Susan Jane Bearden McNamara, 80, died in her home in Cohasset on Saturday, September 21, 2024. She had been suffering from frontotemporal lobe dementia for three years and is now at peace. Sue is survived by her husband of 59 years, Jack; her four children, Michael (Kim), Mary Beth (Andy), Katie (Sean), and Megan; and her nine grandchildren: Kieran, Aidan, Rory, JJ, Elizabeth, Angus, Shannon, Brian, and Hazel.

If you ever met Sue, you loved her. She made everyone's day better just with her presence. Sue was generous to a fault, unselfish, kind, brilliant, strong, and thoughtful. She had a wicked sense of humor and was a warm and welcoming hostess—she not only threw wonderful parties but also had a gift for bringing people together and making connections in her community. She cared for not only her family but everyone in her orbit and did so in a manner so gracious that she made you feel like you were doing her a favor by allowing her to help you.

Sue was born in Detroit on January 23, 1944, and was raised in Birmingham, Michigan by her parents, Judge and Jane, with her four brothers Wes, Ned, Dan, and Tim, and her younger sister, Patty. Sue-Sue was the last of her generation. She managed to be both the belle of the ball and the rock of the family at the same time. Her zest for life, clever mind, and quick wit were evident from an early age. She excelled as a student at all levels, but also rebelled by painting her nails in class during high school.

Sue pursued higher education at Newton College of the Sacred Heart, now known as Boston College's Newton campus. There, in 1961, at age seventeen, she met a dashing young BC track star/Marine/lifeguard named Jack, aged nineteen, from Long Island. He would become the love of her life, partner, and best friend, until the day she died. They met while they were dating other people, so it was another year before they had their first date. Jack was captured by Sue's natural beauty and her obvious intellect and kind nature. She further impressed Jack when she was able to drive his standard transmission Austin Healey home from a date when Jack could not! Both knew it was something special from their very first kiss in 1963.

They were married at her parents' home in Michigan in 1965 while Jack served as an officer in the USMC. Shortly after they were married, Jack and Sue relocated to Camp Lejune in North Carolina, and then to Quantico in Virginia. Subsequently, they lived in Detroit as well as Glencoe and Winnetka, Illinois while Jack got his master's degree and built a career in finance and Sue worked as a high-school English teacher.

Their first child, Michael was born in 1968. Mary Beth followed in 1970, Katie in 1973, and Megan in 1978. They settled in Cohasset, Ma. in 1980, and Sue quickly created a family of friends affectionately referred to as the Ya-Yas, after The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. They gathered at the beach and at each other's homes and collectively took care of each other's families. She loved Monet, Mozart, Motown, Mel Brooks, and Monty Python equally, and taught her children to be open-minded and curious as well as compassionate and caring. Sue was a season ticket holder at Boston's Symphony and a lifelong member of the MFA and the Gardner Museum—she cherished any opportunity to appreciate art and history and cultures beyond one's own, which reflected in her selfless nature. When her brother Dan became ill in 1986, Sue volunteered for major surgery and donated one of her kidneys to him.

Sue was the ultimate loving mother. She led with learning and laughter—instead of saying "I don't know," she taught everyone to say: "wouldn't it be interesting to find out?" Sue mothered every young friend who came to the house and asked lots of questions while feeding and fussing over her guests. Her insatiable thirst for knowledge extended to her love of travel—she visited dozens of countries with Jack and brought her children on adventures that emphasized world citizenship. Michael moved to Santiago and then to London; Mary Beth settled in Hong Kong after stints in Jakarta and Japan; Katie did the Peace Corps in Dominica before moving to Virginia; and Megan spent a dozen years in California before returning to Massachusetts.

Sue became deeply involved in the Cohasset schools as well as the community at large. A steadfast believer in the power of public education, she co-founded the Cohasset PSO, and founded the Great Books Program, the Arts Boosters, and the Cohasset Education Foundation. The Deer Hill School Innovation Commons (STEAM lab) were recently named after Sue. She was also an active member of the Cohasset Discussion Club, a women's group that has been in existence since 1922 and encourages graduate-level study of contemporary political and economic issues. She loved to recruit younger women to the group and is responsible for more than half of the current membership. Sue genuinely enjoyed helping others and volunteered at Rosie's Place in Boston, for the League of Women Voters, and with the Appalachia Service Project. As a group leader for ASP, she spent nine summers in the Appalachian Mountains, working with high-school students on housing repair projects for families in need of assistance.

As much as she loved being a mother, Sue loved being a grandmother even more—she said it was all of the fun and none of the responsibility of parenting. In her words, grandchildren were their reward for all of her hard work as a mom. Nana doted on her nine grandchildren, fed them anything they wanted, made them laugh, and spoiled them completely. They all remember her being competitive at Sorry!, eating popcorn like Cookie Monster, and drawing "going on a treasure hunt" on their backs to put them to sleep. Nana was everyone's favorite and everyone was hers.

Jack and Sue celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary on July 10, 2024. As Sue began to decline from dementia, Jack took care of her, with the invaluable help of Elsa Anigan, who had been Mary Beth's family's nanny for a decade and a half, whose presence has been priceless to Sue and to our whole family. Over the last year or two, Sue may have lost her ability to speak, but she could still quietly sing along her favorite songs and give everyone kisses—her "boyfriend" Jack got hundreds per day. Together, Elsa and Jack helped make Sue's final years as comfortable as possible, and she got her wish to die at home, overlooking Cohasset's Little Harbor.

Sue's life will be honored with a wake at McNamara-Sparrell Funeral Home in Cohasset from 4-7pm on Friday, November 29, 2024. There will be a mass at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Cohasset at 10:30am on Saturday, November 30th. If you'd like to make a gesture of gratitude to Sue, please consider donating to either the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration www.theaftd.org or to the Cohasset Education Foundation cohasseteducation.org