After graduating from Huntington High, I attended Colby College in New London New Hampshire, fully intending to complete my college years at a four year institution. However, Elaine Staber Steward needed a roommate and lured me into New York City in the summer of 1958, where I landed a job at Conover Mast Publications and began the "party life" of two young ladies on the east side of Manhattan. Glorious years!

It was during this year that I met my future husband, Mike Lanham, through Elaine. He was Robert Badeer's roommate at Princeton and we began a 2 year relationship that culminated in our marriage in Huntington in 1960. Mike had planned to enter medical school in Southern California that fall-- however we postponed his admission to spend a year working in the city to gather a few dollars for medical school.

In the fall of 1961 we moved to Southern California where he attended USC Medical School, and I obtained my first "honest" degree, my P.H.T. (Putting Hubby Through). I worked at a variety of jobs during those days, mostly in the medical field.
In 1966, following Mike's completion of his internship, we moved to El Reno, Oklahoma, where he served as the Chief Medical Officer of a federal prison. Our daughter Christe was born in 1965 and our son, Mike Jr. in 1967.
Following this we moved to Santa Barbara, California for Mike's surgical residency years and wound up spending 23 years there, raising our family. When Mike went into solo practice in 1975, I took over his office and we worked side-by-side for the next 16 years. In 1976, I had a "surprise" baby, but she had severe congenital heart disease and passed away in 1977. Since I had started to raise another child, we decided to adopt an infant and Tim came into our lives in 1978.

Santa Barbara were the "glory years" as I participated not only in helping build Mike's practice, but in a variety of social and charitable functions in the community and raised the children. Following a severe health problem in 1991, Mike retired from the practice (retiring me with him) and we moved to Grand Junction, Colorado where we currently live. It is a wonderful small community and I have been busy with a variety of volunteer activities, and working in our lovely garden. Our only tragedy here was that our son Tim, who always "marched to a different drummer" was shot and killed while out with some friends in July of 1998. However, he left us with Jordyn, a beautiful granddaughter that is the light of our life.
My daughter and her husband are professional school photographers in Santa Barbara, and my son and his wife are both accountants in Redwood City, in the bay area of California, and just 6 weeks ago presented me with my 2nd granddaughter, Alexandra.

It has been an eventful 42 years and someone once said, if you have no valleys, you will have no mountains. Been to both !!!

Susan Macfarlane Lanham

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