Susan Lee Wilson, age 79, died peacefully in Eureka, surrounded by loved ones on Thursday, August 28, 2025. She was born on May 31, 1946, as Susan Lee Hicks in Boston, Mass.

Susan is survived by her sister and brother, her three children and her seven grandchildren. She loved being a mother and a grandmother. 

Susan was in the first graduating class of Goldenwest College in Huntington Beach. So very curious about the world, she later attended Chapman College Afloat, sailing to many countries. She fell in love with Northern California and the redwoods while attending Humboldt State University and graduated with a master’s degree in psychology. She knew Humboldt County was the place where she wanted to settle down and have a family.  

She lived in Humboldt County for over 45 years. 

During her youth, she was sent on some high-profile assignments by various companies she worked for. She once worked in Washington DC and wrote a speech about environmental protections for the president. She also worked for JPL and lived in Iran during the fall of the shah. 

She was an avid cinephile, with movies sparking her interest in many different cultures throughout her life. She would become completely infatuated, learning all the wonderful intricacies of these cultures and sharing the newly found knowledge with so much joy. For a time, it was Egypt with the pharaohs and hieroglyphics (she even learned what the hieroglyphics meant). Then it was Italy, followed by her most prolific obsession, India. 

She had such a fierce adoration of Bollywood movies that it led to her not only traveling across India but also writing a Bollywood screenplay of her own! Written in Stone was her passion project, a story about scientists in India who make a huge discovery. It includes everything she loved about the movies she watched: romance, dance, music, science, and a dash of the supernatural. 

One could say that all the things she loved about the movies she watched was an extension of her parents’ interests. Susan had a love of the night sky and science in general, learned from her father, Gordon Hicks. She also had an encyclopedic knowledge of song lyrics, inspired by her mother and song writer Gloria Chadbourne Hicks, who also loved musicals herself. 

She worked as a registered hypnotherapist, administrator of the senior center and an ordained minister, performing many wedding ceremonies in Humboldt County. Even her jobs spoke to her interests! 

In her retirement and most recently, she went on many RV adventures with her beloved companion of several years, Eric Van Duzer, the biggest one being a yearlong, cross country road trip where she experienced Mardi Gras, visited her childhood haunts, and read Grisham novels aloud with her sweetie along the way. 

Susan believed that there is a spirit world that recycles the life energy of those who pass. So, it is fitting that her final wish was for her ashes to be spread by her family on the Mad River, a summer vacation spot she enjoyed going to with her children throughout her life and a peaceful place where she can rest as one with nature and the world.