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By Brent Hoffmann,  Class of 2005

“We were doing a medical survey during a polio outbreak in Senegal in West Africa,” said Susan. “The village chief welcomed our team, then handed me a live chicken. This was a very generous honor because his villagers were poor and had little meat to eat. Technically, we couldn’t accept gifts, but it would have been an insult to give it back. So, I had to ride for hours to the next survey site with the frightened, squawking hen in my lap. Luckily, the wife of the chief in the next village taught us how to prepare our gift in an iron-pot dinner, which we happily ate with her family.

“I was an epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations,” she continued. “Until COVID, few people knew what that job entailed. My job took me to more than 40 countries around the world, including many of those in Africa. My work was to assist the ministries of health to organize and conduct research on pediatric infectious diseases.

“Although most of my epidemiology travels were to low-income countries, I found many places rich in kindness to visitors. They shared food and their cultures. Most every county has proud traditions and wants the visitor to experience them,” she said. “In Oman, a study site visit took us to a small clinic in a remote village beside the Indian Ocean. That evening, we watched sea turtles nesting in the sand. On subsequent trips, we saw the clinic staff help young turtle hatchlings make their way to the ocean. In South India, our research collaborators took us to their families’ Hindu temple for a blessing with incense, candles, and prayers. It was stunning to hear that the family had worshipped there for more than 1,000 years.”

Medicine, then the Arts
Susan graduated from Northwestern University with a B.A. in art history. “I kept my love of art history on hold while I pursued a career in medical epidemiology,” said Susan. She earned her M.D. at the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel University). As payback for her full scholarship from the U.S. Navy, she served as a medical officer for the next four years. After Navy duty, she completed a two-year fellowship in public health at Harvard University, followed by epidemiology training at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. She worked at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1988 to 2006.

“After retiring to Chicago, I resolved to enjoy its arts, culture, and educational resources,” she explained. She enrolled in the museum studies program at the University of Chicago. Further explorations of the city led her to volunteer with CAF (class of 2009) and Glessner House (class of 2017). And the pandemic has led to online, virtual learning options at the Art Deco societies of Chicago and New York; Smithsonian Associates in Washington D.C.; and Cranbrook Academy in Michigan as well as our own CAC.

“The Pedway Tour is a favorite because it provides an inside-out perspective on downtown Chicago with many unusual viewpoints,” she continued. “Thanks to the Loop and Riverfront Art Deco tours, I learned to appreciate the great sleek decorated beauty of many of Chicago’s 1920s and ‘30s buildings. On my phone, I keep an album of the best deco buildings I’ve visited in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and overseas.

“On the Historic Treasures tours to the Chicago Cultural Center on a Saturday or Sunday, I’ve often encountered wedding parties. One time, a Pakistani couple dressed in colorful wedding finery asked our tour group to join their party in a wedding photo. I asked my group to vote, they all answered ‘yes’ and everyone was enchanted.”

Museums Less Visited
When traveling, Susan and husband Brent often look for the less visited but worthwhile museums. “When the lines were too long to tour the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,” she explained, “I found several small museums easily accessible from the Hampstead tube station on the Northern Line. The Freud Museum, where Sigmund Freud moved in 1938, features the psychoanalyst’s original couch covered with a Persian carpet. The house also includes Freud’s vast collection of ancient figurines and talismans from Rome, Greece, Asia, and the Middle East.”

Also worthwhile in Hampstead was a tour of 2 Willow Road, the house and studio of Erno Goldfinger, the modernist architect who may have inspired the name of the villain in a James Bond movie.

“But you don’t have to travel abroad to find interesting small museums,” she insisted. “Close to home, a tour organized by the Chicago History Museum took us to the Sabeel Center in Des Plaines. We were treated to a tasty Islamic halal lunch, then toured an exhibit of Muslim art, architecture, music, and design from around the world. I was particularly impressed by a booth displaying colorful fabrics and timeless fashions like those I’d seen in Senegal.”

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