Mildred Schoenfeld-Hoy: A life of meaning

Pausing a moment, Mildred Schoenfeld-Hoy took a last sip of morning cocoa before it started all over again.

On a nearby kitchen counter, her cell phone vibrated. She picked it up and squinted.

“I don’t know this person,” she said, wiping whipped cream from her lip.

By 8 a.m. on a school day, the thing had rung six times. And it would go on like that for the rest of the day and into the evening. One in five calls come from people she’s never met, but who know exactly who she is.

Before her last phone bit the dust, she’d amassed 500 contacts, the product of wildfire word-of-mouth and her willingness to assist people in need.

It’s part of the life Schoenfeld-Hoy built for herself. As one of few self-employed Spanish-language interpreters for area hospitals and courts, Schoenfeld-Hoy forges new relationships every week.

When people realize she shares their language, they smile and ease their muscles. Her goal, she said, is to make a difference by bridging the language barrier and creating an environment of equality.

Tripling as a mother, interpreter and property manager, she spends most days in her office — a black sport utility vehicle she motors across Afton Mountain, toggling between the Shenandoah Valley and Charlottesville.

The youngest of four siblings born in Guatemala, Schoenfeld-Hoy said she connects with Hispanics because of her sympathy for the immigrant experience, a love for the cultures and a heart she knows is “too soft.”

In 1996, Schoenfeld-Hoy laid roots on the city’s fringe, when Waynesboro’s now-commercial west end existed only as cornfields. Over time, the tiny contingent of Hispanics around her flourished into almost a tenth of the population.

Still, she struggled, like many immigrant parents, to keep her culture instilled in her daughters.

She gripped the steering wheel as she thought back to a trip to the park.

“Other kids would look at us like we were so weird,” she said. “My biggest fear was that my kids were not going to like their Hispanic heritage.”

Above all, she wanted her daughters to love the sound and feel of their heritage.

It worked.

Sitting in her home, only the tweeting of caged birds interrupted streams of Spanish chattering.

In their lulls, “La Fea Más Bella,” a Spanish spin-off of an American television show, filled the gaps.

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When asked in broken Spanish if they know of her, most area Hispanics will nod. If they hesitate, a gesture to depict Schoenfeld-Hoy’s long, dark, curly hair triggers recognition.

“¿Tu conoces Mildred Hoy?”

“¡Ah! ¡Si, si!”

Friend Pedro Vazquez-Sanchez moved to Waynesboro 12 years ago with the dream of helping his wife and children gain citizenship.

“A friend told me about her,” Vazquez-Sanchez said. “She helped me with paperwork. She is really nice. A sweet lady who tries to help everybody.”

Dipping into the lives of people in need of legal or medical help, Schoenfeld-Hoy becomes a temporary guide. A lone figure in an English system.

When she steps into Albemarle General District Court, her colorful high heels stand out amid the muted browns and maroons of the courtroom.

She makes a beeline to the Hispanics in the room, introduces herself and inquires about their experience in court.

“I like for them to see me,” she said. “I like for people to know or to feel comfortable. That’s the part about my job that I love the most.”

Alongside defendants, she crosses her feet beneath her chair, leans toward the person and focuses on lips.

Many translators take turns with judges and attorneys for pause-filled exchanges. Schoenfeld-Hoy’s interpreting does not wait. She links the languages in real-time.

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Her calming personality stretches beyond court defendants and hospital patients, said Ashley Cook, emergency room technician at Augusta Health in Fishersville.

“She really doesn’t make us feel like we’re a burden for her when she gets here,” Cook said. “She’s there when we need her — I wish we had her here all the time.”

In an emergency room with only one Spanish-speaking doctor, and more Hispanics coming through the doors, Cook said he prefers the face-to-face experience with Schoenfeld-Hoy over the other option — the AT&T language line.

Between clients, she reaches into her purse and unfolds a newspaper. Other times she fills out invoices.

Back at her car, she pauses and looks up with a sheepish smile. Pulling off colorful stilettos, Schoenfeld-Hoy slides into more comfortable, easy-fit sandals.

“I know, I know! I cheat,” she said, smiling. “But I tell people, ‘I’ll be able to wear high heels longer if I do this.’ ”

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Atop an uncommon college degree in translation services from Brigham Young University, additional certifications qualify Schoenfeld-Hoy for almost any situation.

In addition to Spanish and English, familiarity with French and German attest to her “passion for language” and make her an agile interpreter.

In a single hour she must drive to a hospital and interpret for a man receiving cancer treatment, a Harrisonburg woman’s diabetes check-up and another man hoping to have his catheter removed. Each requires a different selection of medical terms to be translated.

Appointments shift, her children call, someone rushes into the emergency room. Her days change on a whim.

On the back way home one evening in November, she remembered a loose errand. She gasped and slid her wedding ring to a different finger. She said the foreign feel reminds her.

The phone rang again. This time, she smiled.

“Hola, mi amor,” she answered. It was her daughter. The other two would dial in shortly as the phone flipped closed, opened, closed, opened.

“Oh my gosh,” Mildred said. “I just talked to my three kids in the past two minutes!”

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At home, she stepped into her other domain, a kitchen lined with rainbow bowls and hidden quirks.

A microwave without a handle, an equally handle-free skillet from her husband’s days in college, and the secrets to “real” enchiladas.

Her phone rings, but busy cooking, she chose not to answer.

Her daughters, Annaliese, Emily and Mariah, hovered close as she chopped onions, lime, carrots and lettuce.

Musing about her children growing older, she set her hands on her hips.

Her daughter whispered a request.

“No quieres enchiladas!?” Schoenfeld-Hoy gasped, her eyebrows high.

She prepared one for the girl anyway.

The night calmed like most others, she said. Empty plates in a near-empty kitchen as her daughters shuffled out to complete homework.

Time alone for herself, to finish dinner, to watch a Spanish soap opera, perhaps even to take another phone call.