Sue Nanian passed away on the 4th of February, after a brief final illness. Her beloved granddaughter Jessica Allen was with her. 

Sue was born in David, Kentucky, a company coal-mining town, on August 24th, 1940. Her father, James Kerr, had worked in the mines since the age of eleven and had eventually become a union organizer. When Sue was still a young child, he moved with his wife and six children to Jackson, Michigan, where the family became tenant farmers. Sue attended a one-room schoolhouse, where her teacher Miss Pringle encouraged her and imbued her with a life-long love of learning and an enduring admiration for good teachers. 

While still in her early teens, Sue left home and went to work at a private hospital, where she learned to care for those in every stage of life, from helping to deliver babies to nursing the dying. In her early twenties, she moved to Massachusetts, where her career would revolve around health in various ways. She worked as a dental assistant, managed medical and dental offices, became a nutritionist, and served as the Director of the WIC supplemental food program at three public health clinics in Boston. 

But she did not just take care of people as a career. Throughout her adult life, if someone was ill or struggling, she would provide comfort and support. If someone was facing a holiday alone or far from home, they would soon find themselves at her table. She was passionate about fairness in ways big and small. In time, she found she had an aptitude for research and the law. Whenever she learned that someone had taken advantage of the innocent and less powerful, she would step forward as their soft-spoken but fiercely resolved, endlessly resourceful champion, an unexpected hybrid of Miss Marple and Clarence Darrow. 

Nor did she stop at helping people. From childhood, she loved animals. No dog ever found a better home than hers; no rabbit, chipmunk, woodchuck, or any other animal ever found a happier place than her garden. And they responded to her in ways that would shame any Disney princess. 

She devoted extraordinary energy to her children, Karlene Allen (deceased) and Richard Alan Nanian, and to her granddaughter Jessica Allen. Much later in life, she found great joy in becoming a grandmother again to Graham Richard Nanian and Evelyn Fay Nanian. She enthusiastically read literature, philosophy, and psychology, and she became a skilled practitioner of Dane Rudhyar's humanistic astrology. She loved music - Paul Simon, Johnny Mathis, Willie Nelson, Nina Simone, Frederic Chopin - and gardening. She was a superb cook and a spectacular baker and cake decorator. She loved art and beauty of all kinds; even the Christmas presents she wrapped were so gorgeous that their recipients hesitated to open them. She believed that everything worth doing was worth learning to do well. 

The many who loved her will continue to be inspired by her example. 

Relatives and friends are invited to gather in honor and remembrance of Sue during Visiting Hours at the Robinson Funeral Home, 809 Main St., Melrose on Friday, March 13 from 5-7pm with a Time for Remembrance at 7pm. 

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to any of the following organizations she treasured: The Nature Conservancy, Attn: Treasury, 4245 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 100, Arlington, VA. 22203, The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, One Center Plaza, Suite 850, Boston, MA. 02108, The Carter Center, Attn: Office of Development, One Copenhill, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway NE, Atlanta, GA 30307, and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105.