Susan Elizabeth Green

Susan Elizabeth Green slipped away from this world on January 4, 2022, surrounded by her family at her home in Rhinebeck, New York. Also nearby were the horses, dogs, cats, and chickens that she loved so much.

Susan was born on February 10, 1961, in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England.  Her parents, William and Doreen Carr, raised two daughters: Susan and her older sister Helen.

Throughout her life, Susan loved animals of all kinds. As a young person, she earned certification in riding instruction and equine management from the National Pony Society. Susan groomed and exercised hunt horses and steeplechasers in her teens before emigrating to the United States shortly after her sister Helen was fatally injured in a swimming accident in California while on break from post-graduate studies.

Susan worked with thoroughbred horses in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky for several years before and after meeting her husband Chris, who also worked with thoroughbreds. At Saxony Farm, she assisted owner Bruce Hundley in managing nearly all aspects of two major broodmare partnerships co-sponsored by Merrill Lynch. Among the top horses she had a hand in raising at Saxony were champion American two-year-old Fly So Free, Breeder’s Cup Juvenile winner and champion French two-year-old Arazi, champion English sprinter Ajdal, and English horse of the year Zilzal.

Chris and Susan were married on November 30, 1991, in Louisville, Kentucky, and Susan became a loving maternal presence in the life of Chris’s daughter Ashby Green from that point forward. In 1993, Susan and Chris moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where their daughter Chloë Helen Green was born on April 29, 1996.  Shortly thereafter, the family moved to New York City, where Susan made many of the friends who mourn her today.

In 2001, after moving to the Hudson Valley region of New York, Susan, Chloë and Chris traveled to Vietnam. On August 9, 2001, Phoebe Thi Thuong Green, born on May 30, 2001, in Viet Tri, a village in the Phu Tho Province of North Vietnam, became Ashby and Chloë’s baby sister and Susan and Chris’s youngest daughter. When the United States Consulate in Saigon declared all pending adoptions void for a time, Susan insisted that she and Chloë would stay with Phoebe in Vietnam for as long as it took to either reverse that decision or outlast its effect under the one-year rule.

Susan served as the president of the Stanfordville Nursery School during Phoebe’s enrollment there. After that, she volunteered for many years as a board member of the Center for Prevention of Child Abuse in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Susan is survived by Ashby, Chloë, Phoebe, Chris, and her father William. Her grace and bravery during a fourteen-year battle with breast cancer, including a six-year battle with metastatic breast cancer, were an inspiration to everyone who knew her. Her family would like to thank the doctors and nurses at the Dyson Center for Cancer Care in Poughkeepsie, New York – especially Dr. Radhika Rachamalla and her team, and the nurses at Hudson Valley Hospice.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Susan’s memory to the CPCA or the Dyson Center.

https://www.thecpca.org/get-involved/donate/

https://www.nuvancehealth.org/.../support-vassar-brothers

There are no calling hours.

A memorial service will be held at the convenience of the family.

Arrangements under the direction of the Dapson-Chestney Funeral Home, Rhinebeck, NY. 

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