Neighbors weekly newspaper column 3

If you looked up the word “feisty” in the dictionary (or who am I kidding, these days on Google, right?), I’m fairly sure that beside the definition you would find Susanna Sly’s picture. If you’ve ever met her, or ever shopped at Village Market in Decatur, you know exactly what I mean! She laughs and tells me that people call her “that German Crazy Lady” but she doesn’t mind a bit. Susanna tells it like it is. She’s not afraid to let her voice be heard, or to joke around with her customers. She says, in her thick German accent “I may have been shy once, when I was very young.” But she laughs and you know she doesn’t think that’s true either.

Susanna has lived in the United States for more than twenty years, but still carries her German heritage with her in her language and tone. She moved to Decatur from Ludwigshafen, Germany in 1987. She met her husband at the National Guard base there in 1984, and he is from Decatur. “A friend of mine told me they have get-togethers on Wednesday at the German American Contact Club, so I went and that’s where we met. I always liked to meet different kind of people. And I liked to dance when I was young.” she smiles. The couple married in Germany then moved around the US in the 80s as per the military, including Michigan and Louisiana. They went for another German tour in 1989 where they lived in Nuremburg.

When they moved permanently to the US, Susanna left much of her family in Germany. She is the youngest of three sisters. “The youngest with the biggest mouth!” she laughs. She stays in contact with her middle sister, but has been trying to find her oldest sister. “Something between my mother and her kept her away, something was between them. So we try to find her and get in touch with her.” She went back and visited her middle sister in Germany four years ago. “We had lots of visiting and I got to know the rest of my family. My sister has her boys, my nephews.”

Susanna says she does miss Germany sometimes, but considers Decatur her true home. Although she considers herself “more of a city girl--I don’t know-- see this? Skeeter bites!” She laughs and rolls her eyes pointing to the red dots on her arms, “But I think where my family is, that is where I belong.”

She has two sons who grew up in Decatur. “Stephen, he is my younger son and works at Hungry Howies. I live with him and his family. He leaves for the Air Force in November.” She is a proud grandma and considers herself a “live in babysitter.” As soon as she begins talking about her grandchildren, she whips out her cell phone to show me pictures of a couple of cuties, two boys aged 1 and 3.

“Luther Jr. is going to culinary school in Ann Arbor.” She says of her oldest son. She’s not sure where he got his cooking talent and swears she never did cook too much. Her mother was mostly famous for making soups. “Everything I make has become Americanized.“ She smiles.

Susanna has been an employee of Village Market in Decatur for about 8 years and she wears a lot of hats. Her official title is Video Manager, but she jumps in to cashier or do the bottles, whatever is needed. She works a lot of hours and her mantra lately is “work, eat, sleep.”

“I went to school in Germany and I have my associates degree in….what do you call it….taxes…bookkeeping, but I can’t use it here. I would have to go back to school and do it all over! I think they’d miss me anyway if I wasn’t here,” she smiles. “There are people here who appreciate me and I’d feel guilty to leave for how much trust they have put in me.”

Susanna works really hard to do her part to keep the store neat and orderly. It drives her nuts to see things out of place. “It’s really the customers that make the store,” Susanna says, “we all need to work together to make the store what we want.”


Susanna’s biggest struggle is language. “German doesn’t come across as easy! Sometimes people can take it wrong. I have to find my words in German first and then translate everything to English before I say it and it sometimes doesn’t come out right.” She says that Teresa, another Village employee used to help out a lot as “translator” when a customer misunderstood or took something the wrong way, but she’s no longer there so sometimes communicating is a struggle, especially when the day is busy and long. Susanna “speaks English” but there are many nuances and tones that come with language that make translating and communication easy to misunderstand. Just change around a couple of words and a sentence can take on entirely different meaning. She admits she sometimes gets frustrated, “I just want to help you!” she says. But she truly believes that humor is the best way to deal with things. “If you can laugh about yourself, then you can laugh about everyone else too. Learn to talk to people and you can make fun of yourself.”

When she’s not running after customers at Village Market, or her grandkids at home, Susanna likes to watch CSI and read crime or romance novels. I think her life sounds a little like a romance novel myself, but she says no. She attends church at the New Apostolic church in Paw Paw every Wednesday and Sunday.


Neighbors is a new column about interesting folks you see around town every day. If you have an idea for a great “Neighbor” please contact [e-mail].