Fruits of One Tree

  ANCESTOR 2: SUZANNE DOWNS   Picture taken in the 1940s Mom was born as Suzanne Downs on January 16, 1931, at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey. She was her parents’ first child, and she had a sister Joyce born two years later. Both girls had dark brown, straight hair. Suzanne had green eyes and Joyce had blue eyes. Their parents were Herbert Eugene Downs and Viola Elizabeth Bertha Bruguier. They lived in Townley, a part of Elizabeth, N.J. It was the beginning of the Depression, but her father had a steady job as a bank teller. When she was about thirteen, the family moved to Chatham, a wealthier town. She told me she was never a good student, but nevertheless, she attended Madison College in Harrisonburg, Virginia, for two or three years. After the 1952 school year was over, she returned home and did some secretarial work in New York City. At some point between grade school and graduation, she started using Bruguiere as a middle name. On May 2, 1953, she married Jam...