On paper, Susie Messer had one child and two grandchildren but in reality, she was a mother to so many others, and “Nana” to even more.
Susan D. Cochran was, to her surprise, born in Nevada, Missouri (Vernon County) on September 19, 1946, to Floyd and Frances Cochran (nee LaGuire). In her early years, she made a deal with God that, if He’d get her out of Nevada, she promised never to go back. For the 77 years of her life, she upheld that promise to the point that she expressed displeasure when traveling through a corner of Missouri on her way to a new home in Kentucky. She didn’t want the Almighty to think that she’d reneged on their agreement.
After some moving around, living in Des Moines, Iowa for a short time and spending some time in Oregon, her family found themselves in Yakima, Washington. Yakima would remain her home for forty-odd years where she grew up, went to school, and raised just a little bit of hell. She often reminisced about wild high school weekends at Moses Lake, and it was there that she accidentally sank a Jeep. Fortunately, the beer cooler floated and they had refreshments on hand while waiting for her father. Floyd, known to almost everyone as Chub, owned Chub’s 10th Avenue Service, a gas, towing, and service station located at 10th and Yakima Avenue. He arrived with his tow truck, recovered the Jeep, got it running, and stayed for a beer before eventually heading back to town. That’s just one of the many stories I could tell you about her, though it’s one of the few I’m allowed to share.
In the closing months of 1974, she met Robert Messer, and he fell head over heels for her. So much so that he proposed to her on the first date. Susie, not one to recklessly run into such a commitment, needed some time to think about it — which is why she didn’t accept his proposal until the second date. Her family thought she was crazy; her friends likely thought the same. And yet, Bob and Susie remained married for almost 50 years. They were known in all of their communities as the couple who was always together.
On the final day of August 1976, Susie gave birth to her son. There was some confusion surrounding the arrival because all pre-delivery evidence pointed to the upcoming birth of a girl, prompting the selection of the name Daniele Lorraine. Thinking quickly, the mother and father rearranged some letters and named the boy Daniel Loran Messer.
During her life, Susie spent 26 years working in banks all over Yakima. She joked that, thanks to acquisitions and mergers in the banking industry during the 1980s and 1990s, she’d somehow worked for every bank in town. After two and a half decades of banking she realized that she didn’t like it anymore and went looking for other things to do. She worked in fine jewelry for a while, but she found so much laughter and excitement from her days literally wheeling and dealing at used car lots. Susie sold everything from Volkswagens to Cadillacs. Her dad, a lifelong mechanic, would’ve loved the fact that she was working with cars.
In the meantime, Susie and Bob took on the role of foster parents, inviting so many children into their home where they could give them love, structure, and help them get a start on the rest of their lives. It was around this time Susie and Bob transformed into Nana and Papa, something that was solidified a few years later by the arrival of her biological grandchildren and the surrogate grandchildren from family friends who were more family than friends. As they got older, Susie and Bob were everyone’s grandparents.
After over 40 years in Yakima, they followed their son to Arizona, where they lived for six years in San Tan Valley. When their son’s family found work in south central Kentucky, Susie and Bob followed a few months later. Family was everything to her, and though Susie didn’t like moving, she’d walk through fire for her family. So, moving was merely an inconvenience and she always had her family beside her. She spent a few years in Russellville and then Alvaton, Kentucky where she lived at the edge of rurality. She delighted in the wildlife in the backyard, and she’d call her husband in to see the rabbits, deer, groundhogs, and turkeys moving around on the lawn and in the trees beyond.
On July 22, 2024, we didn’t just lose a mother and a beloved wife. We lost Nana, and so many other people lost their Nana too. We lost a woman who played piano, shot guns, drove sports cars, collected Japanese dolls, and she enjoyed good margaritas and cheap beer. She loved her friends and family more than anything else. She was preceded in death by her parents and her brother Max. She is survived by her husband Robert, son Daniel, Daniel’s wife Catherine, two grandchildren, Iain and Raena, and a large host of others for whom she was a second mother or grandmother. While it’s cliche to say that someone is “gone but never forgotten,” I can’t think of any better way to dedicate her memory.
Susie didn’t want a lavish funeral, only requesting that we play I’ll Never Find Another You by The Seekers at whatever gathering we held. There will be a celebration of life in the early autumn, but for now, we ask that you play the song in her honor and remember her with us. Her love traveled with us, and ours goes on to you.
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I’ll never find another you
The Seekers, 1965