Great Aunt Sue

Hey, Elizabeth and  Alexandria,

I first met your Great Aunt Sue in 1972 and had the pleasure of knowing her for 38 years.   She was one of those people who lived a big life.   She collected friends the way a mangy dog collects fleas.  Her schedule was always full but she still managed to have a peaceful time every morning by getting up early and spending some time drinking a cup of coffee and reading her latest book before she went to work.

In 1972 I was a lowly college freshman and she was an sophisticated sophomore.   Chance had put my roommate Ann and me in the room next to Sue.  During that year, Sue taught me how to flip the bird which was an important life skill for an 18 year old in 1972.  If you need to practice, balance a pen between your little finger and thumb and fold your other two fingers over the pen leaving the middle finger...you can figure out the rest for yourself.   Sue frequently wore her A&W shirt.   Her obituary mentions the fact that she played softball and was accepted to Stanford but the way that I remember her stories it seemed like working at the A&W might have been more important to her teenage life.  Sue had an overstuffed chair in her dorm room and people would gather there to talk.   She liked to go to the coast and sit on a blanket eating crackers, cheese and summer sausage.   One of the things that most astonished me about Sue was the way that she would take notes during class.  My notes were full of sentence fragments and dashes but Sue's appeared to be smoothly written complete sentences and paragraphs.  

Sue lived her values.   She loved her family and friends.   She was always willing to add to her legion of friends and welcome new people into her life.   She appreciated intelligence and, perhaps even more, education and that led her to a career at Willamette.   She loved spring flowers and planted hundreds of bulbs.   She loved her dogs, first Hank and then Rex, and was always ready to have friends' dogs over to play. 

During the last 15 years of her life, Sue, Shelley, Cindy and I used to get together to play pinochle, dominoes and Quiddler.   Just like flipping the bird, Sue taught me how to play pinochle.  Sue almost always kept score.   She complained occassionally but mostly but she wanted to do it.  I think that was her way of maintaining order.   Sue loved order and she loved rules.   She felt like they should all be followed faithfully no matter how silly.  If the rules said to click the last domino before playing it, she wanted you to do it.   On that one, she didn't get her way but she continued to mention it.  Games always came with food and Sue had her quirks, most notably the no mushrooms rule.  And there were books, lots and lots of books traded over the years.

The absolutely silliest thing that I ever saw your Aunt Sue do was when we were at the beach and she made some spaghetti pie.   The next morning, she asked if we wanted leftovers for breakfast and I said yes right before she said that it had been left out on the counter all night.   Girls, never ever eat meat after it's been left out on the counter all night.   Sue had done lots of intentionally silly things before but proposing salmonella, oops, spaghetti pie for breakfast was, well, Sue was a smart woman but, that morning, not so bright.  Oh, and one more thing that I learned that weekend was that, even if she had abandoned the NYT crossword for an entire day, you better not touch it.

Sue was a terrific person.   She adored your father, her nephew Dylan.   And then, when you two were born, she adored both of you too.  Always know that her love surrounds you.

Jackie Coakley

Doney Dormmate and Friend