Susie Ione Brown, from the 1925 yearbook of Howard University
Born
September 12, 1902
Gray, Louisiana
Died
January 30, 2006 (aged 103)
Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
Occupation(s)
Philanthropist, clubwoman
Susie Ione Brown Waxwood (September 12, 1902 – January 30, 2006) was an American philanthropist and clubwoman, based in
Princeton, New Jersey.
Early life and education
Susie Ione Brown was from
Gray, Louisiana, the daughter of John D. Brown and Elizabeth Saulsby Brown. Her parents were teachers; her father also worked in insurance. Her brother
Russell Wilfred Brown was a medical researcher[1] and professor at
Tuskegee Institute.[2] She went to high school in New Orleans. She graduated from
Howard University in 1925, and was a member of the
Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.[3]
Career
After college, in 1927, Brown was one of the charter members of Alpha Beta Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in New Orleans, the first Black "Greek Letter" sorority in Louisiana. She later served as president of the chapter.[4]
After moving to New Jersey in 1935, Waxwood was involved with the
Red Cross during
World War II, and worked to integrate the organization's blood bank in the 1940s.[5] She was executive director of the Princeton
YWCA from 1958 to 1968,[6] the branch's first Black director. She was acting executive director of the Montclair-North Essex YWCA from 1969 to 1971.[7] In 1998 she worked for the Princeton YWCA's endowment campaign.[8] The Princeton YWCA awards an annual Waxwood Lifetime Award, named in her honor in 1999.[9][10]
Waxwood helped found the Princeton Adult School and the Witherspoon Federal Credit Union. She served on the board of directors for the Princeton Nursery School, and was active with the Princeton Regional Scholarship Foundation. She was active in the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund,[11] and a charter member of the Central New Jersey chapter of
The Links.[12][13] She was named
Soroptimist Woman of the Year in 1977.[14]
Waxwood was active in the
Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church beginning in 1942. She was ordained as an elder and was president of the Women's Association. She helped start the Princeton Crisis Ministry there. She represented New Jersey at the
White House Conference on Aging, and she chaired the Mercer County Office on Aging.[15][16] An apartment complex was named the Waxwood after her husband, at the site of his former school, and she attended the dedication.[17][18] She donated a collection of Witherspoon Street School materials to the Historical Society of Princeton.[19]
In 2003, when she was 100 years old, she visited a kindergarten class in
Tryon, North Carolina, to help them mark the 100th day of school. "I can remember the first time I saw a telephone, light bulb and gracious me, an automobile," she told the children. "It was a Ford and my oldest brother learned how to drive it in the pasture. I think he frightened the cows."[20]
Personal life and legacy
Brown married scientist and educator
Howard B. Waxwood Jr. in 1929. He died in 1977.[21] They had a son, Howard B. Waxwood III, who died in 1979. She moved to Tryon, North Carolina in 2002[22] to live near her granddaughter,[23] and died in
Plainsboro, New Jersey in 2006, aged 103 years.[24] Her portrait hangs in the lobby of the Princeton YWCA,[25] and her birthday is still marked with a canned goods drive by the Princeton Crisis Ministry.[26] The Waxwoods were honored as "Unsung Heroes" at Princeton's Community House in 2007,[27] and featured in a coloring book published for
Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2021.[28]
^"Howard B. Waxwood Jr., 1926". Rutgers African American Alumni Gallery: The Forerunner Generation; Scarlet and Black Digital Archive. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
^"Honored by the Community". Princeton Town Topics. October 2, 2002. p. 1. Retrieved February 9, 2022 – via Internet Archive.