Monterey

Waltraud “Susie” Seydel-Pitman, a kind, loving, caring and humorous personality, passed away on October 21, 2024 with her husband, Jerry, by her side. She was a longtime resident of Santa Cruz, yet for the past two years had lived in Merrill Gardens at Monterey. She was 88 years young. Susie was born on January 27, 1936 to her proud parents, Eduard and Ilse Seydel in Wallenstein, Germany. She was preceded in death by her beloved parents and her brothers Helmut and Hans Joachim and sisters Rosemarie and Hannelore.

Susie was a loving wife and warm hearted soul to many friends and family in America and Europe who will be deeply missed. She grew up in Wallenstein graduating from technical schools and in 1960 entered an exciting new life phase working as an interpretive technician for her husband’s father’s engineering firm headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany. Susie managed Pitman family business headquarter offices and operations in Paris- France, Ankara – Turkey, Pordenone - Italy, Wiesbaden – Germany, Eindhoven - Holland and Santa Cruz - California.

While mastering the languages in these foreign lands enabled Susie to develop lifelong friendships with locals of all ages, she was astranger to no one and found great purpose sharing in the successes, joys, and challenges of those around her. Susie was authentically and wholeheartedly there for all of those in her life.

She loved to travel and visited many countries with her husband. Above all, she revered her family and cherished spending time with them, especially the love of her life, Jerry. For, in 1973, when he went to Wiesbaden to work for Buildings International, which Susie directed, as a combat wounded Vietnam War veteran, she embraced him and literally, saved his life for a second time. Many years later they moved to their beautiful ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains where Susie became an active member and officer of the Bonny Doon Ladies Club and then with the Military Order of the Purple Heart Auxiliary - MOPHA Department of CA.

A graveside service will be held on 8 November, 2024 at 11:00 am, at the Central Coast Veteran’s Cemetery at Ft. Ord, Seaside, California where she will be buried in the grave yet to be completely filled by her devoted husband, Jerry, where they shall once again be lovingly together. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to a charity of your choice.