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A Sweet Minnesota Girl

Susan Marie was always laughing, always bubbly and funny and outgoing and smart, her mother, Katherine Kate Morten remembers. She was a towheaded child whose curly hair darkened as she grew older. Susan enjoyed life as the second child in a family of four children, and got along well with her older sister and two younger brothers. As she grew up she displayed musical talent, and played violin in her school orchestra and clarinet in the school band. She spent hours practicing her two instruments. Her mother thought Susan might grow up to be a musician.

The Mortens lived in a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota, on a street that dead-ended in a pasture, where horses and cows grazed behind a fence. It was the best of both worlds, with the city nearby yet a country feel to the neighborhood. There were only ten houses on the short street. The neighbors all knew one another, and their children played together after school. Susan and her friends learned to play softball in the summer and to ice skate in winter. She formed two lifelong friendships with kids on that street. She was the kind of friend who was always ready to help a buddy in need, no matter how long it had been since theyd last been together.

As Susan grew older, she spent most summer weekends with her grandparents, who owned a lakeside resort. There were rooms to be cleaned, laundry to do and meals to cook. The extensive grounds needed care. Susan helped out with the chores and earned a bit of pocket money there. It was a fun job that included swimming, boating, fishing and playing cards with the guests. Her mother was never sure if she did any real work to earn her pay from her grandparents, but she knew her daughter was safe and happy with them.

By the time Susan was ready for college, she wanted freedom to try her wings, but it wasnt time yet for her to fly away. She enrolled in a local Minnesota college and earned a degree in business and accounting. Susan had a plan. She loved fashion and wanted to work in an area that allowed her to be around pretty clothing. She wanted to work in retail, but she wanted more than just a clerks job and recognized that to get ahead she needed expertise in the business end of retail clothing. She took her first job in retail with Levi Strauss & Co. to help pay her way through college. That job allowed her to move out of her childhood home and into an apartment with a friend, but that didnt work out well, so she moved back home.

The last winter that Susan spent in Minnesota is remembered by natives as the big snow. Sixteen inches fell on Halloween, and it kept up all winter. Minnesotans are used to deep snow and cold chills, but this was a particularly difficult and long winter. It was hard for Susan to get back and forth on her twenty-mile commute to work. For months that winter she struggled out of snow drifts and drove through blinding blizzards. She asked for and was granted a transfer to a store a little closer to home, and it was easier after thatbut then that spring it snowed another twenty-eight inches. One night she had to close the store, meaning she was the last person out of the building after all the customers had left and the cleaning had been done. She locked the front door and walked to a deserted parking lot. It had been snowing all day, and Susan found her car was covered in a snowdrift in the parking lot of the mall. It was dark and cold, and she was alone. She couldnt even get the car doors open in order to get inside. She was freezing. From a pay phone, she called her parents, shivering and crying, and they brought snow shovels to rescue her. They all took turns digging out her car, and then she followed her parents home.