From Nancy Corsa

Dear Tom,
Memories of Barbara come and go like waves. I find myself thinking
more of you and you without her. I made plane reservations so that I
could be part of the gathering on Easter. I wanted to be with all of
you. Instead I have the flu and find it exhausting just to let the dog
out. With a foot of snow where yesterday there was none and an
unstoppable cough I know I won't be on a plane tomorrow morning. I'll
miss being with all of you.

I was happy to find the BarbaraSuczekwakeblog, the photo of Barbara in
the wisteria and the one next to it of your parents walking together.
I have never known another couple whose togetherness I could imagine
apart. When Sucz went from being sick, to sicker and then into
Heatherwood perhaps it was a softening of what was to come. The last
memory I have of Sucz was the sign outside his doorway at Heatherwood
- Sooch, and from the hallway hearing Barbara asking him for a hug,
and then saying "you can do better than that.!"....I couldn't hear his
words but there was a Sucz chuckle (the kind reserved for
Barbara)...an endearing smile of a sound.

Barbara wearing a flowing skirt, wonderfully upright, tossing her
beautiful head of white hair...dipping below the wisteria on her way
to the front door. I will always see her that way. She looked equally
stunning in blue jeans and a fly fishing hat on our trip to the Wind
River Range in Wyoming. The same trip that Barbara and Sucz took Katie
and me into their dry tent during a wild lighting storm when our tent
had become flooded. They fed us brandied figs.

I will miss Barbara's beautiful tiny handwriting that will no longer
greet me when I go for the mail.
I share your sadness. I have so many incredible memories. I'm sorry
that I can't be there to hear yours.
Love, Nan

From Sharonn Gittelsohn (Berkeley, CA)

March 22, 2008


Barbara and Bob Suczek were our next door neighbors in Lafayette between 1952 and 1960, and became our lifelong friends. They were both mentors for me and were instrumental in my choice of future career and lifestyle. Barbara was a person of such strength, dignity and caring. She helped me weather through raising 3 children during their crucial early years, and was always a nurturing, loving person with a fantastic sense of humor! I feel very lucky to have had her in my life at the time we were neighbors because her guidance and immense sensitivity enabled me to survive those early years of our children's lives. I will always remember Barbara Suczek with great love and affection and gratitude. She was certainly a woman not to be forgotten.

Barbara Haining Suczek

Barbara Haining Suczek A member of a nationally recognized team of researchers who in the 1970s developed a ground-breaking critique about how health care providers fail the chronically ill, has died. Dr. Suczek, 90, died Feb. 23 at the Lafayette home she shared for more than 50 years with her husband, psychologist Robert F. Suczek. He died 16 months earlier. Dr. Suczek, who worked with renowned sociologist Anselm Strauss at the University of California, San Francisco, was part of a group that focused on chronic illness as the predominant reason patients seek medical help, according to another team member, UCSF sociology professor, Carolyn Wiener. The research was conducted "at a time when it had not yet become obvious that the old 'acute care' model of health care required re-thinking, as medical professionals and patients faced illnesses that could be 'managed' but not cured,' " said Wiener. Dr. Suczek's research with the group looked closely at how the work of physicians, nurses and hospital technicians had been radically changed by a patient population of the chronically ill and the technologies developed to help them. This study was concerned with the experiences of those who do the work of managing these illnesses - including the patients themselves and their families. Dr. Suczek was particularly engaged by the unacknowledged and frequently invisible management work that families do. Her subsequent research with the same team was one of the earliest studies of health care policy related to AIDS, results of which highlighted deficiencies in the health care system. Dr. Suczek was proudest of her teamwork with Professor Strauss, but she earned perhaps her greatest colloquial fame as the author of a 1972 sociological analysis of the rumored death of Beatle Paul McCartney. Published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, the article examined the social construction of mystery. Following her groundbreaking UCSF research work, Dr. Suczek embarked on a counseling career, working first at the Berkeley Mental Health Center and then as a mediator at the Alameda County Family Court Services. She was already in her seventies when she was hired by the court. She loved the work and retired only after her husband became seriously ill and needed home-care. "Dr. Suczek was someone who met people with both her heart and her mind," said Dr. Mary Duryee, Director of Family Court Services for Alameda County. "She carried herself with a dignity that lifted the entire interaction." Dr. Suczek was born Barbara Haining in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on March 14, 1917. After WWII she moved to the Bay Area with her husband, where she worked at home raising their four children. A woman of radiant energy and intellectual curiosity, she was decades ahead of the trend in returning to college when her children grew older. In January 1967, just before her 50th birthday, she earned a B.A. in sociology from UC Berkeley. She went on to earn a doctorate in sociology from UC San Francisco in 1977 - when she was 60. She is survived by her daughter Christopher Anne Suczek; sons, Peter, Thomas and William Suczek; two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A Memorial Celebration is being planned and memorial material posted at www.barbarasuczekwake.blogspot.com.
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle on 3/14/2008
[ A deep thanks to Sarah, and Chris for painstakingly preparing and arranging for the publication of this obituary.]

In Consideration:

As per our conversation, everything I know and feel about Barbara
tells me she would not want anything called barbara suczek memorial,
even if that's what it was. The irony is I had just been writing an
email explaining that I could not work March 23 because there was a
"memorial" for my mother that day. I think that Mom is happy to have
people honor her, not in some obvious cliched way, nor in any LARGER
THAN LIFE kind of way, but in their own way, as she would want to
honor them. Come to think of it, she wouldn't be into the word
"honor" either. Maybe enjoy is better. I think she knew she was going
to have to deal with one last send-off
party, like it or not. As Barbara said, "I don't want a party." As
Noreen said, "I can't promise you that."
I like the idea of a wake, because it is a tradition I think Barbara
could appreciate, she who adopted and appreciated so many traditions.
A conversation or two this last year included James Joyce and
Finnegan's Wake, and so awake feels appropriate to me. More important
is when I think of Barbara Suczek, I think of conversation, the many
conversations she had with so many people from diverse walks of life.
With that in mind, I think we might call this the barbara suczek
conversation. Mom and I had many conversations recently about being
stardust (and golden). As the word consider literally means "with the
stars", we might go instead with barbara suczek consideration. In
every way, Barbara is and will always be, considerate.
-thomas

Wisteria

BARBARA OF THE GALLAXY WISTERIA

We tried to hold back the sea
It’s relentless pounding
It’s rising tide
A dream blanket
Of death’s sweet joy and sorrow

An earthly body weakened
Her liberating self
Refusing food or water
Voice firm and ready
“Beam me up Scottie”
Humor has not abandoned

Memories, so many memories
She readies her surrender
Moon blinks in acquiescence
The stars in the galaxy wisteria
Anticipate her return
High up in the night’s sky

-peter karl