the elegant grandma i never met

Flora Susan Cade McGlen

Hannah Scofield

     Flora Susan Cade was born July 31st, 1920, and died on the morning of Sunday, January 11th, 1981. She was born the youngest of four to William Ignatius "Nace" Cade and Vela Childes Cade.                                                       

     Sue grew up in a farming family in Union Springs, Alabama. When she was a baby, her family's camera broke and the Cades could not afford to fix it. The earliest known picture of her is a class picture in first grade, although some family members believe she may be the child in a particular photograph where a baby's head is turning away from the lens. 

    Sue graduated from Union Springs High School in 1939. Sue dreamed of studying fashion in Chicago after graduation, but her father did not want her to go so far from home. Instead, Sue went to a business school for women in Montgomery.

"I don't know which business school it was, she didn't tell us," said the youngest of Sue's four children, Catherine Cook Scofield. "That's where she learned shorthand, typing, and other clerical skills." 

     It was in Montgomery where she met her first husband, Charles James Houser. They married in Columbia, South Carolina where Houser was stationed at an army base. She took her vows in a courthouse, wearing a clean business suit and a corsage. She stayed on base before he was deported a month later to the Pacific during World War II. Sue never saw him again. Shortly after, his plane was shot down over Papua, New Guinea. Houser is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

     After the war, Sue married WWII veteran Malcolm Cade Cook in 1947. They settled in Birmingham, where Sue carried their first child, Susan Cook Anderson, while her husband went to medical school. Once her husband became a general practitioner, Sue followed him to small Alabama towns where he practiced. After Malcolm went back to school to specialize in anesthesiology, the Cooks resettled back in Birmingham. Before 15 years had passed, Malcolm and Sue had four children. Sue loved her family and devoted herself to spending time with loved ones.

"She was really wonderful about checking on her elder aunts from her father's side of the family," Susan said.

     "She was always on the phone talking to people," Cathy added, "and she always painted her nails, especially when she was on the phone. She painted them so much that when she took the nail polish off, they were yellow."

     Sue loved fashion. As a teenager growing up in Union Springs, she was considered the belle of the town. Even while married and rearing four children, Sue never spent a day not looking her finest. In photographs, she always had dark combed tresses and pointed brows. Sue loved to dance. Cathy remembers the radio humming every time Sue cleaned and would watch her mother sing as she washed the dishes. Often, she worked in the kitchen when they were in school.

     Sue made a point to look her best in every situation, not only with her dress but also with grace and poise. This poise helped her in difficult times. After almost 25 years of a strenuous marriage, Sue and Malcolm divorced.                                    

      Sue was very tired, and the marriage and split affected her health. Sue worried about making enough income with her limited working skills to provide for herself and her two children who remained at home.

Following the divorce, Sue had to be hospitalized due to pneumonia that was so severe that she had to be bathed in ice to lower her high fever. Soon after, Sue was diagnosed with melanoma. Her tumor was removed, and she was told to follow up with the doctor annually. But Sue loved the sun.

        One day when Sue, Cathy, and her middle daughter, Cheri, were coming home from a church event Sue ran into an old friend of hers and her first husband.

     "I remember her driving," Cathy said. "I was sitting in the back seat. She rolled down the window and said, 'Harold?' He said, 'Sue?' On the way home, her face was dazed, as if she had remembered a lot of lost memories. She was quiet."

     Harold McGlen Jr. and Sue dated for a year before they married in 1974. They were married for almost seven years.

     In December of 1979, Sue was re-diagnosed with melanoma. The next year she went through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. She lost her appetite and her strength. She saved her energy to walk down the aisle when her daughter Cheri married that summer.

     After the wedding, Sue barely walked. The doctor would come and visit her at home.

“She was in a lot of pain," Cathy said. "She never complained."

     Before she died, across from her bed in her room above the closet, Cathy put up a large poster of Philippians 4:13 to encourage her mother. It read, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."

     The same verse marked her tombstone where Sue is buried. Sue died at home and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. She was survived by her four children Susan Cook Anderson, Malcolm Cade Cook Jr., Cheri Cook Carlton, and Catherine Cook Scofield.