Susan Hayes

Susan was born on April 12, 1951, in Columbus, Ohio, the oldest of four children. Her father worked for the railroad and her mother kept the house full of books. By the time she was ten, Susan was reading to her younger brothers every night, and everyone knew she would be a teacher.

She graduated from college in 1973 and taught first grade at the same elementary school for thirty-four years. She liked to say that first grade is where children find out they can do hard things. Parents who had once sat in her classroom brought their own children to her door, and she remembered every name.

She married Tom in 1974, in her parents' backyard, under the big maple tree. They raised Jennifer and Michael in a white house with a porch and a vegetable garden, and every July the family drove up to Lake Erie for a week by the water. Later the same trips belonged to the grandchildren, Emma, Lucas and Ava.

She loved her tomatoes and hydrangeas, Sunday dinners and a crossword with her morning coffee. When anyone arrived unexpectedly, she pulled out another chair and said: “There's always room for one more.” That is how she lived, with a seat at the table for everyone.