Susan Miles

Susan (Miles) Inchauspe

1946 - 2022

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Susan Miles Inchauspe
March 1946 - March 2022

Susan died last week in Oroville, California, where she had lived for the last eight years. She grew up in Lewiston, Idaho and moved to Oakland California after high school to attend California College of Arts and Crafts. She married for the first time after two years of art school, where she specialized in textile arts and took up weaving. This marriage lasted a few years and after her divorce she moved to Big Sur. On a trip back to Idaho she met a Basque shepherd from southern Idaho and they eventually married. He worked on ranches in eastern Washington, taking sheep into the mountains and living in a caravan for the summers. Susan really enjoined this life and taking care of the animals that produced the fleece she liked to weave into beautiful things. As ranches dispensed with this traditional way of taking care of the sheep, she and Gratien moved into town. In Ellensburg Susan went back to school at Western Washington and completed her degree in library science, with a minor in French. After this second marriage ended she decided to take her language skills to French-speaking Africa, where she got a job working for the US embassy in Togo. Susan moved to Washing DC after Tog, working at the World Bank reading applications from French-speaking African countries. Then it was off to Morocco for a year or two in Rabat. As our mother's health declined she came back to the Lewiston area, buying a house in Clarkston and working in the library there while she kept an eye on our mother. After mom's passing in 1998 she returned to Morocco, this time to Fez. Always curious Susan studied Arabic and Islam while in Fez. She did have some health problems in Fez and eventually decided to move to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco but a part of Spain. There she quickly learned Spanish and worked at the London School in Santa Cruz de Tenerife teaching English to Spanish speakers. Susan loved her life in the Canaries and gained Spanish resident status over the ten years she was there. Unfortunately in 2012 she suffered a massive brain bleed, which she barely survived and which required a year of rehab in Santa Cruz. She reluctantly moved back to California, where her good friend Jani Beckwith agreed to help her resettle. Susan lived pretty independently for six of the last eight years but then severe dementia robbed her of her agency and she lived in care for the last few years of her life. Tracy, the care worker who was with her when she died, said Susan "was stronger than two men". And she was….strong physically for someone so small and very strong willed and determined to live life on her own terms. Susan had an interesting, creative and adventurous life and died just after her 76th birthday.

Photo: Susan Miles Inchauspe and her sister Karen Miles Muntean in 2014, Paradise, California.

2014 Reunion News: No input

2004 Reunion News: No input

30 Year Reunion 1994

Current residence: Clarkston WA
Occupation: Library Tech and French Teacher
Places lived in the last 10 years: Washing DC, Rabat Morocco, Clarkston WA.

20 Year Reunion 1984 No input

10 Year Reunion 1974

Current residence: Lucia Big Sur CA
Occupation: Handweaver
Family: 1 mouse, 1 cat, 10 chickens, 4 goats, various names, ages, and sexes-do they count.
Learning I hope!