inspiring.”
It’s just one of the many reasons why she loves the area she grew up in and never had any intention of leaving.
“My life has always been here and I’m content here,” Halliday said.
Halliday is a Justice of the Peace and has performed two weddings, including her sister Phoebe’s ceremony in 2016 and a close friend two years ago. She also presided over her grandmother’s funeral in September.
She is an outdoors person and always has been, enjoying kayaking, hiking and alpine skiing. When she was younger, she took part in the after school program at Temple Mountain and one day had to be taken down the mountain on a stretcher after being knocked off the trail by another skier.
“It sort of sent me off into the woods,” Halliday said.
In January, she took a two week trip to Bali by herself, and while she never read “Eat Pray Love,” apparently she did a lot of what took place in the book.
On most nights, Halliday can be found walking around the family’s Sharon property with her two daughters. Being outside is something they all enjoy, and for Halliday it’s one of those little moments where her heart feels the fullest.