Susan Vileta (Collins) Butcher was born June 16, 1937 at Wesley Hospital in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to James Howard Collins and Louise Sophia (Lang) Collins. They moved to Daytona Beach, Florida with her older sister Carolyn Louise Collins for most of Susan’s childhood before moving to Geary, Oklahoma, west of Oklahoma City, where she attended and graduated from Geary High School in the class of 1955.
After high school, she went through nursing training and worked as a nursing aid while living at the Oklahoma City YWCA before beginning college at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, like her father had. While there, she was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority and OU Girls Judo Club before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in French in 1961. She continued on in a Master’s program in English, though she did not complete it.
While attending the University of Oklahoma, she met Donald (Don) Perry Butcher, an architecture student from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who graduated in 1962. The two were married at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Norman on April 20, 1963. They moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1965 after Don received his architectural license, where Susan taught English full-time and as a substitute teacher for the Tulsa Public School system before beginning a family in 1969.
She loved classical and country & western music and learned and practiced the piano for many years, though somewhat sporadically. Susan and Don loved the arts, especially western art at local Oklahoma museums and performance art such as the musicals, Oklahoma! and the Trail of Tears pageant, performed at outdoor amphitheaters in Northeastern Oklahoma. They loved the outdoors, and over the years, made memories backpacking, canoeing, camping, boating, gardening, and hiking, including being members of the Tulsa Camping and Canoe Club. This led to a habit of exercise walking that Susan continued into her seventies. Don had a pilot’s license and Susan trained toward earning her license also; the couple made some cross-country trips via private plane, including visiting her parents after they moved to Lake Mary, Florida.
However, there was nothing Susan loved more than being a mother to the two sons they had, Eric and Gregory (Greg), six years apart, both of whom graduated from Jenks High School and followed their parents’ legacy of attending OU. She was immensely proud of both of her sons’ accomplishments, including Eric becoming a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Greg serving a career as an officer in the Marine Corps.
Although Susan and Don separated in 1987 and divorced in 1991, they remained friendly. After Greg started college in 1993, Susan went back to education and taught for the Tulsa, Jenks, Union, and Broken Arrow school districts until she retired in December 2011, where she impacted the lives of hundreds of young Oklahomans.
She loved travel, though she didn’t do so as often as she would have liked. Trips she made that were noteworthy to her included multiple trips to Colorado and Wyoming in the late 60s and 70s; the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks, and Estes Park, CO with Greg and her mother Louise in 1992; revisiting Estes Park with her mother in 1993; visiting Greg when he was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany in 2009, with side trips to Salzburg, Austria and Paris, France; and with Eric to Quebec, Canada in 2010.
Later in life, she became a volunteer caregiver to her long-time friend and companion, Charles Ketterer, before his passing in 2013. In 2017, after symptoms of Alzheimer’s were noticed, she was moved into assisted living near Eric in Tucson, Arizona, where she lived until she succumbed to the disease and rejoined her heavenly father. Her family is immensely appreciative of the love and care that was shown to her over the years by the staffs at both Brookdale East and Pacifica Senior Living in Tucson.
Susan was preceded in death by her parents James Collins and Louise (Lang) Collins, her sister Carolyn (Collins) Moss, her former husband Donald Butcher, and her beloved Maltese poodle, Danny. She is survived by sons Dr. Eric Butcher of the University of Arizona, 55, of Amado and Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Butcher, USMC (retired), 49, of Murrieta, California; as well as three grandchildren, Sky Butcher, 29, of Tucson, Dakota Butcher, 26, of Tucson, and Kasey Butcher, 24, of West Bend, Wisconsin.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests considering a donation to the Alzheimer's Association at https://www.alz.org/get-involved-now/donate
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