Susanne “Susie” Johnson passed away peacefully on Oct. 9, 2023, at the age of 79, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years earlier.
Susie was born on Aug. 5, 1944, in South Carolina to Isabel (Martin) and Wilkie Miller. Soon after, her family moved to Kansas and Susie did most of her growing up in Topeka and Wichita. She later graduated from Kansas State University—go Wildcats!—with a degree in journalism.
While working at a small newspaper in Kansas, Susie met her late husband, Eric. They married soon after in 1968, and enjoyed 53 happy years together until Eric’s death in 2021.
Life in Kansas was followed by a chance opportunity to live in Bermuda for five years. After the birth of their two children, Les and Erika, Susie and Eric moved to Cazenovia, a quaint village in upstate New York. There, Susie spent time raising the kids, playing tennis, and working as an editor. She gave back to the community through her work with Cazenovia Preservation Foundation, Cazenovia Garden Club, Caz Cares, and Cazenovia Forum, to name a few. But it was her vibrant garden that was the buzz of the town with its rich diversity of flowering plants and carefully placed art sculptures. She worked tirelessly in that garden year after year and it nurtured many connections to gardening friends, local horticulturists, and the greater community.
In 2015, in search of warmer weather, Susie and Eric moved to North Carolina to spend more time with daughter, Erika, and her family.
Susie had many wonderful and valuable qualities. She had a sharp wit and a strong sense of determination. She had a keen eye for symmetry and design. She was a stellar organizer to the point of being able to turn fleeting dreams into luxurious Caribbean vacations. Her boundless creativity manifested in quirky ways, often in her unique gift-giving and distinctive crafts.
She never shied away from sharing her opinion but all with a sense of humor, clever and broad, that made it easy for others to get on board with her preferences. When asked by one of Les’s teachers to sign and return a letter sent home, she instead put on her editorial hat and corrected the misspelling and grammatical errors, filling the page with proofreading marks, before sending it back to school. She loved family traditions and never met an evergreen she couldn’t conquer with gorgeous Christmas lights and silver bells, topped with a handmade yarn angel.
If given the opportunity, Susie would’ve given up her homes in New York and later North Carolina, to live on a tropical beach. The island of St. John, U.S.V.I. had a special place in her heart. After a day of alternating between swimming and reading, Susie would head over to Skinny Legs for a few daiquiris with the locals.
Susie is predeceased by her husband, Eric. She will be greatly missed by her children Les (Leith) Johnson of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Erika (Heather Parnell) Johnson of Durham, NC; sister, Christine Miller; brother, Paul Miller; grandchildren, Liam Johnson, DJ Johnson, Cole Johnson Parnell, and Rhys Johnson Parnell, and many dear friends.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider donating to the Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org) or to another Alzheimer’s research or advocacy organization.
We will celebrate Susie and Eric’s lives—in a way you’d think she’d organized and designed herself—in the near future.
The family is being assisted by Clements Funeral & Cremation Services, Inc. in Durham. Online condolences may be made at clementsfuneralservice.com.
