Oversight Spawns Line of Stepmother Cards

Susan Ockuly Raitz was hurt when she didn’t receive a Mother’s Day card from her stepchildren.

“There was not a step-mom card to be found,” Raitz said. “I started thinking, gosh, how many other step-moms are not getting a card?”

So the divorced mother of two and stepmother to four has created a line of greeting cards specifically for families such as hers. Raitz, a former commercial artist and art teacher, writes messages that come from her own experiences.

“You cannot hire somebody to write what they haven’t experienced,” she said. “They are not going to come up with the same words.”

She named her company Heather Holly Originals, after her daughters. Sixteen of the line of 48 cards speak directly to families with stepchildren and step-parents, such as, “People might say stepdaughter, but my heart says mine. I love you.”

Another card reads, “Having two sets of parents is not always easy. But it’s double love.”

Raitz started by taking mock-ups of the cards to a printer and soon had a $6,000 bill and 20,500 cards.

The idea has taken off, she said, and she was ready for a second printing after less than a month. The cards are being sold in the Toledo area, and she plans to market them to department stores in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia.

Besides the stepchild and stepparent line, Raitz has created cards that express love and friendship and others to celebrate achievements and anniversaries.

“I’m reaching back to what would be considered the fundamentals of life--mom and dad, home life, the foundation,” she said.