Suzanne Steinmetz Memorial
Sue Steinmetz Remembered by Barbara H. Settles
Sue Steinmetz dropped into my life at a National Council on Family Relations conference and we got to know each other when we found ourselves on the same flight home. She lived about 20 minutes from me in an amazing
house built on the foundations of an old mill with the millstream running under the house. We were immediately simpatico on many issues and willing to argue the rest. Sue was a big personality and had many flashes of brilliance. I suppose in today’s lingo she might also have qualified for bi-polar in that she had many productive highs and some very worrying lows. We tried to write together but beyond the brainstorming we could not find a way to work on the same manuscript. I couldn’t type, but she had a Selectric typewriter which she often took to bed to finish a project. We settled for sparkling conversations and she edited me. She loved big publishing projects and edited everyone. Even when many of us in the field contributed to the issues on our own lives for Marriage and Family Review, she edited my life to be more interesting as she saw it and probably everyone one else. I contributed to projects we did together. Now I get a chance to edit her life as I saw it. When I first got to know her she was an early version of the itinerant scholar teaching at places like Lincoln University and Philadelphia Textile and consulting wherever she could while working on a doctorate at Temple.
She was a good friend and colleague and from the beginning brought a huge contribution to our department. I had a federal grant and was due a sabbatical from the University of Delaware, but since I was the only one in family studies they were not going to let me go unless I could find a replacement. So Sue came to Delaware and the students loved her. The university found various ways to keep her on, but she needed a doctorate to get on the tenure track. Temple University kept changing their program and I thought she might be able to get something worked out back at Case Western where she had taken a master’s degree in Marv Sussman’s department. So several of us pushed her to talk to Jetse Sprey at an NCFR meeting and she became a commuter to Cleveland and continued teaching full time. Her immense energy pulled her through many very difficult situations throughout her life, but not without some tolls along the way. We had many adventures including crashing the organization of the theory construction workshop and building a Ph.D. program at Delaware. We sketched it out on the back of an envelope and I wrote the proposal and we started pushing. In our college there was also a program in food technology which was trying to get approval and everyone thought that their labs and hard science qualities would make them the first program. I got a bit discouraged and started to work on some international projects to give me something interesting to do. Sue, however, was relentless. By this time Dr. Sussman had moved to North Carolina at Bowman Gray and Sue had heard he was moveable. So she and I went to work on creating an interdisciplinary named professorship for him. When he came for the interview, he wore a nice blue suit and pale blue shirt and a ton of turquoise jewelry. While Sue was not without her own flamboyance, she was always very conservative on many issues and she recognized that Delaware was the north of the south and corporate serious. (Of course I had known Marv when he too was very corporate and super serious.) So she told him to give her the jewelry which she would put in the college safe and he went off to win the hearts of our administration. We got our doctoral program while I was off to Panama and Sue sent a message to me that was delivered to me just before I spoke there.
Also, the message included that we start in the fall and we have 12 students waiting. You and Dr. Sussman will teach the two core courses in the fall. At about the same time Sue and I both wrote proposals to the Administration on Aging on different topics and Eleanor Craig of our Delaware Office on Aging told me she did not think they would fund us both and while she would endorse my proposal I had to know that the years of consulting and help Sue had provided her took first place. Luckily we both got funded and we had lots of stipends for our first students. Sue had many ways she had made a difference, not just in writing and teaching, but also in direct action. She was a mover in founding domestic shelters in Delaware. She was often a trainer or trainer of trainers such as the police. She could see things that needed to be done and thought she could do it quicker and better than anyone else. She had no patience with bureaucracy or the word “no”, which sometimes got her in trouble, but mostly got her to the results she thought were best.
Her family was always in the forefront of her life. She developed great rituals such as the biggest Christmas trees, anywhere but the White House. When we (Marv, Sue and I) were invited to the Jimmy Carter White House, her greatest efforts were to bring her teens with her and get them the guest cards. My picture of Tom is him watching her at some public event as the star and diva she really was with a tiny grin on his face and leaning back on a wall with his arms crossed. She provided us with many exciting moments. While the Christmas tree party might overcome the end of the semester blues in the winter in the late spring and summer she needed something bigger. Usually some house or garden project would be launched often with the hiring of some equipment she thought she could run without an instruction booklet. Sometimes her complicated projects would get out of hand. When Cindy was to be married, Sue decided on a swan theme including a large wicker swan for the pond; she had brought back on an airplane as hand luggage. It was a two venue event. The reception was at the UDE conference center, but they didn’t allow religious ceremonies so the wedding was in the yard at home with a large oriental rug on the lawn. Among the details she put off were making little chocolate swans by hand and picking out a dress for herself. She thought the end of the summer sales would yield something appropriate which was not to be. So Dr. Mary Lou Liprie, a fellow faculty member, and I became involved in the couture dressmaking and chocolate pouring event. We did insist that we chose the pattern and buy the good turquoise silk and that she let us make a muslin sloper and fit it before we cut the dress out. We also demanded that she stay with us all day so we could make the dress fit and flatter her, so she brought the chocolate and the molds and pursued her craft. Even if I am saying it myself, she really looked beautiful. It was a halter neck that showed off her shoulders and the color was perfect for her.
Sue Steinmetz made many important contributions to the field of family studies and policy development and to her many friends and colleagues she gave her attention and sparkle that helped us dare to be what we hoped to be. She had many physical and emotional trials and little confidence in modern medicine, but she lived her life to the fullest and will be missed by us in many
ways we do not yet perceive. We would do well to take on some of her causes and her relentless style for those issues we care about in the future.
Memorial Service
Please join us in celebrating the life of Suzanne Steinmetz
Date:
Sunday March 22, 200
Time:
4:00P
Place:
Community Christian Church
51100 E. La Palma Ave #119
Anaheim Hills, CA 92807
http://www.comchrist.com/
Donations
The Julian Center
2011 North Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
http://www.juliancenter.org/
Donations Explanation:
In lieu of flowers please direct donations to the Julian Center in Indianapolis. The Julian Center, a woman’s shelter, was an agency Sue was very involved in. Or please direct the donations to any Women’s shelter in your area.
Contacting
Please forward this information to anyone that you feel may want the information that you think Sue may have wanted to inform.
Thank you, everyone, in advance.