Susan Lee Epstein

Susan graduated from East High School in Denver, in 1960, and attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for two years. She lived in Aspen and then San Francisco. There, she met Lenny, her future husband, during Christmas week, 1966, at a friend’s party. Susan and Lenny have been together ever since.

Before meeting Lenny, Susan achieved a long held ambition, becoming a fire lookout for the U. S. Forest Service. She served five seasons, all in Northern California. She remained a fan of fire lookouts, managing a website of historic Colorado and Utah fire lookout towers until her cancer diagnosis. In between fire seasons, Susan worked as a mail carrier in San Francisco.

Susan and Lenny created a family with the birth of their son, Jesse, in 1971. While a young mother, she supported Lenny through undergraduate work in San Francisco. They moved to Binghamton, New York where Susan also supported Lenny through graduate school. There, she had another favorite job, delivering bulk foods to schools. It was considered a “man’s job” driving the step van and doing the heavy lifting, but Susan said, “I can do it”, and she did!

Susan and her family moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in January, 1979. She worked for the city planning department. In December, 1982, she graduated from CSU, 2nd in her class of about 1,000, with a degree in Business Administration. She was always mildly annoyed that she had to accept a “B” in summer school calculus class. She spent the next 25 years in the technology industry, including Hewlett Packard, Managed Business Solutions, and CoCreate. Whenever engineer’s would see Susan’s finished computer programs, they knew the programs would work. Susan was meticulous!

Susan enjoyed sewing spinning and weaving. She also loved travel. In her early adult years, she toured Europe extensively, and spent an extended time in Japan. With her family, she traveled all through North America, including trips to Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska, Newfoundland, Mexico, and over 100 trips to national parks and monuments. Because Lenny had family in South Florida, Susan took many trips there where she honed her bird watching skills.

Susan made life long friends. She loved her many book groups, her luncheon and dinner groups, and her Rowdy Mom’s group. All this paid dividends. In the last few months of her life, many of these friends came to visit, sent notes, cards, and flowers. She enjoyed the attention she received near the end of her life.

Her family would like to thank the many people who had direct hands on care of Susan in her final months. There were many at Lemay Avenue and MCR, who were so gentle and kind in their care of Susan. Their kindnesses have eased the pain of her family.

Susan is survived by her husband, Lenny; son, Jesse; daughter-in-law, Vanessa; sister-in-law, Susan Broder, and grandchildren, Stella and Levi.

A celebration of her life will be held on Friday, March 24, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. at the Foothills Unitarian Church, 1815 Yorktown, Fort Collins, CO. 80526.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Unitarian Church or The High County News (an environmental newspaper of the West), P. O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO. 81428.

Family and friends are invited to sign the online guestbook or leave a personal note to the family at www.allnutt.com""