Susan Mae Haines was born April 10, 1941, to Marcus and Edna (Dougall) Haines. She joined her older sister Nancy at the rock house at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, where her father was working. In the 1940s, Marcus purchased land from the Refuge and built the ranch on the banks of the Blitzen River, where Nancy and Susan grew up.

Susan attended grade school at Sodhouse School, where Edna occasionally served as their teacher. When not helping on the hay crew, the highlight of every summer was attending 4-H camp, usually held at Oregon State University. As a child, she enjoyed time spent at her grandparents’ homes. Her maternal grandparents, Bob and Grace Dougall, ran the old Princeton Post Office. Equipped with an early crank telephone, Susan made the most of any telephone until the very end. Marcus’s mother, Harney County pioneer Myrtle Caldwell, captivated them with true-crime detective novels by lantern light in her homestead cabin near the Narrows.

In 1954, she started at Crane Union High School. While there, she played and managed volleyball and thoroughly enjoyed her time on the dance team. As salutatorian of the class of 1958, she graduated from Crane and went on to Eastern Oregon State College. Although it was hard to be away from home and the weather in the Grande Ronde Valley left much to be desired, Susan made many great memories at EOSC. She was crowned Miss Dorian Hall in 1959, sang with the Evensong Choir, and was an active member of her sorority.

After meeting the two-year requirement, Susan left La Grande for Portland and the nursing program at OHSU with good friend Karen Morgan . Health problems forced her to abandon her dream of becoming a nurse, but she always looked back fondly on her time in Portland.

Susan’s final stop in her educational journey was the College of Idaho in Caldwell. There she graduated magna cum laude in 1964. It was also during this period—while attending the Drewsey New Year’s Dance with Nancy and Nancy’s husband, Terry Williams—that Susan met Pat O’Toole.

On Sept. 21, 1964, Pat and Susan were married in the old Catholic church in Burns. Later that year, they bought out the remaining siblings and took over ownership of the O’Toole Sheep Company. In 1969, they switched the operation to cattle.

Their first child, Marcus John, was born in 1967; daughter Michelle Suzanne was born three years later in 1970.

Susan was an active member of the Drewsey community. She served for many years in Our Lady of Loretto’s Altar Society, especially by making the sandwiches for the midnight suppers at the Drewsey dances the Altar Society hosted. For several years, she also taught vacation Bible school and later worked as a teacher’s aide at Drewsey Grade School—a role she always cherished. On the ranch, she tended any sick animal and raised the very best leppy calves and bummer lambs, all while serving outstanding meals to lambing and hay crews. In the summer, it was hard to find a moment when she wasn’t in her yard tending diligently to her flowerbeds—a lifelong love for flowers instilled in her by childhood Sodhouse neighbor Florence Scharff. Another byproduct of being raised near the Refuge was her ability to name any bird by sight or song; she always kept a bird book nearby to confirm what she thought.

Though poor health marked her later years, she never gave up her love for flowers, birds, desserts, or—most of all—her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Susan is preceded in death by her parents, Marcus and Edna; husband of 56 years, Pat; daughter, Michelle; brother-in-law, Terry Williams; and nephew, Travis Williams.

She is survived by her sister, Nancy Williams of Drewsey; son, Marc (Polly) O’Toole of Drewsey; grandchildren, Emilee (Luke) McKay of Juntura, Thomas O’Toole of Durham, North Carolina, John (Abbey) O’Toole of Drewsey, and Sadie O’Toole of Boise; and great-grandchildren, Xavier, Blaise, and Jesse McKay of Juntura, and Charlie O’Toole of Drewsey.