Suzanne Saxton-Frump, 1948-2025, Tribute

(Note: Suzanne Saxton-Frump died peacefully on Aug. 22 in her home with family surrounding her. Services in Philadelphia on September 20 with Zoom option. Here is her daughter Sarah’s tribute followed by a formal obit. It will be quite awhile before I can write about her — Bob)

By Sarah Saxton-Frump

“Little sleep’s-head sprouting hair in the moonlight, when I come back we will go out together, we will walk out together among the ten thousand things, each scratched in time with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love.” – Galway Kinnel

My mother died at 5:43 pm this past Friday, August 22nd, 2025. She would give me a new book of poetry at Christmas in my adult years, and the last she ever gave me was the complete collection of Galway Kinnel.

The poem this is from is about a baby, but I’ve been so struck by the return to innocence at the end of my mother’s life that it felt … right.

She’d suffered over a dozen strokes in the last 10 years or so, including one at this past Thanksgiving and another at the end of February. And in her last few weeks, especially her last few days, it felt like watching her return to the version of herself I never got to know, the young child before the world had shaped and molded her in many beautiful but also many bruising ways.

Our relationship was complex, but living in my parents backyard for the past 18 months gave me the gift of time, and witness, and presence to know my mother in new ways and to heal the wounds of my own heart. I told my Dad that I’d choose the painful health path that led me to living in their backyard again 1,000 times if it meant getting these last 18 months again with both my parents.

My mom lived many lives in her 77 years, but in the ones I was a part of, I think about what she taught me.

She taught me to use power tools and to go clamming and to catch fireflies. She loved beauty and sought it out in all forms, especially through her own painting and photography, and she taught me to love it too.

She was still getting jeopardy questions right until just a few days before she died, even when she could hardly speak.

She was belly-laughing at jokes and cracking them too when she could. She taught me to cook and to be an excellent writer and editor.

She bought me Nancy Drew Books and jars of buttons when we went antiquing. She made sure I knew how great a singer Sade is and how to make the perfect packing list. She made sure I knew the value of traveling to places unfamiliar and the value of having protein every morning for breakfast.

She took me to my first acupuncturist and reiki practitioner when I had chronic mono as a junior. She’s the origin of my love of Taittinger’s champagne, exquisite beefsteak tomatoes and the delight of honeydew and prosciutto. She requested at least a few listens to – I kid you not – Dave Matthews Band “Mary’s Song” at every Christmas, and I’ll spend the rest of my life stepping back from decorating the tree to check for “holes.”

She taught me how to paint a room and stain a shed and the principles of color theory and how to use a film camera.

She encouraged me to spend a month in the South African bush at 17, and taught me to brine a thanksgiving turkey perfectly at 19, and how to make a Cuba Libre at 10 on the beach for her and my dad’s sunset drinks at Herring Cove in PTown.

She taught me how to curl my eyelashes and use a little Vaseline instead of mascara as a pre-teen and how to get just about any kind of stain out of anything, and how to write a proper thank you card (hat tip to Miss Emily Post).

She taught me how to pack a minivan with more items than humanly possible and how to garden and how to play gin rummy and poker and scrabble (a game I never did manage to beat her at) and how to lounge about reading a good book on a rainy day on the Cape.

She taught me many more things, and then there were plenty of things she didn’t and plenty of things I’d wished she hadn’t.

But these last few weeks with her cleared out all the things SHE was taught and not taught and wished she hadn’t been, and I got to see her truly clearly for the first time as a daughter – to see her innocent essence in these final few days in a way I never could before. What an ending to the complex arc of our mother-daughter relationship.

I miss her more than I thought I would, and more than I thought I could.

Because the wages of dying, as it turns out, are love. Pure, holy, divine love.

Obituary: Suzanne Saxton-Frump, 1948-2025

Suzanne Saxton-Frump, 77, educator, artist, skilled investor and parent, died in Austin, TX., on Friday August 22, peacefully in her sleep with family by her side comforting her. 

Cause of death was complications of a series of strokes over recent months and years. 

Suzanne was born in Reading, Pa., spent primary school days in Harrisburg, Pa., and formative high school years in Haverford, Pa., outside Philadelphia.  

She attended Connecticut College before focusing on the care  of her first child in 1967.  As a single mother, she later worked her way through the University of Pennsylvania where she received a degree in English.  This was followed by a master’s degree from Temple University.  

Suzanne taught grade school in suburban Philadelphia school districts before joining the faculty of Hahnemann Hospital University where she taught English for several years 

Suzanne later moved to the  Summit, NJ, area near New York City with her family and began studying art during summers at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, MA, and at the Summit Visual Arts Center. 

She created exhibited and sold oil paintings over several years and also worked in digital art photography.  

She was the “chief financial officer” of her family and invested wisely in growth stocks and real estate that contributed greatly to the financial security of the family.  

She is survived by her husband of 43 years, Robert Saxton-Frump of Austin; two children, Dean of Philadelphia, and Sarah of Austin; Linda Whittingham, her sister, and Maurice Whittingham, her brother-in-law, of Vancouver, Washington; and a niece, Anne Estrada of Santa Ana, CA.  

A service is scheduled in Bala Cynwyd, Pa,  on September 20  Laurel Hill West Funeral Home and Cemetery.  In lieu of flowers donations are suggested to the  Provincetown Art Association and Museum