Sydna Street

While growing up in Gastonia, North Carolina, Sydna Rustin developed many interests which resulted in her pursing a variety of educational opportunities, as well as four different careers.  After completing a high school education at St. Mary’s Episcopal High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, Sydna studied at Hollins College where she graduated in 1957 with a major in biology.  One year later she received a teaching certificate from Queens College.  Always ready to help others, while at Hollins she filled in on a date for her roommate whose grandmother had died.  The date was Bill Street (deceased 2010), the man she married in 1959.

Job-related transfers for Bill had the Street family moving, first from Richmond to Texas followed by Maryland, California, and back to Virginia.  When newly married, Sydna taught high school biology until the arrival of a daughter and a son. She then moved from a teaching career to that of mother and manager of her home.  Sydna’s daughter, Laura Gray Street, a professor at Randolph College, and husband Jay Kardan live in Lynchburg; son, Bill Street, executive director of the James River Association, and wife Margery reside in Richmond.  Sydna has four grandchildren.

Upon their return to the Richmond area in the early 1980s, Sydna and Bill settled on a small horse farm in Goochland County.   Sydna was now working in retail sales and created and ran “Streetclothes” an indirect sales custom clothing service that she operated out of her home.  Once her children were in college, Sydna returned to school and received a dual graduate degree combining Christian Education from Union Presbyterian Seminary combined with gerontology awarded by Virginia Commonwealth University.

With these studies and an internship at the Hermitage, a retirement community in Richmond affiliated with the Methodist church, Sydna became a full-time employee holding the position of Assistant Chaplain and Volunteer Coordinator.  In 1997, she left Hermitage to work as a Pastoral Care Specialist on a part-time basis at Cedarfield Retirement Community, also, in Richmond. She retired in 2010.

For leisure and fun, Sydna has trouble deciding among reading a good book, painting, with a preference for watercolor, gardening, or daily walking.  She finds joy when out in nature and is nourished by meditation