Godspeed, Cousin Susie

Edens, Suellen G.

Suellen Groninger Edens 70, Indianapolis, died Mar. 8, 2010. Memorial service: 2 p.m. Mar. 11 in Myers Chapel of Memories, Lebanon. Interment: Deer Creek Cemetery, Deer Creek, IN.

Suellen Groninger Edens

Ms. Suellen Groninger Edens, 70, of Indianapolis, died Monday, March 8, 2010, at Westview Hospital in Indianapolis.
Suellen Edens was born January 4, 1940, in Flora. She was the daughter of the late Herbert U. and Ruth L. (Dietz) Groninger. She graduated from Lebanon High School in 1958 and attended Purdue University.
She married Tony Edens in 1959, in Indianapolis; they later divorced.
Ms. Edens lived in Lafayette, Bloomington and Grand Rapids, Mich. She moved to Indianapolis in the early 1980s, and  remained there.
She was a member of Tri Kappa Sorority in Lebanon.
Survivors include two children, Kimberly S. Faison of Santa Barbara, Calif., and Kent A. Edens of Hoboken, N.J.; one brother, Samuel H. Groninger and wife, Mary Ann, of Nashville, Tenn.; two sisters, Kay L. Boatman-Sampson and husband , Richard, of Lebanon and Jo Anne Sutter of Elkhart; and one grandson, several nieces and nephews, and several great-nieces and great-nephews.
Memorial funeral services are to be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, March 11, at Myers Chapel of Memories, 1502 N. Lebanon St., Lebanon, with the Rev. Vey Kidney officiating. Interment will follow cremation at the Deer Creek Cemetery in Deer Creek.
No Visitation is planned.
Memorial contributions may be made to Heartland Hospice, 931 E. 86th St., Suite 208, Indianapolis, IN 46240.
Online condolences may be made at www.myersmortuary.com.

Those are the obits from this morning’s Indianapolis Star and yesterday’s Lebanon Reporter for my cousin Susie. Her mother and mine were sisters and she was my favorite girl cousin when I was a little kid. She doted on me and I had sort of a crush on her.

She was all flash and glamour as a teenager and a young adult. She modeled and did TV commercials, but her marriage fell apart when she was in her 30s and she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism for the rest of her life.

It’s hard for me to get my brain wrapped around the image of her as an old woman, suffering from emphysema in an Indianapolis nursing home. She turned 70 in January and I guess she decided that was enough.

She’ll be buried tomorrow in the little church cemetery north of Deer Creek, Ind., where our Dietz and McCain ancestors lie.