Dr. Susan Ann Halter, MD.'s Obituary
Dr. Susan Ann Halter, MD, Professor Emerita of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt University, died peacefully at Alive Hospice on Sunday, December 3, 2023.
She was preceded in death by her Husband Henry Hickson Savage, parents Samuel Lesher Halter and Helen Olds Halter, brothers Samuel Henry Halter, and Charles Henry Halter.
She is survived by her brother Jon Charles Halter, nephew Jon Julian Halter, niece Helen Margaret Halter Foreman, and stepdaughters Gail Savage Hollister and Phyllis Savage Booth.
Susan was born on October 9, 1944, at Mercy Hospital in Hamilton, Ohio. In 1963 she graduated from Watertown High School in Watertown, New York. In 1967 she received her BA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and began a Fellowship in Bacteriology at Syracuse University in New York, ultimately earning an MS in 1971. She earned her MD in 1973 from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario Canada where she lived for eight years, including three years of residency in pathology. She completed her residency at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and in 1977 she was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee with a promotion to Associate Professor, with tenure, in 1982. From 1982 to her retirement, she served with distinction as Director of Surgical Pathology, Electron Microscopy, and Cytopathology at the Nashville Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Halter published numerous papers on diseases of the breast and gastrointestinal system. Dr. Halter has been a major contributor to the education of medical students, residents, fellows, and graduate students. Throughout her career, she was highly valued as an imaginative and devoted teacher. Following her retirement from Vanderbilt, she earned an MA in 2008 for Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Argosy University in Nashville, and became a personal therapist, providing professional counseling for numerous patients in the Nashville area.
In 1986, Susan married Henry Savage who worked as a Media Technology Specialist for the Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development. They met through a common interest in amateur "Ham" radio, and they lived in a forty-acre forest near Fairview, Tennessee where they raised cats, dogs, and chickens and she specialized in quilt making among many other talents and interests.
Susan was actively involved in and served as an honorary board member of Waves, an organization serving children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Middle Tennessee. Following the death of her parents, she assumed the supervision and caretaking of her brother Charles Henry Halter who was nineteen years her junior and had Down Syndrome. Donations may be made in memory of Susan at wavesinc.com.
The family cordially invites relatives and friends to visit on Saturday, December 16, 2023, from ten o'clock in the morning until the time of the graveside service at eleven o'clock in the morning at Spring Hill Funeral Home and Cemetery, 5110 Gallatin Pike S, Nashville, TN 37216.
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