Susan Bassler Pickford

Susan Bassler Pickford (82) of Portland, ME, died on February 10, 2024, after a short illness. Born on October 18, 1941, in Butler, PA, Susan was the daughter of Sherman and Ethel Kerr Bassler. After graduating from Red Bank Catholic High School in 1959, Susan entered the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk convent in Blue Point, NY. She graduated from St. John’s University in 1965 and left the convent three years later. She continued her education at Monmouth College, NJ, earning a Master of Arts in Teaching in English in 1973. She taught English for four years at her alma mater, then married Richard Pickford and moved to Chelmsford, MA, where she raised her two sons, Richard and John. Susan continued to teach at Keith Catholic High School in Lowell, MA. In the 1980s, she successfully organized KCTA, the first Catholic school teachers’ union outside of Boston. In 1982, she became the founding President of the Merrimack Valley Branch of the National League of American Pen Women. She earned a Master of Education in ESL from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1992 and began teaching Cambodian children in the Lowell Public Schools. During this time, Susan began SBP Collaboration Works to publish her children’s stories. These and other writing can be found on Amazon.com. Susan was awarded a Certificate of Advanced Study from Harvard University in 1993. Her memoir Removing the Habit of God was published in 2012. After retirement, Susan moved to Portland, ME, and continued to summer at Wadleigh Pond in Lyman, ME. In 2001, Susan joined the University of New England as an adjunct faculty member and taught for ten years. An amateur genealogist, Susan traced her ancestry to Thomas Sherman, a Revolutionary soldier, and joined the Portland chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in 2008. She was fond of the Senior Players of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine and was a member for over a decade. Susan loved her family and friends, teaching, writing, playing her mother’s Steinway, putting up jars of jelly, and gardening. Susan is predeceased by her husband, Richard (1938 - 2015). She is survived by her two sons, Richard of Portland, ME, John and his wife Lisa of Brunswick, ME; two grandchildren, Lucy and Charles; and her brother, the Honorable William G. Bassler of Red Bank, NJ. In lieu of flowers, Susan asks you to kiss a child, smell a flower, and watch a sunrise.

Susan Bassler Pickford

October 18, 1941 - February 10, 2024

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