Susan Tefft

SUSAN TEFFT

Easthampton, MA - Susan Kathleen Tefft died peacefully Wednesday morning, November 13, at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Her family was with her in her last days and the exquisite care she received was a true gift and balm to all our spirits.

Susan was born in Columbus Ohio January 19, 1946, to the late Kathleen Franks Tefft and Phillip Tefft. An artist and creative spirit throughout her life, Susan deeply valued her loving relationships and friendships that sustained her to the end.

Susan received her Bachelors of Arts degree in Art History from the University of Wisconsin, with a year abroad living in Paris. She attended the Sorbonne and reveled in her inspirational travels to Austria and Russia. Susan lived and worked in Boston for a few years before establishing herself in western Massachusetts, receiving a Masters Degree in Art Education. While focusing on her artwork, she also earned a Masters Degree in Social Work from Smith College enabling her to practice as a psychotherapist. She loved the work.

Susan was so very kind spirited and committed to helping others and so many have benefited from her experience and practice as a skilled psychotherapist over the years. Generous with her empathy and open listening skills, she assisted clients from the outset of her career through her very final weeks.

We are reminded of Susan's ever present sweet, sensitive character and her expressive and creative nature so evident in her thousands of drawings, pictures, and paintings collected in her Eastworks studio in Easthampton – so deeply expressive and playful, an amazing inspiration to pass on to others. We are exploring means to enable Susan's legacy to live on and be shared - particularly with young students of the arts.

Susan will be deeply missed by her sister Melissa Tefft and husband Thomas Matuszko, and her dear brother, Phillip Tefft and his family, Victoria (Vicci) Ward and their daughter Tegan Ward Tefft, who follows in her aunts' footsteps of creativity in the arts. She leaves behind also her nephew Andrew Young and his wife Diane Davis, and children Alex and Katie, Allison and Robert.

We hope you join us in remembering Susan fondly. She will be sorely missed by so many, but her gentle, kind and quirky creative spirit and inspiration will certainly live on. There will be a celebration of her life at a later date in January.

If you would like to contribute in honor of Susan's memory, please donate to Dana Farber Hospital in Boston MA, or the charity you most cherish. May the spirits of our loved ones live on in our thoughts, our hearts, and our engagement in this world.

Please go to Czelusniakfuneralhome.com for online condolences and tribute book.