Michelle J. Sucsy, who had cancer for almost 12 years, died peacefully at home in Springs on Oct. 3. She was attended in her final days by her husband of 34 years, Mark C. Sucsy, her younger daughter, Kestral Anne Sucsy, and her longtime friend Mary Ellen Von Anken of Greenport and Manhattan. She was 71.
Mrs. Sucsy served East Hampton’s youth as a teacher assistant in the middle school for many years, retiring in 2015 after running the school’s computer lab for her final few years.
She “had a deep, inquisitive, and fun-loving nature,” not to mention “a creative talent,” her husband wrote. “She thoroughly enjoyed chatting it up with her close friends and family and watching her grandchildren grow until the very end.”
Mrs. Sucsy was born to Lincoln Jewett and the former Olive King on Aug. 25, 1948, at Southampton Hospital. She grew up in Springs.
She had fond memories of riding her horse to school as a child and sailing adventures with her family on her father’s sailboat, the Kittyhawk. She had a lifelong love of Springs, her husband said, and continued to live on the property where she had grown up.
The couple enjoyed traveling together. Mr. Sucsy also worked in the schools, ultimately as a physical education teacher for the East Hampton School District. Because they both had summers off, each year they would “pack up everything — the horses, the goats, the girls’ rabbits — and leave for the summer and come back to teach,” he recalled. The destinations were often Blue Hill, Me., where his father lived, or Newfane, Vt., where his mother lived. In addition to her husband and younger daughter, who lives in Middleburgh, N.Y., Mrs. Sucsy is survived by a son, Richard (Bunky) File of Newark, Del., her daughter Marielle Ingram of Olivebridge, N.Y., and her mother, who lives in Springs. She also leaves two grandchildren, Morgan Grace and Lincoln George Ingram, and two brothers, Fred Jewett and Chris Jewett of Springs.
A celebration of her life is planned for the spring.