Obituary, Susan F. Greenwood
In her own words: Susan F. Greenwood was born in Newburyport, MA. on April 21, 1941, the only child
of Harry and Elsie (Dudley) Fowle. Almost all of her growing up years were spent in Newburyport, and
she graduated with honors from Newburyport High School. She won a competitive scholarship to
Katharine Gibbs School in Boston, MA, and attended the two-year liberal arts-secretarial program from
1959-1961. Upon graduation she married Michael S. Greenwood, of the same high school class, and
worked as a secretary in the Physics Dept. at Brown University while Michael finished his undergraduate
degree. When he entered Yale Graduate School, she worked as secretary to the director of graduate
studies and as an administrative assistant in the Yale Physics Dept. These first two jobs gave her a
lifelong appreciation of physics.
The Greenwoods’ children Willard and Davis were born in New Haven, CT, 1968 and Middlebury, VT,
1970, respectively. Susan worked briefly in Middlebury as a business manager for William Sessions,
Attorney at Law. She was elected president of the Middlebury League of Women Voters. Following a
move to Arkansas, where Michael was hired by Weyerhaeuser Company, she became president of the
Garland County League of Women Voters. Eventually she became employed as a volunteer coordinator
and then caseworker assistant for the Ouachita Children’s Center, a facility for troubled teens. During
this period, she was appointed to the Board of Governors of Ouachita Memorial Hospital and won a
Service to Mankind award. She published a weekly column for several years on children’s issues in two
Arkansas newspapers.
When Michael was hired as a professor of tree physiology at the University of Maine, she enrolled there
first as a part-time and then a full-time student. During her senior year she won first prize in the 11 th
Annual New England Undergraduate Research Conference in Sociology. She earned a degree in social
work and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest distinction. She and older son Willard overlapped by
one year as undergraduates at the university. Younger son Davis soon followed.
Upon graduation she simultaneously embarked on a master’s program in liberal studies and was hired
as an adjunct faculty member in the University of Maine’s Sociology Department, where she continued
for 19 years until retirement in 2006. Her courses included introduction to sociology, sociology of
marriage and the family, sociology of aging, medical sociology, deviant behavior, and sociology of
religion. Among her publications was “Emile Durkheim and C.G. Jung: Structuring a Transpersonal
Sociology of Religion,” based on her master’s thesis.
In 2009 she converted to the Catholic faith, became a Eucharistic minister, and president of the pastoral
council for the Parish of the Resurrection of the Lord. She was a literacy volunteer and a volunteer
ombudsman for the Maine Long Term Care Ombudsman Program.
She is survived by her husband Michael, her two sons and 4 grandchildren.
Michael:
Where would I have been without you typing my papers, lab reports, my PhD thesis, feeding me, and
much more, as we pursued separate paths together for 63 years? The paths crossed resulting in mutual
support as I pursued a career as a journeyman plant scientist and she as a scholar and social worker. Her
spiritual journey involved transitions from Christian Science to atheism to leadership in both the
Methodist and Catholic churches. I tagged along with her on this journey, finally developing a profound
appreciation for what most of the apostle Paul stood for.