After a full life of joy, beauty, and struggle, Susanne Elisabeth Kemp Misner passed away on Sept. 1, 2019, at her home and surrounded by family.
Susanne was born on March 18, 1933 in Hellerup, Denmark, the daughter of Frithjof Gudmund Kemp and his wife Elisabeth (née Lorck). After meeting her beloved Charlie, they married in 1959 and moved to America, where she became a citizen in 1976 and where she raised her four children in Maryland during the academic year and in Maine during the summers.
Indeed she had the good fortune and fortitude this year to enjoy her annual stay in McFarland’s Cove, where she tended her garden and entertained visitors on the porch overlooking Johns Bay.
Susanne was famous for her energy, her dinner parties, her good taste, her love of art and culture, her love of gardening, her love of languages, and her love of travel. Her friends enjoyed these wide ranging interests as well as Susanne’s knack for speaking her mind. All of this was on display at home every day and put to good use during her years working in the Nordic-Baltic office of the World Bank.
She is survived by her husband, the physicist Charles W. Misner; her daughter, Benedicte; her sons, Francis, Timothy and Christopher; her grandchildren, Priya, Kiran, Tilak, Roman and Avery; her daughters-in-law, Maya Srinivasan and Crystal Hayling; her nieces, Mimi and Stine Bang; her nephew, Peter Bang and the seven children of the Bang families. She was predeceased by her younger sisters, Benedicte Bang and Marianne Kemp.
There will be a memorial service next summer in South Bristol.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations in her name to the Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust (coastalrivers.org).
