CRUM, Susan (Wey) 63, of Weston died peacefully on Saturday, April 4, 2020 of cardiac arrest.
She was born on January 3, 1957 in Stoughton, MA, the daughter and eldest child of James S. and Marjorie C. Wey. Her father was born in Fuzhow, China and met Winston Churchill at the November, 1943 Cairo Conference during WWII as part of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s diplomatic delegation, attended the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945 and later served as the Deputy Consul General to the port of Boston for 1946-9 and worked in the Trust Department at Hale & Dorr after earning a Master’s degree in International Economics from Boston University in 1946. Her mother grew up in Brockton, MA and had to forego college to support her family’s restaurant near Symphony Hall, but later spent many years at WCVB-TV 5 in Needham, processing “urgent” expense reimbursement checks for local luminaries like Chet Curtis, Natalie Jacobson, Dick Albert and Mike Lynch.
Susan is survived by her husband of 37 years, William Colyer Crum, her sister, Amy (Wey) Turner, her brother, Dr. Philip D. Wey, five nephews and two beloved golden retrievers, Pagey, 10, and Strider, 6.
Susan grew up in Needham and graduated near the top of her high school class in 1974 along with her close friends, Cheryl Steeves and Cathy Zeph. She was the sole physics major in her 1978 class at Wellesley College and met her future husband, Bill, at a mixer following a Harvard Marching Band Concert. On their first date, they saw “All The President’s Men” and she liked Robert Redford’s existential line: “Why are you here?” as a young Bob Woodward investigating the Watergate arraignment. As Jack Nicholson’s J. J. Gittes might say in “Chinatown”: “It’s an innocent question”.
Susan earned a Master’s of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1982 before getting an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984, where she had started a few days after their honeymoon. Bill and Susan had bought a condominium in 1981 in Newton Upper Falls which more than doubled in value by 1987, when they bought their home in Weston. Susan worked for many years as an engineer and then product manager at local high tech firms such as Teradyne and MACOM, before starting her own business, SWC Consulting.
Susan served multiple terms on the Wellesley Student Aid Committee and then the Weston Dog Committee, and helped support Bill’s pet care business, Weston Woof Walkers, taking care of clients’ dogs, who enjoyed day and overnight Stay & Plays at their house. Susan relished extensive traveling, seeing wild monkeys in Malta, hearing Mozart in Salzburg, Austria, bestriding two hemispheres along the Meridian Line in Greenwich, England and walking the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Although allergic to cats, Susan mentored five golden retrievers and showed them at countless Obedience and Rally-O competitions throughout New England and New York, as well as teaching Strider to move his feet at Dock Diving and Agility courses like his Tolkienesque namesake.
Susan’s cremated remains will be interned later this year at a private ceremony at Woodlawn Cemetery in Wellesley, MA alongside her parents’ ashes.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her memory to the Golden Retriever Foundation or WBUR 90.9 NPR Public Radio at Boston University.