Obituary for Suzanne S. Cane (Sherwood)
Suzanne Sherwood Cane, children’s librarian, French teacher, tutor, and translator, died peacefully at home in Baltimore, MD after a yearlong illness on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, surrounded by her close family. Suzanne was born in Boca Raton, Florida on April 10, 1946, and grew up in West Hartford, CT. She attended the Chaffee School and then Wellesley College, graduating in 1968 with a major in French language and literature. She then earned her Master of Library Science from Simmons College in 1970. After living in Zurich, Switzerland for three years where she served as the Librarian at the Inter-Community School, she moved with her husband to Providence, R.I., where she began a 25-year career as the Lower School librarian at the Lincoln School, a Quaker-based school for girls, where she also taught Junior Great Books. In 1990, she expanded her teaching to introduce courses in French language for students in elementary school (FLES) as well as Advanced Placement French to high school seniors.
After her formal retirement in 2000, Suzanne continued to tutor students in French as well as teaching English as a second language to recent immigrants to Rhode Island. At the same time, she pursued her love for reading, as well as a passion for rollerblading, hiking, swimming, cross-country skiing and gourmet cooking. In more recent years, she participated in the RI Lifelong Learning Collaborative, both as a student and a course organizer and as a member of the curriculum committee. She was an avid reader and an active member of several book groups. She continually developed a variety of new interests shared with her husband, ranging from ballroom dancing to scuba diving. Together they spent sabbaticals living in Cambridge, Paris, and Strasbourg, as well as in San Francisco and Chicago. She had a lifelong passion for French culture, history, and language. She also loved the US National Parks, and Yellowstone in particular. Together with her friend and colleague Janet Chapple, an authority on Yellowstone National Park, they translated a compelling 19th century account of an early visit to Yellowstone National Park originally written in 1886 by a Belgian judge and travel writer, Jules Leclercq. The resulting meticulously annotated translation, “Yellowstone, Land of Wonders”, was published
in 2017.
Suzanne cared deeply about people. She was mentor and generous friend to many of her husband’s graduate and postdoctoral students at Brown University, with many of whom they together formed lifelong friendships. She also formed close friendships in her youth which she maintained throughout her life. When her first grandchild was born in 2007, she enthusiastically took on her new role of grandmother. She leaves her husband of 55 years, David Cane, her daughter Rachel Cane and husband Joshua Kramer, her son Eli Cane and wife Rachel, grandchildren Micah Kramer, Tayva Kramer, and Asher Cane, and her sister Marjorie Freeman, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews.
Funeral Services are Thursday, March 31 at Sol Levinson, Pikesville, MD.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Suzanne’s memory to support Yellowstone National Park at Yellowstone Forever, PO Box 1857, Bozeman, MT 59771-1857 (https://www.yellowstone.org)
After her formal retirement in 2000, Suzanne continued to tutor students in French as well as teaching English as a second language to recent immigrants to Rhode Island. At the same time, she pursued her love for reading, as well as a passion for rollerblading, hiking, swimming, cross-country skiing and gourmet cooking. In more recent years, she participated in the RI Lifelong Learning Collaborative, both as a student and a course organizer and as a member of the curriculum committee. She was an avid reader and an active member of several book groups. She continually developed a variety of new interests shared with her husband, ranging from ballroom dancing to scuba diving. Together they spent sabbaticals living in Cambridge, Paris, and Strasbourg, as well as in San Francisco and Chicago. She had a lifelong passion for French culture, history, and language. She also loved the US National Parks, and Yellowstone in particular. Together with her friend and colleague Janet Chapple, an authority on Yellowstone National Park, they translated a compelling 19th century account of an early visit to Yellowstone National Park originally written in 1886 by a Belgian judge and travel writer, Jules Leclercq. The resulting meticulously annotated translation, “Yellowstone, Land of Wonders”, was published
in 2017.
Suzanne cared deeply about people. She was mentor and generous friend to many of her husband’s graduate and postdoctoral students at Brown University, with many of whom they together formed lifelong friendships. She also formed close friendships in her youth which she maintained throughout her life. When her first grandchild was born in 2007, she enthusiastically took on her new role of grandmother. She leaves her husband of 55 years, David Cane, her daughter Rachel Cane and husband Joshua Kramer, her son Eli Cane and wife Rachel, grandchildren Micah Kramer, Tayva Kramer, and Asher Cane, and her sister Marjorie Freeman, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews.
Funeral Services are Thursday, March 31 at Sol Levinson, Pikesville, MD.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Suzanne’s memory to support Yellowstone National Park at Yellowstone Forever, PO Box 1857, Bozeman, MT 59771-1857 (https://www.yellowstone.org)