Born in Germany, raised in Bristol, and recently graduated from college, Jackie Hassenpflug has embraced life in Lincoln County. (Sherwood Olin photo)
Liberated from a relationship, temporarily between commitments, and freshly returned from a lengthy trip to Europe to visit family, Jackie Hassenpflug looked at her adopted hometown of Bristol in 2019 with fresh eyes.
“That was kind of when my new, second love for Bristol came back,” she said. “Working as a summertime employee at the Lobster Wharf; looking at the harbor that I grew up sailing on and swimming in, I saw it in a very different light. It kind of clicked in my head, like I live here without having a second home somewhere else or anything like that. Then I was like, I don’t think I really want to leave.”
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Hassenpflug came to the United States with her parents Ralph and Angela Hassenpflug and her younger brother Noah in 2001. Ralph Hassenpflug’s business interests first brought the family to New York. A family friend encouraged the Hassenpflugs to vacation in South Bristol, and the charms of the Midcoast did the rest.
Settling on a farm in Round Pond, the Hassenpflugs home schooled their children and embraced life in America. During their first year of home schooling, the Hassenpflugs took the kids on a month long road trip through the American west.
“There were a lot of experiences that I’m really grateful that I got to have,” Jackie Hassenpflug said. “My dad especially was like, ‘We need to give these kids as many experiences as we can get them.’”
Just five years old when the family emigrated, Hassenpflug said she has no memory of the actual move, although she can still draw the floor plan of the family’s house in Frankfurt from memory.
“I don’t remember moving here,” she said. “Really, I don’t remember my parents ever telling me we were moving. I don’t remember the flight, I don’t remember packing, I don’t remember leaving the house. The first real memory I have here is being really excited to go onto a school bus because they don’t have school buses.”
As a family, the Hassenpflugs became American citizens in 2011. Jackie Hassenpflug, who was 15 at the time, said she did not fully appreciate what they were doing. As minors, the Hassenpflug children did not have to take a citizenship test like their parents did, but they did take the oath of citizenship along with a number of other new citizens on the Hadlock Field in Portland before a Portland Sea Dogs baseball game.
”My parents were very proud to become Americans,” Hassenpflug said. “That was a really big thing.”
After four years of homeschooling, moving onto Lincoln Academy in Newcastle was a big adjustment, Hassenpflug said. The academics weren’t a problem for her, but developing her own social network took up her entire first year at the school.
“Lincoln (Academy) is a really big mixing pot,” Hassenpflug said. “I mean, you get everybody from all over. They take in like, 18 different towns. So it was really hard to find, like, my place and my people for the first year, but the positive of that was that everybody was new to everybody there.”
Graduating in 2014, Hassenpflug had her choice of colleges to attend, but she decided on a year away from academics. One year turned into six, and it proved to be a global pandemic that indirectly prompted Hassenpflug to return to school.
At the time, Hassenpflug was working at the Atlantic Veterinary Care in the Coastal Marketplace in Damariscotta. It was a great job, Hassenpflug said, as she always wanted to work with animals, but when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in March 2020, the dynamics changed dramatically.
“I loved it, but then COVID (-19) came and it just kind of ruined it, sort of,” she said. “It ruined like, the atmosphere of it. We weren’t allowed to have clients come in. The animals were different. It was just a very different experience, and it just became really heavy.”
Needing to change things up, Hassenpflug picked up some cleaning work and added some bartending shifts. The next thing she knew, she was working three jobs and wondering where she was going in life.
To that end, her attention turned back to college.
“Well, none of this is really very satisfying for me,” she said. “So, what do I really want to do? And I thought graphic design. … ‘Six years later, it’s still in the back of your head, maybe you should just go for it.’ So I did. I put myself through college.”
Studying at home independently on nights and weekends while holding down a full time job, Hassenpflug obtained her bachelor’s degree in graphic design from Southern New Hampshire University. She completed her degree work in December 2024, and expects her diploma in the mail any day now.
Hassenpflug credits her home school experience for giving her the training to study at home independently.
“Every single minute of it was all remote. I mean, there was one math class that had Zoom calls once a week to explain how to do the math. Everything else was by myself,” she said. “I was getting up at 4 a.m. before work to do homework and read.”
Degree in hand, Hassenpflug said she has no plans for a career change, although she is open to doing some freelance work and may eventually open her own Etsy shop, she said.
“It’s really hard to narrow down exactly what I want to do with it, but I’m just kind of a firm believer of having as many tools on your belt as you can have,” she said. “Again, going back to my parents, like one thing that they kind of burned into my brain was the best thing you can do for yourself is set yourself up to be independent.”
She currently works full in time in the service department at the Colby & Gale office in Damariscotta. She didn’t expect to enjoy the job as much as she does when she applied for it, she said, but she really enjoys helping solve problems for customers.
“It’s not really a job that I would have gone for really, but it’s a really great place to work,” she said. “The people are really great. They take really good care of their employees, and I’ve never had a job where they really care that much.”
As her 30th birthday approaches, Hassenpflug acknowledges she is in a good place. She continues to make her home in Bristol, where she currently shares a small house with her significant other of six years, Jake Robinson, and their two dogs. At some point, a larger house might be in order, Hassenpflug said, but neither she nor Robinson is in a hurry to start a family.
A family and a house with a picket fence may be something in the future, Hassenpflug said, but all in good time.
“My parents, when they had me, were older … So when I was growing up, I never really felt this rush to find the right person and immediately get married and start a family,” she said. “I kind of always wanted to address myself and my potential career first and have that all figured out before I open that door.”
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