Susan Delores Bechtold

Susan Delores Bechtold (aka “Big Sue”), of Pittsburgh, PA, La Plata, MD, and finally, of Richmond, VA, departed this life on March 6, 2024. She went unwillingly, as she had fiercely hoped to have a few more decades with her granddaughters, Jasper Dare and Amanda Reece Jones and Margaret Fraser Sinclair. QVC’s stock will feel the impact of her departure as there are few gadgets not yet acquired to use in cooking escapades with said granddaughters. Her three children Joy, Mandy, and Danny, take a sad comfort in knowing that next year she will not be pained by her inability to bake Christmas cookies with her family in her broken body. She will forever be with us in sparkly spirit.

“Susie” arrived at the party that was this life on July 8, 1950, in Pittsburgh, PA to the delight of her parents Frank “The Icon” and Ann Balistreri and her big sissie Linda Smith (d.). “We are an affable people,” Frank was known to say of his family, and this was certainly true of Sue. Her affability was boundless, unless you were a) driving slowly in the left lane, b) asking her to take two minutes to rate and review, or c) expecting her to be patient about anything. Growing up, she attended Catholic school on the Northside of Pittsburgh, but did not as the one Sister predicted “end up in jail.” (She was among the wild throngs of crazed teenage girls at the Beatles concert on September 14, 1964, but no actual crimes were committed.) It was at this Catholic school that her lifelong claustrophobia took hold after agreeing that it would be funny to hide in a locker from which the fire department needed to extract her. She would eventually leave both that locker and Pittsburgh, landing to raise her children in La Plata, MD.

In La Plata, Sue met her lifelong best friend Robin Hoiler–the Del to her Neal from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. They would start a property management business together, briefly named P.M.S. (Property Management Services) and then renamed P.M.E. (Property Management Enterprises) for obvious reasons. Robin and her husband Jeff (“Jeffy”--the reluctant bearer of the mischief and winner of every trivia night) adopted Sue and her children into their family. Robin was the steadiest and best friend anyone could ever have, and for this, Sue was rich. Sue’s family did not know riches of the material sort, but wealth abounded in the form of love and friends, most of all Robin. In addition to being business partners, they played golf or something like it (to the chagrin of male foursomes behind them), hosted the rituals of The Ancient Elders, and had card nights in the best and worst of times for the better part of four decades.

Sue moved to Richmond to be closer to her children in the summer of 2021, where she fulfilled a retirement goal to become a professional (Uber) driver. Riders were delighted to see her red BMW mini with the license plates “BIGSUU” pull up. She loved hearing their stories and regaled her children with them. Wherever you are, Ethiopian student, and Guy Whose Mom Was Sick, we wish you well.

Left to do their best to carry on Sue’s Legacy of Mostly Affable are her three children: Joy Marie Bechtold Jones with her husband Reginald “Reggie” Jones of Richmond, VA, Amanda “Mandy” Bechtold Sinclair and her husband Gibbons “Crick” Sinclair of Richmond, VA and New York, NY, and Daniel “Danny” Patrick Bechtold of Columbus, OH. She is also survived by singer-songwriter Carly Simon, no relation.

Sue was so very proud of her children, who were the product of her tireless efforts to afford them a life of peace, independence, and fun. She alone deserves the credit for who they have become. Few things in life brought her as much joy as watching Mandy sing…the National Anthem at Orioles’ game, on (and mostly off) Broadway, or God Bless America into that fan for a few years in the ‘80s (a performance about which the siblings did not share her joy). Most indelible in Sue’s memories of Mandy’s singing may have been from when she was just a toddler, singing “Someday, My Prince Will Come.” Sue’s heart could not have been happier that Mandy’s prince did finally come, and that today they have a Moose/daughter whose facial expressions indicate that she is already enjoying the world with her grandmother’s discernment.

Sue’s son Danny was her free spirit. She was proud beyond measure of his successful career and wicked sense of humor, which he honed lackadaisically through abundant meetings with principals growing up. She might not have encouraged his questioning of authority and rules, but she greatly admired that aspect of his mind. She was pleased that he charts his own unique course and is happy in its rewards. She would sometimes quote lyrics to Kansas’s ‘Carry On…’ in reference to Danny, which is, in fact, a song of encouragement.

Sue often questioned whether Joy had been switched at birth, wondering aloud who out there had her real child. Her firstborn cried every year to leave school for summer and asked for a globe and a microscope for her 9th birthday. But deep down there was no doubt that her firstborn was fully hers, born of her determination. Joy was the adult the cops wanted to speak to at her own raucous college graduation party. Like her mom, she spends all her energy caring for others - her family, children, friends, and wider community. She possibly rescued a family cat from the forest at midnight under a full moon in 1989 but who can say for sure? Joy cared for her mom every day with grace and her siblings are forever grateful for her strength. She saw Sue through to the last.

Sue will be laid to rest next to her parents and sister in a private family ceremony. A Celebration of Life is being planned for the summer, the season most suited for disco. The family would like to thank the good nurses at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital (Forest), Dr. Michael Erwin, and Dr. Ajit Singh. We would also like to thank her kind friends and neighbors for their support over these last hard months. If you have read this far, no contributions in her honor are requested. She, along with her family, request that you go have a drink with a friend, and laugh until you can’t see through your tears.