Susan Roberta (Lord) Bryson

Susan was born on February 29, 1936 in New York City on Governors Island as the fifth of six children. While the family was stationed in Hawaii during the course of her father’s military career, one of her earliest memories was surviving the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After her father’s retirement, Susan grew up living in the family home in Salmon Falls, New Hampshire.

As a girl and young woman, Susan excelled at academics, performed in her school’s cheerleading squad, and enjoyed solving crossword puzzles with her mother and sister. After graduating with honors from Berwick Academy in 1954, she followed her father’s footsteps and enlisted in the Women’s Air Force alongside her sister, Jackie.

While stationed in Fort Worth, Texas, Susan met the love of her life, Byron, on a blind date. In less than three months, the two were baptized together on Mother’s Day and then married on Father’s Day on June 16, 1957. Susan left the Air Force to be a full-time military wife and, soon after, a mother to their three children. During Byron’s Air Force career, the family would alternate between stateside and overseas assignments, including Spain, Japan (Okinawa), and Greece, where they befriended a young airman named Eden Reyes who continues to be a friend of the family today.

Throughout the family’s 26 years in the Air Force, they had faithfully attended chapel services, and Susan served as a children’s Sunday School teacher. The family settled in Austin when Byron retired at Bergstrom, Air Force Base in 1978. With the children soon off to college, Susan worked at the Internal Revenue Service until the mid-nineties, at which point she embraced being a full-time grandmother, known as “Mema” to her six grandchildren.

A caregiver through and through, Susan was quick to shower her grandchildren (and later her great-grandchildren) with gifts, love, and support. Always a creative spirit, one such gift was a large canvas needlepoint dollhouse that she lovingly made with her piano instructor and lifelong friend, Joyce Christensen. Susan was actively involved with their grandchildren’s lives from elementary school to college and beyond, and soon “Mema” was blessed with six great-grandchildren to dote on.

A devoted member of Great Hills Baptist Church, Susan was a Christian woman who lived out her trust in Jesus Christ through her steadfast service of love as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

She was preceded in death by her parents, George and Isabel (Hibbard) Lord, her brother George “Sonny” Lord, her sisters Barbara Smith and Carole Gaudreault, and her husband of 64 years, Byron Bryson.

Her example of encouragement and sharing with others will continue to shine on through her sisters Jacqueline “Jackie” Holcomb and Marilyn Allen; her three children, Bill (Karen) Bryson, Kathy (Kent) Broddrick, and James (Sandra) Bryson; her six grandchildren, Lauren (Jonathon) Stewart, Sierra (Dan) Johnson, Luke (Alyssa) Broddrick, Valerie (Phillip) Rychlik, Faith Broddrick, and Victoria “Tori” Bryson; and her six great-grandchildren: James, Isabella, and Kaia Johnson, Wren and Scarlett Stewart, and Emma Broddrick.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to a charity of your choice.