1.                  Sue was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, attended Bridgeport’s public schools, and spent two years at the University of Connecticut. Her lack of scholarly interest, however, as well as dwindling finances forced her to drop out, return home, and begin work as a bookkeeper in a retail clothing store.

Six months later, Sue’s burgeoning sense of independence prompted her to move to New York City with friends from college. While there, she met, and following a brief dating period, married the man of her dreams, a guy named Ed Goldstein.

The new couple set up housekeeping in a rental apartment in Plainfield, New Jersey but before long bought a home in neighboring North Plainfield. They had two children two years apart, Stacy and Valerie.

In 1969, tragedy struck their small family when three-year-old Valerie was diagnosed with bone cancer. She died six years later in January 1976. In February 1976, in Valerie’s memory, Sue and Ed established THE VALERIE FUND www.thevaleriefund.org, an organization devoted to hospital-based outpatient medical centers for children with cancer and blood disorders in New Jersey and New York City. It was in this environment that Sue’s writing career began in earnest with efforts to grow the fledgling charity by helping to produce brochures and newsletters.

In 1981, when their daughter Stacy was seventeen, Sue added non-traditional student to her schedule. And so, while two years at the University of Connecticut twenty years earlier had failed to enthuse her, a fresh interest in academics urged her to start again, this time in New Jersey. She enrolled in Somerset County Community College, earned her Associate of Arts degree, entered Douglass College, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year, and, in 1985, was awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honors.

Continuing her education at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Sue received the Master of Arts degree in sociology, then entered the Rutgers PhD program in medical sociology. She accepted a position in the department as research assistant but also practiced outside the university as a medical sociologist on field-related projects.

Sue left graduate school before completing the last of her doctoral course work in order to care for Stacy who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989 at the age of twenty-five. Stacy died in 2001 when she was thirty-seven. Jonah, Stacy’s son, is Sue and Ed’s only grandchild. They love him dearly.

In 2009, the breast cancer center at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ), in collaboration with the Goldsteins, was renamed in memory of Stacy, and is now called the STACY GOLDSTEIN BREAST CANCER CENTER at CINJ www.cinj.org/treatment/breast_oncology.html. CINJ is the state’s only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and is dedicated to cancer research and the clinical care of patients with cancer.

In 2003, Sue was appointed to the New Jersey State Child Placement Review Board. In 1992, Sue was appointed to the New Jersey State Department of Health Parental and Child Health Advisory Committee. In 1981, Sue was appointed to the Overlook Hospital Ambulatory Services Committee. In 1976, Sue became a founding member of The Valerie Fund’s newly-established Board of Trustees.

In 1991, The New Jersey State Department of Health chose Sue as the recipient for the Albert Harrison Award for Extraordinary Commitment to Services for Children With Special Health Needs. In 1984, Sue received the Douglass College Student Cooperative Bookstore Merit Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Major Field of Study.

Writing, taken up casually in her younger years, and eventually honed through adversity, volunteerism, and the university setting, became the nourishment that led to Sue’s memoir, UNEXPECTED LIVES, and to her second career as a writer.

UNEXPECTED LIVES is Sue’s first major work outside of academia.

When not at her desk writing, Sue can be found walking the hills of her neighborhood, working with Ed on their charities, and lunching with friends. She is rarely found in the kitchen.

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