Sally Hoople gives the Energizer bunny a run for his money | Column
95‑Year‑Old Brunswick Resident Keeps Pace with Protesters in Freeport
BRUNSWICK, Maine—Every Saturday, a 95‑year‑old woman from the senior‑living complex Thornton Oaks can be found in the town square of Freeport, holding a sign and joining a crowd of younger activists. Sally Hoople, a lifelong educator and pianist, has become a familiar face at the protest rallies that have swept the state this spring.
Hoople’s life has been one of steady engagement. She earned four post‑secondary degrees— a B.A. and an M.A. from Syracuse University, an additional M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. from Fordham University. After college, she taught high‑school English for 29 years at White Plains High School in New York, a tenure she described as “loving the subject matter, but challenging, because I wasn’t a great disciplinarian.”
When the family moved to Castine in 1960, she did not retire. Instead she spent a decade teaching at the Maine Maritime Academy, a post in which “discipline wasn’t a problem.” Hoople also taught a few semesters in China, adding an international chapter to her long teaching career.
In 1951, she married Donald Hoople, a fellow student at Syracuse and a lifelong musician. The couple were married for 62 years until Donald passed away just two days before his 85th birthday. “He was a musician, so it was a life filled with music,” Hoople said. The couple raised four children—Nancy, Anne, Douglas, and David—who she affectionately notes “turned out well in spite of us.”
Music has been a constant in Hoople’s life. She began piano lessons at age five, paused in junior high, and then resumed at 50. She now spends an hour each day—except on Sundays—playing classical pieces on a grand piano that sits in her Thornton Oaks apartment. Though she rarely performs publicly, she made a surprise appearance in a duet with another senior‑living resident at the community talent show last fall, and plans to play again in the upcoming event.
“Pretty good, but it would have been better if you hadn’t stopped and said ‘Oh shoot!’ in the middle when you made a mistake,” her late husband joked when she gave a recital shortly after she resumed playing. The memory of that light‑hearted moment remains one of her favorite anecdotes.
Beyond music and teaching, Hoople’s passion for public life has remained strong. She grew up in a Republican family in Cohocton, New York, but later became a Democrat, citing her husband’s views and the diverse student body she met in New York. Today, she attends a protest in Freeport every Saturday, often voicing strong criticism of the current administration. “They’re awful and they’re dishonest,” she told reporters. “They do the opposite of what they say they’re going to do. I just can’t believe that evangelicals can support them.”
When asked what she would advise younger people, Hoople offered simple, timeless guidance: “Keep moving while you’re young so you can move when you’re old. Read a lot. Develop empathy. And be as honest as possible.”
Hoople’s life story—marked by scholarship, teaching, music, and civic engagement—remains a testament to the energy that can persist well into a nonagenarian’s years. As the protests continue to shape Maine’s political landscape, the presence of a woman who has lived through so many eras serves as a reminder that activism does not retire with age.
