Mississippi Expat: Susan Cushman

"Mississippi in general, and Jackson in particular, still feel like home to me thirty-six years after I moved away."

What does it mean to call Mississippi home? Why do people choose to leave or live in this weird, wonderful, and sometimes infuriating place? Author Susan Cushman has lived in Memphis for over three decades, yet memories, family, friends, and her identity as a writer still keep her rooted in Mississippi. Susan’s latest novel, John and Mary Margaret, tells the story of an ill-fated romance between a white sorority girl and a Black law student on the Ole Miss Campus, set against the backdrop of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

Where are you from?

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1951. My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (and their ancestors) were all from Mississippi, so my roots run deep. My mother was from Meridian, and we lived there for a couple of years in the early 1950s, but I spent most of the first 37 years of my life in Jackson. I still have relatives—cousins, nieces, and nephews—in Meridian and Jackson. 

When did you move to Memphis, and why did you move there?

I moved to Memphis in 1988 with my husband and three children, who were six, seven, and ten. 

So why did we move to Memphis? It’s a long, complicated story, but basically we moved for spiritual reasons. My husband is both a physician (Dr. William Cushman) and an ordained Orthodox priest (Father Basil). St. Peter Orthodox Church in Madison, Mississippi, actually started in our apartment in the Belhaven neighborhood of Jackson in the summer of 1970, when we were newlyweds. During the seventeen years (1970-1987) that the church evolved in Jackson, a similar church group was developing in Memphis. Some of the people in that group were friends of ours from our time at Ole Miss in the late 1960s through 1970. They eventually became St. John Orthodox Church in Memphis, and we moved here to join their community, where my husband is Associate Pastor. He also continued his work in preventive medicine, especially in hypertension, at the Memphis VA Medical Center and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. 

What does “home” mean to you? How does Mississippi fit into that definition?

The old cliché, “Home is where the heart is,” immediately comes to mind. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that one doesn’t always love a place just because it’s home, even if your heart is deeply attached to that place. Or those people. Mississippi in general, and Jackson in particular, still feel like home to me thirty-six years after I moved away.

I remember a visit to Oxford with a close friend from Arkansas a number of years ago. We were shopping at Square Books, and later, over a cup of coffee up on the balcony overlooking the courthouse and the beautiful square with all its wonderful shops and restaurants, she said something interesting to me. She told me that as we were wandering around the bookstore, she kept hearing what she thought was my voice, but she would turn around and see that it was another Mississippi woman talking. I never realized how much I sound like “my people” until that moment. 

Community was important to me during my years in Jackson, whether it was being PTA president at our children’s public school in the 1980s or running an aerobic dance studio where I worked to help change the lives of many women who were, like me, trying to improve their health in a state that suffered then—and still suffers—from one of the highest levels of obesity in our nation. My home state and city also struggle with issues like crime and poverty, which is also very true of Memphis.

Susan on the staff of her high school newspaper in 1966.

What do you miss most about Mississippi?

I think it’s the spirit of kindness and compassion that I experienced in so many ways during my years in Mississippi. One example that stands out has to do with my mother’s three years in an assisted living facility and eight years in a nursing home, where she died from Alzheimer’s in 2016. Those eleven years were difficult ones for her and for me, as I did long-distance caregiving from 200 miles away and relied heavily on the people who physically took care of her. I can honestly say that I never had any complaints about her care.

Every time she had even a small medical event like a sore on her foot that needed a prescription cream, a nurse would call me from the nursing home and tell me what was going on. Each time I visited I would hear the aids call out as I walked down the hall to my mother’s room, “Oh, look, Miss Effie, your daughter is here to see you!” She was obviously treated with compassion. And friends of mine who lived in Jackson and had a parent in the same nursing home would often email or text me after a visit and tell me they saw my mother and she was doing fine.

Yes, the kindness of friends and family and even strangers who cared for my mother are a big part of what I love about Mississippi.