Susan Keeny Nelson

Susan Keeny Nelson (nee Eberly) was born November 13, 1940, to Mary Keeny Eberly and Norman McKinley Eberly in Carlisle, PA, where her mother was a homemaker and her father was a journalist. Susan died August 5, 2023, attended by family and friends, and is survived by her husband of 51 years, Warren Louis Nelson, of Arlington, VA. She is also survived by her brother Joseph Eberly (Shirley), sister Mary Evans, nephew Edward Evans, nieces Rebecca Manning (Trisha Goetz), Virginia Harvey (Michael), Lynn Eberly (Andy Scherrer), and many other loving family members, friends, and neighbors. Susan graduated from State College High School in Pennsylvania in 1958 and then from Penn State in 1962 with a degree in Liberal Arts, having been Assistant Professional and Training Director of the Penn State Collegian newspaper. After several years working for the state of Pennsylvania, the US Census Bureau, and the American Friends Service Committee (the charitable arm of the Quaker community), Susan was hired by Doubleday in Washington, DC, to arrange local interviews and appearances with nationally touring authors and to filter unsolicited manuscripts before sending the best on to the New York office. She met Warren through a mutual acquaintance in 1969; they married in 1972 in the Quaker Meeting House of Harrisburg, PA, the wedding having been postponed for a week because of flooding in the Susquehanna River from Hurricane Agnes. Susan was recruited away from Doubleday to work for the burgeoning newsletter industry in 1982, specifically as a DC correspondent for a newsletter that was reporting on the Iranian American Claims Tribunal. Her later career included writing for newsletters on the US energy industry. After retirement, Susan was active in her neighborhood and in volunteering, including as docent for the National Building Museum, through several roles with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club including service on its Executive Council, and with the Washington Friends Meeting. All through the years, she devoted considerable time to her floral and vegetable garden. Donations to either the American Friends Service Committee or the International Rescue Committee preferred in lieu of flowers. Plant some brown-eyed Susans in her memory.