Susanne Martinez Mole-Brown

SUSANNE MARTINEZ MOLE-BROWN...

Life has taken me on journeys  I had no idea existed for me. After graduation I went to Valley College for a year and a half. I began as a Commercial Art Major and had great expectation on what I was going to do. Boy did I get side tracked. I fell in love and married Peter Mole in 1970 and moved to Mountain Home, Idaho where he was based with the Air Force. It was very short lived as he was given isolated duty in Vietnam via Taiwan and I came back home to California. I hooked up with Ma Bell Telephone Co. as an information operator for a year and a half until his tour was over. We moved to Lubbock, Texas (home of the biggest locust I have ever seen) where he was stationed at Reese Air Force Base until his enlistment was up. During that time we traveled through Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. We moved back to California and I began to work for a photographer who did school pictures all around So. Calif. and some schools in No. Calif. Learned a lot about taking proms, senior portraits and many dances. When his business went down I was hired by Spectra Color Labs in Sun Valley, Calif. I was given the opportunity to learn re-touching which I really enjoyed. By the way everyone those playboy bunnies required a lot of the magic from the re-touch brush. In 1977 I had my one and only daughter and quit working. We moved to Colorado where my husband hooked up with a retail company that moved us to Missoula, Montana. Never knew this paradise existed. What a beautiful town. I stayed home with my daughter for two years until 1980 when a Sears Portrait Studio opened in the new mall. I was asked if I wanted a part-time job since I had photography experience and I said sure. Well, thirty-five years later my part -time job lead to management and trainer for all of the Northwest area. It was a great ride in the photography world. During this time Pete and I divorced (still very close friends) and a few years later met my wonderful red neck cowboy husband Bill. We married in 2000 and my life has been filled with hunting, fishing, camping and enjoying all that Montana has to offer until recently. You just never know what is waiting for you around life's corner. Another unseen adventure is waiting for me as my husband is losing his battle with cancer. All in all I live in a place that I had always dreamed of being at and loving the beauty that surrounds me....