Cousin Susan Barnett passed away last year and is remembered in a loving document put together by husband Jim Rech and presumably others. Yesterday, Jim shared the “book” consisting of Susan’s collected Xmas letters and many photos. I always enjoyed receiving annual editions of “Life With Father Wreck” and was one of those that always imagined Jim had a big hand writing. Turns out it was Susan all along.
Susan was one of family members I really wish I’d spent more time with. She was fun, life affirming, interested in others and a positive force. These are rare qualities in our clan, and should be more greatly celebrated.
My earliest real recollection of Susan was meeting her and Jim for dinner with Mom, Dad and Barb at their place in Buckeystown, MD in the late 70’s or early 80’s, at least once and maybe a couple of times. Jim had moved from a career starting with Exxon to work with Marriott in Bethesda. He’d subsequently move on to Red Roof Inns in Portland and then private equity which we never understood but admired. More notably, both he and Susan were fun to be with, sharp, intelligent, willing to go toe to toe with Dad over some topic without getting strident. They were just in the process of adopting Woody at that point, I believe, which is why they’d moved to the house in Buckeystown, which was deep in the wilderness at that point.
I’m not sure where I next saw them but about 10 years later learned that Woody was very eager about baseball cards. I dredged up a few cards from my shoebox and sent some to him. One was a Johnny Bench rookie card that evidently was actually worth something. Susan informed me that I was a god in Woody’s eyes for a while. It spurred me to actually take time to arrange my cards, which I still have in some albums in my office, though I haven’t looked at them since. They are probably worth a fair chunk of change at this point, but I digress…
Sometime (10-15 years) later, Barb and I were on a west coast drive and visited Susan and Jim in at their home in Portland. We went to a lovely dinner with Katie and her new boyfriend, Freydi, whom she subsequently married. Jim shared a story that he felt he got his initial job at Exxon by dropping Dad’s name in his interview, though in his telling it became quite a yarn.
A few years later I found myself in Portland on a business trip and had a free evening. I called Susan out of the blue and asked if I could drop by. I’m sure I was a terrible inconvenience to her and Jim, but we had a very nice evening at their house. I helped grill some salmon that Susan claimed she didn’t know how to cook.
Susan livened up any visit to Florida, particularly Helen’s 80th (?) birthday party. It was always a brighter time when she was there.
Susan did a lot of work on the Goodloe genealogy which exists as a book somewhere. Mom and Dad had a copy but I’m not sure where it ended up (found it!). Within that is the story that our forefathers in Virginia once owned Kunta Kinte for a short time (turns out that’s not quite accurate). I thought that was pretty much the highlight of research into hundreds of years of Goodloe lineage.
Side Note: I admire Jim’s efforts to pull together the Life With Father Wreck book. In his email he alludes to the difficulty of turning these photos and documents into a “book” or format to share. It points again to the need for a better way to manage the digital memories of loved ones. He’s done a fine job with a single pdf. I’m tackling the task in a different way with this journal. Someone will make a fortune figuring out a better way to do it.
Further Note: In Feb. 2019, Leecy Barnett posted this video celebrating Helen Barnett’s 100th birthday. It’s a loving remembrance of Helen and another admirable way to collect photos and memories into a shared medium.
Further note about Joe Barnett, lacking a better place to put it for the moment: Leecy Barnett posted this remembrance of Joe’s participation in D-Day airstrike.
In May of 2023, I unexpectedly received a letter and thumbdrive from Jim Rech. The drive contained a new biography of Susan Rech that Jim compiled, based on recollections, photos and some of Susan’s own writing. In many ways, Jim’s work paralleled my own work with this website. I contacted Jim to share this site and for permission to include links to the biography, which he granted. He also put me in touch with Bill Barnett whom I will soon meet at an August 2023 Washington Nationals game against the Brewers. Ever so slowly, the Barnetts and Duncans may reconnect, picking up the work that Susan more graciously sustained.
Susan Barnett Rech Biography
Introduction and Table of Contents
Her Early Years
Chapter 1 – Mom, Dad and Ancestry
Chapter 4 – Her High School Years
Northwestern University
Chapter 5 – Freshman and Sophomore Years
Our Marriage Before Portland
Chapter 8 – Newport and Athens
Portland
Chapter 15 – PDX – The Early Years
Chapter 17 – Friends Portland Wide
Chapter 19 – Her Many Activities
Chapter 21 – Susan, Woody and Katie
Chapter 23 – Vacations and Travel
Chapter 24 – Dairymens Country Club
Chapter 25 – Life With Father Wreck
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