Suzanne Sammis
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IN MEMORY OF SUZANNE MORGAN SAMMIS
APRIL 05, 1946 - DECEMBER 24, 2019
Suzanne Morgan, the only child of Rita and Howard Morgan, was born in Tucson, Arizona on April 5, 1946. At the time, her parents were running Hacienda del Sol which they and a group of investors had developed by taking an old girls school and converting it into a guest ranch. However, children were not allowed at Hacienda del Sol and so Suzanne's early years were spent at El Encanto Apartments on 6th Street which her father had built in 1940 and where the family lived until Howard and Rita built a home on an adjacent lot in 1950. No sooner had they settled into their new house than Howard was hired by the U.S. Government as a consultant to help create a viable transportation system in Taiwan . This meant Suzanne, Rita and Howard moved to Taipei and for a year Suzanne had her own rickshaw driver to take her to school and her own ama to spoil her rotten!
The family returned to Tucson via Europe with Suzanne having a vivid memory of crossing the Atlantic in the Queen Mary and being required to wear crinoline dresses and small white gloves to afternoon tea.
Settled back into her parent's new home on Treat, Suzanne attended the local grammar school and a private girls school for middle school. She attended Tucson High where she excelled at playing tennis, volleyball and swimming and as a member of the debate team. Along the way she became an excellent ice skater, participated in local theatrical works put on by her friend Ray Richardson and travelled a lot. Her parents liked to take vacations in the summer to get away from the Tucson heat and the family went on a world tour in 1961 and an extensive trip to Europe in 1963. She also would accompany her Dad on horseback camping in the Rockies in early Spring and learned how to catch, gut and cook trout.
In the last years of high school, she got bored with her classes and, being a member of the Latin Club, talked the Latin teacher into giving her passes to skip his last class of the day and leave early. She used the time to enroll in classes at the University of Arizona and when she graduated from high school, she had 30 units of college credit. She also learned to be an excellent pool player in the spare hours she had!
She wanted to go to college at U.C. Berkeley but her Dad said the campus was too radical. She chose U.C. Santa Barbara as a compromise and had to laugh when during her third year of college, riots broke out in Goleta, the nearby student housing area, and a Bank of America building was burned. She completed college in 3 years due to the credits she had when she entered and taking a massive load of classes each semester. But she was motivated because her Dad said that if she finished in time, she could join them in a 3 month trip around the world in January of 1968.
Suzanne wanted to be a doctor but was told a number of times by different college professors that women shouldn't become doctors because they just would get pregnant, stay home with the children and waste the education they had received! Chauvinism reigned! So she decided to become an audiologist and speech pathologist which combined her interest in speech (she was on the debate team at U.C.S.B.) and her interest in medicine. She picked the University of Michigan to get her double masters because it was one of the few graduate programs where she wouldn't have to write a thesis to graduate!
At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, being bored one night, she answered an ad in the university newsletter that said "Lonely second year law student desires to meet attractive, intelligent co-ed with a good sense of humor". After a few coffee dates and ice skating dates, she and Bob Sammis decided they really liked each other and one thing led to another. They were married on May 23, 1970.
Bob had a Fulbright Scholarship to study and teach law at Los Andes University in Bogota, Colombia. They headed to Bogota at the end of 1970 and settled into a pension while they looked for an apartment to rent. Unfortunately, Bob's Dad died and he had to fly back to San Francisco, leaving Suzanne at the pension where no one spoke English and she spoke very little Spanish. All of the international experience she had stood her in good stead and she did amazingly well for the two weeks he was gone.
While Bob was taking classes and teaching, Suzanne got a job as a speech therapist at the American school which gave them extra cash to travel. They met Rita and Howard in Cartagena for Easter in 1971 but shortly thereafter Howard died and Suzanne and Rob travelled back to Tucson for two weeks. Back in Bogota, the couple resumed married life but what a challenging first year of marriage!
Upon finishing the year of study, Bob and Suzanne took off on a tour of South America and visited Ecuador, Peru (with Cuzco and Machu Pichu being the highlight), Chile and Venezuela. Then back to San Francisco and the job hunt for the two of them. Bob got a job with a large law firm in San Francisco and Suzanne worked as an audiologist at Marin General, the local hospital. That gave them enough money to buy their first home in Greenbrae, Marin County, and to plan for a family. Their daughter Melinda was born on April 15, 1974, Bob joined GATX Leasing, an international finance company, and their son Jeffery was born on September 9, 1977. Suzanne switched jobs and became a speech pathologist for the Sonoma school district which allowed her to have help with the children.
On a cruise to Norway in 1979, Suzanne met Ronn Lucas, a ventriloquist performer who was having voice problems due to his trying to manage his budding career. A friendship developed into a business relationship and Suzanne became his Personal Manager. With Suzanne's help, Ronn won the Showtime Comedian of the Year in 1980 beating out Eddie Murphy and Harry Anderson. Ronn joined the cast of Sugar Babies on Broadway in New York and Suzanne was hired to provide other specialty acts for the show which included Frank Olivier and Jeff Dunham. She helped get the political comedian Will Durst on the Late Night Show with David Letterman. She then moved on to producing shows of "An Evening with ...."in the SF Bay Area that featured Cary Grant, Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball. At the same time, she started a casting company for movie extras in the Bay Area and ran that for a number of years.
In 1997 Bob was asked to move to London for a year and Suzanne said he was not going without her! She shut down her casting company and resigned as Personal Manager of a number of comedians. She and Bob travelled all over Europe on weekend jaunts and had a fabulous time. In 1998 back in Greenbrae, Suzanne relaxed and travelled with Bob to Sydney and London for quarterly board meetings of GATX joint ventures.
Suzanne also started working with Cortex and Mind Matters, two companies offering continuing education to health care professionals. She was on the Board of Directors and for a short period of time prior to the sale of Cortex, managed the company. She subsequently joined the Board of Directors of the Institute for Brain Potential which also offers continuing education to health care professionals.
Bob retired from GATX in 2001 and since then Suzanne and he have travelled to a new country every year. In addition, they both thoroughly have enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren Sam, Morgan and Henry.
Suzanne passed away on December 24, 2019 as a result of complications after gallbladder surgery. It was unexpected and a big loss of a vibrant, beautiful, smart, talented lady who had led an extraordinarly full life. Bob and Suzanne were together for 50 wonderful years and she will be sorely missed by her family and friends.