Susan Anita Mackey Hogue

Susan was diagnosed with inoperable glioblastoma in November 2022. This aggressive and voracious brain cancer has no cure. It took her life barely two months after diagnosis.

At Susan’s request there will be no visitation, no viewing, and no formal funeral service. Instead, she wanted a joyful party to celebrate her time together with so many people she loved and admired, and who loved and admired her in return.

We’ll open the doors to all who want to celebrate at The Market at 701 Whaley, Columbia, SC on Saturday, February 25, 4:00-7:00pm. Come enjoy a retrospective exhibition of some of her most representative work over 45 years of artistic production. Hors d'oeuvres, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages will be served. February 28th would have been her 77th birthday, so we’ll raise a toast. We invite all members of her tribe to join us. Come as you are and stay for as long as you choose. Bill Hogue will make a few short comments and invite others to do the same if they wish, but we’ll keep it brief. Susan hated long-winded speeches!

To help us calibrate food and drink, please RSVP to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/susans-farewell-celebration-tickets-514588858127 . If someone forgets to RSVP, bring them along anyway. Gathering us together in celebration as a community will be Magnolia’s final gift to us, and your joyful presence will be your final gift to her.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to The Mackey-Hogue Endowed Scholarship Fund, established by Susan and Bill at the University of South Carolina several years ago to support academically talented students majoring within the Arts programs who have financial need (https://donate.sc.edu/Mackey-HogueScholarship). Or, to Harvest Hope Food Bank to help feed our hungry neighbors (https://give.HarvestHope.org ).

Magnolia is survived by her children, Alison Hogue (Kent Gordon) and Nathan Hogue (Courtney Brasseur Hogue) and their sons, Jake and Luke; her brother, Richard Mackey; and her husband, Bill Hogue, all of Columbia, SC. There are many nieces and nephews, in-laws and out-laws, and dear friends too numerous to mention who all felt that they were special in her eyes because, in fact, all of them were. She was fiercely loyal and totally devoted to the members of her clan.

She was preceded in death by sweet young son Jake, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1983. She was also preceded in death by her parents, Harold and Leslie Mackey; sister Judie Francis; and brother Harold “Mick” Mackey.

This is our final love letter to a person we adored. Like most love letters it is biased and blind, filled with sweet sentiments. Susan would be tossing the “what really happened” replay flag right about now, insisting that we not portray her as a saint. We will allow that she had plenty of contradictory impulses, like every human being. But that’s all we have to say about that!

Susan was born and came of age as an Army brat. She was a proud patriot who loved her country. As a young girl living in military housing in post-war Germany and Italy she saw first-hand the devastation of war and lived with the terror of more death and destruction when the Soviets invaded Hungary and US forces mobilized to defend Europe.

Magnolia and her friends worried their parents endlessly. Their growing beauty was a distraction and attraction on military bases full of lonely GIs. And there is a famous picture of Susan raising a stein of beer and smoking a cigarette at a German gasthaus. She was all of 14 years old at the time and already pushing against convention.

She graduated from high school in Columbia and discovered the awesome healing power and beauty of South Carolina’s beaches. It was there she returned for the remainder of her days, in times of joy and times of sorrow, to link her spirit to her higher power and eternal life.

She wasn’t expected to go to college, but she became the first in her family to earn a degree, graduating as salutatorian of her university class. She became a social worker at Fort Jackson, SC working with soldiers and their dependents who had substance abuse issues. She later taught psychology at Midlands Technical College. She had special gifts that allowed her to connect with people where they were, and was chosen social science teacher of the year by her students. Throughout her career she was drawn to students trying to overcome low expectations and difficult circumstances, and they were drawn to her.

Susan was a loving Mom to her children and loving Mimi to her grandsons. She embraced them with every fiber of her being, and they cherished her in return. She was a soulmate and co-conspirator for 49 years with her husband, who clearly adored her. She mostly adored him, too, though she occasionally reminded him when he was out of line that he was her favorite husband so far. Her dearest friends were held as close to her heart as family.

She believed food was love and was a legendary talent in the kitchen who could throw together five random ingredients from the refrigerator and make a meal to remember. She was an intuitive cook who had little patience for measuring ingredients and adhering to precise baking times, so her cakes were memorable mostly for how often she used frosting as spackling to keep them from falling apart.

Magnolia fought against the pull of madness when son Jake died in 1983. She understood better than most the layers of meaning in Emily Dickinson’s opening line: Much Madness is divinest Sense – To a discerning Eye. But she also came to believe what Ernest Hemingway wrote: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Magnolia grew strong at the broken places, if only to continue to love and serve surviving son Nathan and daughter Alison. And Magnolia’s brush with madness led her to a profoundly divine period of creativity over the next quarter century.

Her primary medium was photography, though she also mastered book art and became an estimable documentarian and videographer whose work with her students was shown at film festivals in Greece, Toronto, New York City, Hawaii, New Orleans, and several other locations in the continental US.

In 1984, she published a photo in Newsweek on poverty in America during Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign. Two years later, while working at Harvard, she fearlessly walked into the office of renowned behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner and charmed him into hiring her as his personal photographer. They became fast friends. That led to several other assignments, including a book jacket photo for two-time Pulitzer Prize winning psychiatrist Robert Coles. She did portraits of MIT’s Doc Egerton, known as Papa Flash for his perfection of high-speed stroboscopic photography and invention of deep-water cameras for explorer Jacques Cousteau. For the next three years she became the portrait artist of choice for a bevy of notable Cambridge intellectuals.

Magnolia worked in academic support and teaching positions at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of Wisconsin (Eau Claire), Mass College of Art, and the University of South Carolina, where she founded the Southeastern Association of Book Artists.

She once said about her photography that she waited intently for that moment in time when she became the subject, and the subject became her. Then she captured an image. She brought that intense focus to her relationships, too. Beyond her artistic gifts, she was a compelling teacher, a generous mentor, and a role model for thousands of students and colleagues over her career.

A friend wrote: Susan was fascinating and filled to the brim with ideas, energy, creativity (of course!), determination, curiosity, and a warm and embracing love for her family. It didn't hurt either that she was… a well-spoken equal justice advocate. After Susan passed, one of her nieces summed it up beautifully: I awoke this morning and realized I liked the world better with Susan in it.

In her final decade, Magnolia faced cancer three times. True to form, she joined Cancer Connect, a national online support group. When her online friends learned of her terminal diagnosis, there was an outpouring of grief, support, and gratitude. She was an inspiration, they said, a warm and caring cheerleader who was filled with wisdom, wrote memorable prose, and served as a powerful example of resilience and perseverance.

During her final weeks of life, as tumors destroyed her ability to remember and reason, Magnolia left behind the complexities of our world and entered a gently hallucinatory world of her own creation, filled with artists with lively spirits and dynamic personalities. The first person who came to live in Magnolia’s imaginary home was Uhonia Labonia, a young German woman with blond hair and exquisite color sense, who created delicate vases in shades of pink. She also made delectable sandwiches. She was followed by Queen Mave and her friendly dogs. Japingo and Saccoretto showed up, a lovely couple from an artists’ collective that had taken up residence in our home. When not creating beautiful pastels and oils, they and the other artists wandered the streets hand-in-hand singing songs to all who lived in the neighborhood. And Magnolia was thrilled when a favorite actor she conjured, Scrod Van der Ross, arrived on the scene to join the collective. Magnolia wandered, but she was not lost. She felt comforted and loved and secure in the presence of all the spirits she had created.

Even as she lay dying, Magnolia radiated gentle serenity and grace. She left us feeling we’d borne witness to a gifted actor who gave brilliant performances for a lifetime. We imagined – we hoped - the curtain calls and standing ovations would never cease. She left us wishing for more, and that’s a sure sign of a life well-lived. But she is at peace, and so are we. Godspeed, Sweet Magnolia.