Suzanne Penticuff Pauly

On Tuesday, February 4, 2025, Suzanne died at the condo she and her husband, Tom, have owned for many years in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. She was a vivacious person, an accomplished athlete, a demanding compassionate professor, and an outstanding cook.

She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota where her veterinarian father was tragically murdered when she was 6 years old. Her mother returned to rural Oklahoma and her parents, whom were stalwart survivors of the Depression and the area's dust bowl conditions. Suzie fondly remembered her grandfather in his dilapidated truck delivering eggs to locals, and accumulated experiences that would become a cornerstone of her identity.

When her mother remarried, she, Suzie, and her stepfather relocated to Oklahoma City. As an adult, she remembered herself at this time as shy and introverted. However, she quickly evolved into a very different Suzie. She graduated from high school as a valedictorian of her large senior class and was captain of the school's cheerleading team. She went on to college at Oklahoma State University where she joined the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and was selected for Phi Beta Kappa, an academic sorority for outstanding students. 

Shortly after graduation, she bolted for Colorado and accepted a position teaching mathematics at Columbine High School, which would be the first site of a massive school shooting which is today a far too familiar news event. Her immediate attraction to the mountains inspired her to summit 34 of Colorado's 53 "fourteeners", the state's renowned collection of peaks over 14,000 feet high. Her school allowed an unusual schedule whereby she could teach during the summers and had her winters free. Her passion for skiing earned her an appointment as a ski instructor in Aspen. It was there she met and connected with Tom, who was a professor at the University of Delaware, and was teaching at the Aspen Institute.

A difficult long-distance relationship, and considerable negotiation, persuaded Suzie to relocate to Delaware. Following their marriage and several professional positions, she secured an appointment as a professor of mathematics at Delaware Technical College where she met and befriended Jill Biden whom was then teaching in DTC's English Department. As venturesome spirits with their summers free, she and Tom embarked on a series of trips to numerous familiar and exotic locations.

Over the course of her twenty years at DTC, Suzie's lean, athletic body grew increasingly vulnerable to crippling ailments and her eventual contraction of acute myelogenous leukemia, a usually fatal disease. Though she once more survived, she was debilitated enough to retire. She transitioned to cooking and realized quickly that the foundation of accomplished cooking was a careful selection of ingredients. Thus, she spent many hours in local supermarkets carefully selecting the products for the meals she was planning. The hours of her shopping almost equaled her hours of cooking.

In 2022, she was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer and spent the following two years undergoing chemotherapy which eventually failed. Under Hospice guidance, she died in her Fort Walton condo with close relatives at her bedside. Suzanne is survived by Tom, her husband of 35 years, and her brother, Clarence.