born on January 13, 1949 in Highland Park, Michigan, passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by her loved ones, on September 5, 2025 in Wildwood, Missouri. She led a life filled with love and dedication to her extensive family and the many students who called her teacher. She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend.

Sue attended Michigan State University, where she met her husband Jon in 1970. One fateful day on an apartment stairwell, Jon offered her his homemade chili, and the rest was history. They became steadfast partners, married for over 51 years, supporting one another through life’s greatest joys and deepest sorrows. 

Sue profoundly cherished her family, with whom she loved making memories. This rich tapestry of fond moments includes early years filled with shared culinary adventures like cookie decorating and artistic cake design. Sue loved baking – both for and with those she loved. 

She also cherished storytelling and capturing family lore, giggling more with each retelling. Sue maintained a vast collection of children’s books that she shared with her babies from the moment they were born. If you listen closely, you can still hear her voice reading to her children in a loving lilt. She shared this love of story with her grandchildren, reading and gifting them cherished books over the years. 

One of Sue’s favored forums for memory-making was playing games as a family – both with her children when they were young, and beyond, to include her expanding family that included her children’s partners and grandchildren. The scenes always involved gatherings around the family table that grew with time, and if you listen closely again, you can hear uproarious laughter rippling through the group as they played contentious rounds of several family favorites. Sue’s infectious giggles during these times revealed her playful, childlike, and delightfully silly nature that her family treasured.  

Sue was a consummate educator, earning both her Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from Michigan State University in 1971, followed by completing her Master’s Degree in Reading Instruction. Her career spanned 41 years wherein she left a lasting impact on countless young minds in both Michigan and Tennessee. Elementary school students from Walled Lake Elementary School, Commerce Elementary School, and Poplar Grove School (Franklin, Tennessee) thrived in her care. She especially loved teaching young children to read. 

Her love of learning and teaching wasn’t limited to the classroom. She shared her curiosity and enthusiasm with everyone, but especially young people. She collected bits of flora and fauna and anything that could be considered “educational,” and shared art supplies with which she encouraged children to make messes. Sue was humble and self-deprecating; she never saw herself as creative. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, over the course of her lifetime, she ignited inside the hearts of her children and many others infinite artistic and imaginative sparks. The conditions she very intentionally created and ways she moved in the world were profoundly creative. 

Sue brought flair to life’s simple joys, and always worked to make common family experiences extra special. She made magic through birthdays, holidays, and other childhood rites of passage, with special parties and favorite homemade treats – she loved times together with her family, and honored the ordinary through infinitely memorable and unique acts of love year after year. 

Sue was a private person, yet she also sought to explore the world and its many wonders. She possessed a lifelong love of travel and new adventures, great and small: a keen eye for a great deal and prime parking spots, and a well-known passion for shopping – especially for shoes (but only if they were a bargain!). Her wanderlust began with a cross-country road trip out west with her college girlfriends, and continued once she and Jon grew their family. Raising four kids presented many obstacles to travel, yet they managed to create peak experiences with the family at every opportunity, memorable in the traditional way and also hilariously rife with “National Lampoon’s”-esque misadventures. 

Sue’s last 20 years were full of many gifts – the adventure of retirement, travel, the marriages and partnerships of all of her children, the birth of her grandchildren, the celebration of her 50th wedding anniversary. This time also included her Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. She met this news with fierce determination, a quiet grace, and a characteristic stubbornness that no doubt extended her life and kept her active and joyful in spite of her hardship. She did not let this disease define her, and, it did shape and shift an era of her life.  

Sue was preceded in death by her parents, Vincent and Viola Wagatha, her brother Tom Wagatha, her sister Kathy Hurlburt, and her twin sons, Peter Vincent and Thomas Vaughn Wallus.

She is survived by her beloved husband of 51 years, Jonathan Wallus; her three siblings: Gary (Jen) Wagatha, Jim (Candy) Wagatha, and John (Marina) Wagatha; her four children: Sarah Wallus Hancock (Randy Hancock), Jonathan Wallus (Rhonda Roberts), Erin Wallus (Dan Favre), and Meredith Wallus (Jess Gunnell), as well as her three grandchildren: Randolph, Archer, and Lavender Hancock. 

Her legacy of love, laughter, and learning lives on through her family and the many lives she touched throughout the years.

A Celebration of Life will be held in Michigan at a later date.

Contributions in lieu of flowers can be made in memory of Susan Wallus to BJC Hospice & Home Care Fund at https://www.bjchospice.org/Donate.