After a long vivacious life of dogs, birds, children, beaches, music, books, journalism,, mountains, oceans, deserts, sisterhood, yoga, social justice, blue jeans, colorful scarves, petuli, musk, weed, good food and laughter and laughter and laughter and oooohing and ahhhhing, Susan Hershey died peacefully in her sleep on January 3, 2023.

Susan was a potter and founder of Pigeon Hill Pottery in Rockport, Massachusetts. Her annual summer parties, at her house on top of Pigeon Hill, were legendary. The firing of a wood kiln built by her and her friends would last all night long. Friends and family stayed up reading poetry, playing music, telling stories, eating yummy food and tending the kiln. Susan was part of a thriving and loving Cape Ann community of potters, artists and social justice advocates, strong women and good men.

Susan’s passion for making a better world found an outlet when she taught life-skills to adults at North Shore Community College and at Wellspring House in Gloucester where where she taught writing to unemployed low-income women seeking to get back into the workforce. When elections came around you could find Susan volunteering at the local Democratic headquarters. Susan was a member of the Rocky Neck Art Gallery in Gloucester where she sold her beautiful pottery.

Susan was born on August 28, 1939 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She grew up a self-described “army brat” in Rockport, Paris, Florida and Providence, Rhode Island. Her father, Samuel Hershey was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, a painter and a professor of design and Dean of Students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Susan’s mother, Eleanor Hershey, was a gardener and bird watcher.

Susan graduated from Classical High School in Providence, which she loved. She was in the theater club, French club, and acapella choir. In her high school yearbook she is repeatedly described as vivacious and peppy.

After high school Susan attended Boston University in the same class as Joan Baez. She acted in the BU Theater where she met Howard Webb, while he was directing a play in which she had a part. The two fell in love, left college, got married and moved to Rockport where they opened a book and card store on Bearskin Neck in Rockport called The Spider Web.

Susan and Howard divorced in 1964 and Susan, at age 25, became a single Mom at a time before that was common. While raising her two kids, David and Landis, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Susan worked as an administrative assistant at Harvard’s Department of Foreign Languages, Justin Gray Associates (an architecture firm), the Cambridge Model Cities program and Harvard’s Graduate School of Landscape Architecture. Like single working mothers everywhere, after working 9-5pm she’d come home and make dinner for her kids. She instilled in her kids a love of nature and art and animals and music.

Susan’s record collection included Nina Simone, Jacques Brel, B.B. King, Tchaikovsky, Tom Lehrer, Rolling Stones, Oliver soundtrack, Rolling Stones, Ralph Stanley, Patrick Sky, Youngbloods, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Brandenburg Concertos, Tony Bird, Beatles, Mississippi John Hurt, Taj Majal, Jerry Lee Lewis, and so much more.

After her kids grew up and moved out, Susan realized a lifelong dream and attended Goddard College in Cambridge, obtaining a Masters Degree in Theater Arts. She went on to teach photography at Cambridge High and Latin high school and to be a reporter and editor at the Watertown Sun, Ipswich Chronicle, Winchester Star, Lynn Sunday Post, Swampscott Reporter and other papers.

Susan loved her family, her friends and her dogs: Peach, Bono, Sophie, Cloud, Tula and Barney, to name just a few, of the dogs. She was quirky, rebellious, passionate, compassionate, artistic, curious, opinionated, joyful. Susan was an original.

After leaving her hilltop home and moving into town in 2016, she cherished her morning trips to Brother’s Brew and breakfasts with her friends at Nate’s, overlooking Front Beach.

In August 2021, Susan took a fall and sustained a head injury from which she never recovered. She received great care and love at the Nemasket Health Center in Middleborough, Massachusetts.

Susan is survived by her children, David Hershey-Webb of New York City and Landis Hershey of North Attleboro, Massachusetts, her grandchildren Nathan Hershey, Hana Hershey, Lilly Hershey-Webb and Lydia Hershey, her sister and brother-in-law, Deborah and Ross Rulli, niece and nephews Rebecca Sly, Sam Rulli, Caleb Rulli, daughter-in-law Amy Hershey-Webb and so many loving friends.

The family plans to have a memorial service in the Spring in Rockport.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made in Susan’s name to Wellspring House (www.wellspringhouse.org)

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