Susan "Susie" Minnich Carter

Susan "Susie" Minnich Carter, age 82, a devoted mother and kind sweet soul, passed away peacefully in her sleep after a long and graceful journey with Alzheimer's on September 6, 2023, in Tampa, Florida. She was surrounded by her four children, Michael, Wendy, Thomas, and Sarah.

Susie was born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on January 2, 1941, to the late Mary and Fred Minnich. As a Girl Scout, she was a lifetime reader and learner and went on to continue her education at Mt. Holyoke College, Depauw University, and later in life at Florida International University.

Susie loved to travel and spent the early years of her first marriage to David Gelsanliter planning U.S. embassy functions in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Dakar, Senegal, and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. In these various locales, she became fluent in French and Spanish. Her love of language and culture led her to serve as a volunteer onboarding recent non-English speaking immigrants to Philadelphia as part of the University of Pennsylvania's International House Program.

With a keen sense of design and color, Susie put her stamp on the interior of the places she lived. The spaces she created had a sense of spatial clarity while still being dense with collected artifacts, antiques, and pictures of generations of family and friends. A fantastic cook, she and her second husband, Bev Carter, were known for their New Year's Eve celebrations. A highlight of these gatherings was ringing the hefty school bell she had mounted in their yard in Lottsburg, Virginia. Susie spent a lifetime writing letters, keeping in touch with lifelong friends, and connecting with her many cousins whenever there was a shared milestone.

She is preceded in death by her husbands, David and Bev, and her grandson Carter.

Susie leaves behind seven children, Anne, Mary, Michael, Wendy, Thomas, Bev, and Sarah; nine beloved grandchildren, John, Ashley, Molly, Morgan, Joe, Hill, Henry, Kate, and Elise; and six great-grandchildren, Brooke, Angelo, Adrian, Violet, Alexander, and Andrew to forever cherish her memory.

Services will be announced in the near future.