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Official Obituary of
Suzanne (Sue) Graham
May 4, 1951 ~ March 5, 2022 (age 70)
7 Trees, Flowers, or Condolences have been shared with support of Suzanne (Sue)’s family – View on Tribute Wall
Suzanne (Sue) Graham Obituary
Suzanne Graham (Sue) was a mother, grandmother, and part of a caring community of friends-that-are-family. She passed away in her sleep at her Portland, Oregon home on March 5, 2022 after a brave battle with breast cancer which originally began back in 2000. She is survived by her children, Caitlin and Gavin Bristol, and her two grandchildren, Isla and Owen Naar.
Sue was born and raised in Queensland Australia, daughter of Muriel and Cecil Graham. She exceled at school at St. Rita’s where she met lifelong friends and her love of literature was ignited. A plaque on the Board of Honor is still erected at the school with Sue’s name, where in 1968 she was awarded all three school honors (Prix D’Honneur, College Captain, College Dux). She remains one of only two students to have received all three honors in the same year. After St. Rita’s she continued her studies at University of Queensland for her Bachelors and Masters. Upon graduation from the University of Queensland she was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Scholarship, providing complete funds to study for four years in the UK. She studied for her PhD in English Literature, specializing on James Joyce, at Queen Mary’s College, University of London. Following her time in London she moved to Portland, Oregon where she had her two children and a successful career in PR and Communications.
While she loved the beauty of Oregon, it was only a jumping off base for her world travels. Those who knew Sue well knew she was always wrapped up in planning and plotting the next trip – from an Amazon river cruise to an African safari to visiting old ruins across Europe (the older the better!). In her later years she took up photography as a hobby, documenting her trips, and even winning an award in a travel magazine. In addition to photographer she was also an incredibly talented poet, with volumes of wonderful poems that her children and friends will continue to enjoy for years to come.
Sue chose to be cremated so that her ashes could go back to the natural world she so loved to photograph and write about. A small celebration of life service will be arranged in the summer. Should friends and family want to honor and remember Sue where they are, she offered the following songs as ones she’d like played as part of a “positive remembrance.”
‘The Circle of Life’ from the Lion King, version by Elton John
‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen
‘Moon River,’ the Audrey Hepburn version
‘Auld Lang Syne,’ the Rod Stewart version
For those wanting to offer something in Sue’s memory, please consider donating to one of her favorite charities:
Panthera – to support the big cats she so loved seeing on her travels
The Nature Conservancy – to support the lands and waters on which all life depends
Though she is missed, her memories, photographs, and poetry lives on. Please use the tribute wall on this page if you’d like to share a memory or photo. Sue’s network of friends and family is truly global and this will be a way for everyone to share in celebrating her life.
Services
You can still show your support by sending flowers directly to the family, or by planting a memorial tree in the memory of Suzanne (Sue) Graham
Plant a tree in memory of Suzanne (Sue)Donations
The Nature Conservancy
821 SE 14th Avenue, Portland OR 97214
Tel: 1-503-802-8100
Email: oregon@tnc.orgWeb:https://www.nature.org/en-us/
Panthera
8 West 40th Street 18th Floor, New York, NY 10018 NY 10018
Tel:1-646-786-0400
Email: info@panthera.orWeb:https://panthera.org/
There are 3 photos available in the gallery
I traveled with Suzanne on occasion and had a wonderful time laughing, eating and cherishing each other and the environment that we found ourselves in at the time. She truly was a unique person.
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I will miss our lunches where we put the world to rights lovely lady. The world is a poorer place without you,
Inviting Suzanne to join Oreon Press Women was one of the best things I ever did. Traveling with her to Tanzania and to various OPW conferences introduced me to an amazing communicator whose stories from her childhood delighted and informed me. She is irreplacable in my life and memory. Godspeed, dear friend. It comforts me to know you are, at last, free of pain.
Suzanne was a much-loved member of the Voices in Verse poetry group at the Cedar Mill library. We always enjoyed hearing tales of her travels along with her incredible poetry. She often wrote poems about the places she visited that were so remarkably descriptive that they instantly transported the listener/reader to those locations to vicariously experience the moments her poetry described. Her comments on other people’s poetry were always insightful and kind. We enjoyed her humor, enthusiasm, and wit. She is greatly missed.
I first met the wonderful Sue in late 1975 when we were students together in central London. I was a rather naive and very impoverished young man down from Scotland and she had arrived from Australia, bright, sparky, sophisticated and full of fun. She was always extremely kind and sympathetic to me and would invite me for occasional much needed meals. I found her easy and witty conversation and wide interests a great distraction from what was for me a rather grim situation. I was at her wedding reception in 1976 where I met both her parents, before moving back to Scotland to start work.
We kept in regular contact and I visited Oregon in late 1984 and again at the end of 1991. Over the years there were a number of meetings in London, Bath, the highlands of Scotland, Paris, southern France, the USA and, most memorably, in Belize when she invited me to join her on one of her many exotic foreign trips. We kept in touch regularly, initially by letter, later by telephone and eventually by FaceTime and I have all kinds of happy memories of Sue and her zest for life. We had been hoping to meet in York during her planned UK trip in September/October 2021, but of course her illness took over.
I am a long way from Oregon, living in Cumbria, northern England, a few miles south of the Scots border and being so far away, which should make no difference, just somehow makes it worse, especially as I was unable to see her during her last few months. Sue was a kind, generous and lovely person, although certainly unafraid to speak her mind. Even though she became a US citizen one was always aware of the Australian lurking under the surface. Coming from a less forthright and (shall we say) more restrained English background it is only fair to say that we had our occasional differences, often through minor cultural misunderstandings, but throughout we retained a strong sense of friendship and deep affection.
I shall miss Sue dreadfully; hers was a very distinctive and unique character and she will always rest in my memory.
Sue was a very dear friend whom I loved very much and she will alway be with us in spirit.
Suzanne Graham – Requiescat in pace.