Thankful People: Saxony Lutheran's Cassondra Calvin honors her mother's legacy through passion and perseverance

Thankful People is an annual series highlighting Southeast Missourians who have overcome adversity and developed a new perspective on life. The series is sponsored by Saint Francis Healthcare System. Read more Thankful People stories from this year and the Southeast Missourian archive.

Cassondra Calvin, a senior at Saxony Lutheran High School, developed a love of theater at an early age, thanks in part to her mother.

Calvin, a Perryville native, began performing in plays in the third grade and has continued to do so ever since. Calvin said her mom, Ann (Hirschfield) Calvin, was instrumental in her interest in drama.

"I've always loved drama," Calvin said. "It's the big thing that I've always really liked. It's probably one of my favorite things here (at Saxony). My mom was really proud of me when I first started in third grade and did my first show ever. She was really proud of me, and she did her best to come to every one of my shows when we did them in middle school. It was just like it was our thing."

Calvin credited her mother’s “big imagination” for helping pique her interest in drama. She recalled reading books with her and acting out the stories together.

Tragically, Ann Calvin didn't get to see her daughter perform as a high school student, dying unexpectedly Oct. 27, 2020, at age 49. At the time, Calvin was attending middle school at Immanuel Lutheran School in Perryville.

"My eighth grade year, which was 2020, she was at the blood drive here and she was texting me about it," Calvin said. "We were planning a weekend hangout the next weekend, and then I went to bed. I woke up to the lights on at 3 a.m., and we found out that she had died.

"For the first couple of hours, I thought it was a Halloween joke. I woke up and my dad was on the phone ... and he was really upset. I was like, 'What, there's no way.' I wasn't actually reacting to it for like, the first two hours. Then, I was getting ready for school and he was like, 'You're not going to school today,' and I was like, 'Why not?' 'Because your mom's dead.' Then it actually hit me, and it was like, everything fell."

Calvin's parents split up when she was in kindergarten, and her mother moved across the state to Mansfield, approximately 50 miles east of Springfield. During that time, Calvin lived with her father, Craig Calvin, in Perryville and Ann would visit once a month.

According to Calvin, her parents never officially divorced and remained friendly with each other. Ann would stay with Calvin and her father during these visits until she moved back to Southeast Missouri to be closer to Calvin as she prepared to enter high school.

Ann had told family and friends that, in the event of her death, she wanted to be cremated and didn't want a funeral. According to Calvin, Ann didn't want anyone to grieve if she passed, telling them, "Don't cry about it, I'm in heaven. I'm happy." Instead of a funeral, the family held a small celebration of life ceremony in her memory.

Following Ann's death, Calvin was able to lean on a few of her friends. She spent a lot of time with Jayla Adams, a student at Saxony Lutheran, and Kassidy Miller, a student at Perryville High School, to help keep her mind off the reality of her mother's death.

"I didn't really talk to them about it, or use them as a resource," Calvin said. "I think knowing that I had them if I wanted to use them as a resource was a giant help. It was like, I have a support team. I may not need it, but I have it. That really helped me not be so mopey about it and so sad about it, because I had them to be happy for. That wasn't how it was, but that's kind of how it felt. I didn't want them to feel bad for me all the time. I knew I could talk to them about it, but I could also just hang out with them."

Calvin instead turned to her lifelong friend Karis Manning, a 2024 graduate of Perryville High School, for emotional support.

"She was the first person I told when I found out my mom died," Calvin said. "I texted her at 6 a.m. and was like, 'Hey, I don't know what to do.' She's always been right there for me. …

“I'm thankful that I have people around me who are willing to support me and let me do my interests, even if they don't quite get why I'm interested in them.”

While many people may give up on a hobby they shared with a loved one who has died, Calvin continued to pursue her passion for theatrical arts and has performed in several plays and musicals at Saxony Lutheran. She will play two separate roles in the drama department’s upcoming fall play, “Bedtime Stories (As Told by Our Dad) (Who Messed Them Up)”.

“I'm a very socially awkward person, actually, but drama has really helped me kind of shove it in a box, so to speak,” Calvin said. “It's helped me be like, ‘Well, people don't have to know that I'm bad at talking to people if I just talk to people.’ I can pretend I'm good at something, and then end up being good at it the more I pretend I'm good at it. It's kind of taught me how to ‘fake it till you make it’.”

Drama isn’t the only extracurricular activity Calvin is involved in at Saxony Lutheran. She also plays clarinet and bass clarinet in the school band and is a member of the scholar bowl team, where she is often “voluntold” to captain. She serves the school as a small-group minister, leading devotion every Tuesday and Thursday, and is also a member of the chess club. Outside of school, Calvin enjoys creative writing, listening to music and serving as the dungeon master when playing Dungeons and Dragons with her friends.

Recently, Calvin was nominated by the faculty at Saxony to be the recipient of the John Guild Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizen Award.

“Every year, we pick someone, and there are always multiple students here who would qualify for that. But it was interesting when we did the nominations, how consistent the faculty were with nominating her for that award,” said Amy Kiehne, Saxony Lutheran school counselor. “She is a student where, if there's a kid here who is a little bit awkward, a little bit shy, can't seem to kind of fit in or find their place, she's the one that'll go over and say, ‘Hey, I'm Cassondra, how are you?’ And just introduce herself, take care of that person and kind of take them under her wing. This is my third year here, and I've witnessed it numerous times.”

Although she doesn’t get to share her life experiences with her mother anymore, Calvin believes her mom would be proud of how far she has come since her passing.

“I think she'd be super, super proud of me, and a little bit surprised at some of the extracurriculars outside of those that I've picked up,” Calvin said. “Like chess club — I never expected to join the chess club — or small-group ministry. I never expected to pick that up, because I never really expected to get so far into my faith that I wanted to help others do devotions about it. I didn't expect that."

Though her mother is no longer here to see her achievements, Cassondra Calvin continues to embrace the love her mother instilled in her, channeling that inspiration into every aspect of her life. She's thankful for the support of her friends, her school, and the memories of her mother that continue to guide her.

"I think she'd be really proud.”