A Celebration of a Life

As most of you "flies on the wall" must know, Suzy passed away on October 17, 2007 following a masive stroke suffered on October 8. Yesterday, on what would have been her 68th birthday, a memorial was held for her at the Smathers Library. What follows are remarks I made at this event.

This is a memorial for my sister Suzy, and as such it is a fitting time and place to share memories of her. It is also very fitting that it's being held in a library building, since books, reading and writing were such a big part of her life. Today, I am going to try to share with you some of my memories of Suzy.

Suzy always referred to me as her baby brother, and the reason for this is obvious from this picture. Both Suzy and our sister Sandy were enough older than me, that it was sometimes said of me: "poor kid: he has three mothers!" But I didn't feel that way – she was just my big sister.

As you can see, Suzy was much closer in age to Sandy, and I think they were sometimes mistaken for twins. They did many things together, besides just babysitting me. One early passion for them was tennis.

We lived in California, and one time when mom had taken the three of us to Palo Alto so the girls could play tennis, Suzy and Sandy played a trick on me. When they were through playing, they called mom to come pick us up from the tennis courts. They then told me that they magically knew exactly where she was, street by street, on the 10 mile route from home to Palo Alto. I became convinced that they were telling the truth when they accurately indicated exactly when mom turned onto the street that the tennis courts were on. It was only later that I figured out that they merely saw her make the turn before I did, and just made everything else up!

There was a very special period for me during those California years, when Suzy was back living at home after her first two years at college in Missouri. Sandy was away at the same college, so it was the first time that Suzy and I spent a lot of time together, just the two of us. I remember her teaching me to play pinochle, and listening to classical music with her on the radio.

I guess it's fair to say that a person's life can be described by their passions. I know Suzy had a lot of them, and I'll try to say a few words about some of them, in approximately chronological form. First, her passion was for books and reading. And probably at this time her love of comics began, which she shared with Sandy and our father, shown here reading them in the paper. In California a friend of Suzy's gave me a small car-load of Walt Disney's comics, which I merely enjoyed reading. For Suzy and Sandy, however, it was the start of a lifelong, serious hobby of collecting comic books.

Another passion of Suzy's was for music, particularly the piano, although she played other instruments as well. I remember that she even did some original composition for the piano. A third interest was in languages, and she even studied and took a degree in Russian, which was to be very useful for her when she became a librarian. I shared the interest in Russian at that time, but only to the extent that I learned to transliterate the alphabet into Cyrillic characters. I wrote her strange looking letters using this transliteration.

In the 60's the family started to spread out. My parents and I moved to Maryland and then to Virginia, while Suzy came to Gainesville for her first sojourn in what she always referred to as "the Swamp". Sandy joined her here a few years later, and then in 1969 I did as well, so that for a few years the three of us were all here together. There were great times for and great dinners. In the 70's there was more movement: Suzy left Gainesville and ended up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, at about the same time that Sandy took a job in River Falls, Wisconsin, where she has been ever since. In 1975, I left Gainesville for Maryland, where I have lived ever since.

In La Crosse, Suzy found new passions, such as geography and mapmaking, but most importantly Bruce Springsteen. She became a devoted fan of his, and has attended countless of his concerts over the years. In 1979 Suzy left La Crosse to move in with me in Maryland to try writing full time.

Gosh, we had a great time living together, and besides writing Suzy became enthused with weather, particularly the snow and ice that we have in northern Maryland. You'll have to take my word that this is her playing in the snow. We lived in the woods and one particularly noteworthy weather event was an early October snow, which fell wet and heavy on the still fully leafed-out trees. Suzy and I took a walk in the woods during this storm, which was probably really crazy, since tree limbs were breaking and falling all around us, sounding like shots on a battlefield as they broke, and making tremendous crashes as they fell.

In gentler seasons Suzy was an enthusiastic gardener, and one of the things she planted was this herb garden. One result of this particular herb garden is that the area where we gardened is now overrun with a somewhat noxious herb that she planted, which has done a particularly good job reseeding itself over the last 25 years. Thanks, Suzy...

We also grew lots of vegetables such as those pictured here. Particularly memorable were the hot peppers, which we used to judge for hotness in taste-offs by putting them on nachos. I wasn't much into hot peppers and spicy food until then, but since then I've never stopped loving them.

But her greatest passion during these years was for baseball and the Baltimore Orioles. They almost won the World Series in 1979 and remained strong for several years after that. Suzy resumed her library career in 1981, taking a job at Johns Hopkins and moving to Baltimore, where she was still close enough to come visit me and garden on the weekends. Where she lived was only a few blocks from Memorial Stadium, where the Orioles played then, and the year that the Orioles won the World Series, 1983, we went to dozens of games together with her Hopkins friends. It was Cal Ripkin's rookie year, and we saw some truly incredible, unforgettable games.

While living in Baltimore she also got involved with the group that recorded the Bruce Springstone song(s) that you've heard (or will hear). I was privileged to actually attend a live performance of the group singing both of the songs they recorded, "Meet the Flintstones" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". Suzy looked really cute on-stage in her Flintstones stone-age outfit.

Another passion of Suzy's which emerged during this time in Maryland involved computing, especially related to library science. Being a physicist, I am also quite interested in computing, and I am proud to say that I gave Suzy her introduction to "personal" computing as it was known in those early days. This mixture of computers and libraries was to remain a constant in her life ever after.

During this time she was also able to visit Europe for the first time, and conceived a passion for Italy.

Well, the rest of the story you all know pretty well. They say that once you get sand in your shoes in Gainesville, you have to come back, and evidently Suzy got sand in her shoes, because she did. And here she finally found true happiness with Bill. And with library computing, and most recently computer-aided comics scholarship. Always an indefatigable correspondent, the modern age of emails, blogs and text messaging was perfect for Suzy to continue her passion for writing. Several years ago she began a blog, which she managed to get my mother and then the rest of the family interested in contributing to, or at least monitoring. This single feat has brought our family closer together than at any time since we left California.

Well, here we are all, the last time the family was all together, at Suzy and Bill's wedding. A big surprise for all of us in recent years is Suzy developing an interest in cooking, and making some very creative dishes for her, Bill and their cat Carrot. My mom still remembers when, back in California, Suzy said "I'll never cook and clean for any man!". However, Suzy ended up doing just that, and this was a true measure of her love for Bill. As only she could, Suzy regaled us daily in her blog with her cooking escapades.

So finally, looking at this picture, you might ask, did we always get along? The answer is a resounding "yes!!". Suzy is shown here at her finest, among the wreckage of a Maryland blue crab feast. This is the way I always will remember her: happy, passionate, and funny. She was my sister, and I love her and I always will.

At the memorial, the following information was made available:

To honor Suzy Covey's dedicated service to the George A. Smathers Libraries, you are invited to make a gift to the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection Fund. Suzy's volunteer commitment to this collection was a testament to her generosity of spirit. Your gift will sustain her memory as a friend, colleague and librarian.

Please make checks payable to the University of Florida Foundation, Inc. Note the "Suzy Covey Fund" in the memo field. Mail to the Office of Development, George A. Smathers Libraries. PO Box 117001, Gainesville, FL 32601.