Residential Advisor Gwen Cotterell-Eidukonis was a part of Malta House before there even was a Malta House! Read about her journey through the years.
What is your role at Malta House? Currently, I work as a residential advisor at Malta House, working only on the weekends.
What brought you here and when? I started working at Malta House from the very inception when it was called Malta House of Good Counsel. I was hired by Sister Mona O’Connell (now deceased). I met Sister Mona two years earlier at a Good Counsel home in Poughkeepsie, NY. I had lost my apartment when my baby girl was only four weeks old and found shelter at this Good Counsel Home. Sister Mona was the house manager.
Unfortunately, two weeks after entering this home, my baby caught the RSV virus and was hospitalized. She was diagnosed with Down syndrome and a heart defect at birth, and because of these underlying conditions, she was not strong enough to fight off the virus. After six long months in the hospital, Brenda finally passed away. During those six months, Sister Mona and I bonded. She was a great source of strength for me during that time. A year later, when Sister Mona was asked to manage the Malta House residence which would be opened in Norwalk, CT, she invited me to come work with her as an assistant house manager and live-in staff member.
I was hired in July of 1998 but because the residence was still under renovations, Sister Mona had me start working at the Good Counsel residence in Staten Island, New York. When the Malta House residence was finally ready in late December of the same year, I was transferred there and was there to welcome our very first resident a few days later. When Malta House separated from Good Counsel in February 2001, and became a separate corporation, I became the bookkeeper because of my accounting background. Many years later, my title was changed to business manager since I was handling all the business and financial aspects of the organization. In 2012, I resigned from Malta House to pursue other opportunities but returned in January 2019 as a weekend residential advisor.
What do you like about your job? I like interacting with the women, listening as they freely share their stories with me, and advising them as the need arises. I also love to spend time with the babies. They are such a joy to be around.
Please share a favorite memory. My favorite memory was receiving a phone call several months ago from Joshua, the first baby born at Malta House 26 years earlier, to the first resident to ever enter Malta House. Joshua wanted to reconnect with Malta House after all those years. It was great to see him as an accomplished young man, and to know that I was one of the staff present at Malta House when he was born. It’s a good feeling knowing that I was able to be there as support for both him and his mother when they needed someone they could lean on. I treasure the moments I spent with Baby Joshua and all the other babies born at Malta House since then. It is fulfilling to know that I have, in even a small way, impacted their lives as well as the lives of their mothers. I find it very rewarding indeed.
Where do you live, and can you tell us about your family? I live in Bridgeport, CT, with my husband, Steve, and our teenage daughter. My husband is now retired but for many years worked in various churches as music director, organist, and pianist. Steve holds a master’s degree in organ Performance from the Hart School of Music in Hartford, CT. Our daughter is a senior in high school. She loves art and hopes to pursue a degree in fine arts after graduating from high school.
What do you do in your free time? I love to walk so I do a lot of walking in my free time. I also do lots of Bible studies, spend lots of quality time with my family, shopping with my daughter, and watching movies & TV shows.
If you have a "fun fact" about yourself, please share. I am an author. I love to write for the purpose of building faith in others. In my spare time, I write inspirational books, all faith-based, and have published four so far. The first one, Beholding His Glory, A Journey side by side with Jesus, was published in September 2015. My most recent, Gwen’s Book of Dreams, was published in February 2024. I have also published a lot of inspirational blogs on my personal website at Gwencotterell.com.