Susan DeSmet

Susan DeSmet passed away on March 2, 2025 at the age of 81. Born on February 3, 1944 in Denver, Colorado, Susie was a proud Colorado native who loved the mountains, art and music, her garden and her dogs, her family and friends. She was raised by her mother, Virginia, an army nurse, and her Aunt Lillian, a homemaker. From Lillian, she learned kindness, generosity, and the art of cooking as service to friends and neighbors. From Virginia, she learned common sense, the art of card playing, the care and keeping of beautiful roses, and a great many jokes that would be inappropriate to include here. 

In 1966, she earned a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the same year, she married her first husband, Tim Keck. Their first daughter, Kristen, died at birth; they welcomed their second daughter, Krista, in 1971. While Tim was on a Fulbright Fellowship in Hamburg, Germany, Susie embraced motherhood, standing out with her two long, red braids and a baby in a sling on her back. Not long after their return to the US, she and Tim divorced. 

In Denver, Susie soon met her second husband and companion of the last 48 years, Donald DeSmet, and she became a loving stepmother to three sons, Craig, Dale, and Bryan. She and Don enjoyed traveling, from Glacier Park to Mexico City, San Francisco to Niagara Falls. Susie traveled with Krista to Chaco Canyon, instilling in her a love of the expansiveness of the American West and the history of its people. They visited her brother, Paul, and his wife, Linda, in Moab, Utah, where she climbed slick-rock trails, rafted down the Colorado River, and delighted in spotting bighorn sheep along the river. They often visited Don’s family at his mother’s home in Larchwood, Iowa. 

Susie taught middle school art and language arts for thirty years, making her, as she liked to say, both “a saint and a glutton for punishment.” In 1983, while teaching, she earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Denver. As retirement approached, she earned certification in paleontology from the Denver Museum of Natural History. After moving to Canon City, she volunteered at the Dinosaur Depot museum and enjoyed sharing her love of all things dinosaur with grandchildren Dani, Aidan, and Dana Mays, and Ticia DeSmet. She found a renewed interest in pottery, and she explored local and natural pottery techniques, harvesting the clay from the earth, crafting and firing it in the old way. From symbols to stories, she took great care to honor the artistic traditions of native peoples in her storyteller dolls and in her pottery. Susie enjoyed accompanying Don to car club gatherings and car shows. There and elsewhere in Canon, they met the many dear friends and neighbors who now surround Don with the loving care that she gave him those many years. 

She is survived by her husband, Donald DeSmet, her brother, Paul Seibert, her daughter, Krista Mays (Dan), stepsons Craig DeSmet, Dale DeSmet (Jacqui), and Bryan DeSmet (Judy), four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. A celebration of Susie’s life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her honor to the New Horizons Ministries. 

Her laughter and her loveliness will live on in the hearts of all those who loved her. She asked that we remember her in the yellow flashes of birds in flight.

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