Margaret "Sue" Bara

October 4, 1946 - June 14, 2020

Margaret “Sue” Bara October 4,1946 – June 14, 2020 Our beloved Sue passed away peacefully June 14, 2020 with family in attendance. This completes her courageous struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease that began more than a decade ago. Sue is survived by her husband of 52 years, Wesley, her sons Thomas (Anne, grandchildren Andrew and Katherine of Interlochen, Michigan), Daniel (Deanna, grandchildren Elizabeth and Benjamin of Stone Mountain, Georgia), David (Jennifer, and grandson William of Lansing, Michigan), her sister Carol Watson (James, nephews Jeffrey of Grand Haven, Michigan, and Andrew of Mesa, Arizona, niece Katherine of Scottsdale, Arizona), and her brother John Jones (Chutipapha of Deltona, Florida). She was preceded in death by her mother, Mary Margaret McCullough Jones, and her father, Albert Edward Jones. Sue graduated from Northville (MI) High School in 1964 and Michigan State University in 1968, after which she married Wes and began parallel careers as a homemaker mom and a medical office manager associated with Sparrow Hospital in mid-Michigan. In later stages of her professional life, she set up and maintained a home-based medical transcription business, organized and supervised blood drives for the American Red Cross, and offered her compassionate skills as a home health care aide while also engaging in regular volunteer activities at her church. Throughout the years, Sue decorated all of her homes and yards with breathtakingly beautiful flower and vegetable gardens and lovely flower arrangements throughout the various seasons. She also showed her considerable artistic sensibility in her explorations of portrait painting, gourmet cooking and baking, and dressmaking. Sue possessed a great love for choral music and was an integral part of several choirs over the years, including the Michigan Youth Chorale with which she traveled to South America in high school, the Michigan State University Choral Union, and every church choir she attended with her family, including the chancel choirs of the First Presbyterian Churches of Mason and Lansing, MI and of Mayflower Congregational Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Having enjoyed camping, canoeing, and campfires with family in the natural beauty of Northern Michigan since the 1980’s, Sue and Wes made their retirement home in Interlochen, Michigan near their eldest son, Tom’s, family. In her healthy retirement years Sue and Wes enjoyed motor home color tours of New England, a vacation tour of every home in which she and Wes resided on the east coast and in the midwest, and excursions south to visit family in Georgia. Since 2017, Sue’s final home was Traverse Manor, a nearby assisted living facility in Traverse City, Michigan where Wes and her beloved pet boxer, Bailey, joined her daily until her passing. Sue’s warmth and kindness were shared with an easy smile and a genuine concern for those around her, all of whom she made feel at home in her company. Her steadfast devotion to family and friends were buoyed by her sense of humor, authenticity and selfless grace. She was loved dearly by all who knew her and will be sorely missed. Sue’s family is profoundly grateful for the wonderful care she received from the staff at Traverse Manor during her three-year residence there, as well as the compassionate end-of-life assistance from Hospice of Michigan.