LITTLE ROCK — Susan Barham’s Southern grace, biting wit and an openness to the world’s beauty was similar to one of her literary heroes, Flannery O’Connor, her family and friends said.
“She had a presence. She loved style and fashion, and I don’t think I ever saw her in a pair of jeans. She taught for the whole 40 years in high heels,” said her husband, Ed Barham. “She had a flashing wit and loved to laugh. One of the best storytellers I ever knew.”
Susan Elizabeth Fiser Barham, a teacher at Parkview Arts and Sciences Magnet High School in Little Rock for 35 years, died Monday at her Little Rock home from ovarian cancer.
She was 65.
Barham earned a Master of Arts degree in English and enjoyed studying iconic literary figures - William Faulkner, Emily Dickinson and historian Shelby Foote.
“She loved to read the biographies of the saints of literature,” her husband said. “The Oxford English Dictionary was probably her favorite book because she was an absolute fiend when it came to word origin and history of the language.”
Quotes, important texts and stories of absurd humor filled up boxes in her home.
“She’d work over a book with a yellow highlighter and save quotes,” her husband said. “Our refrigerator is covered in them.”
After working five years at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock, she began teaching English to high school juniors at Parkview in 1975. Throughout the years, she also worked in retail, including at Barbara Jean in Little Rock.
“She sort of just signed her check over to them every month,” Ed Barham said.
She also became chairman of Parkview’s English and Language Arts Department.
“When you see the lights come on in the eyes of a student, she loved and watched for that,” her husband said. “It was like being with a rock star, people would come up to say hello to Mrs. Taylor [Barham]. She was beloved.”
She was married twice before marrying Ed Barham in 2008. She referred to him as her “twin soul.”
Long before the two met, she was a teacher of Barham’s son, Ben Barham, in 1995.
“She was real honest with her students and treated them like adults,” Ben Barham said. “I often remember her reading stuff in class. She herself had a gift for oratory. She had an intrinsic understanding of that.”
In 1995, she, along with fellow teachers Judy Goss and Fred Boosey, helped create and direct the popular “Tales of the Crypt,” where student actors re-create the lives of Arkansans buried at Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock. Goss said more than 1,000 people attended the first performance, hundreds more than anticipated.
“As dusk falls to darkness, here she is in her high heels guiding people through the cemetery,” becoming a tour guide on the spot, Goss said of her.
A world traveler, she appreciated the rich histories of various countries, including Greece.
“She just loved being in the great architectural wonders,” her husband said. “She loved being connected with ... the Colosseum, the Parthenon.”
She loved cooking meals, laughing with friends and spending time with animals, particularly her daughter’s dogs that she lovingly called her “grand-doggers.”
“Very rarely do people have a mother who is also their sister and their best friend,” said her daughter, Caroline Elizabeth Cody. “She would always tell me, ‘I love you, I love you so much. You’re my world.’”
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 01/24/2013