Susie Lou Crews was the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hardy H. and Martha Mizell Thomas Crews.

On December, 1940 Susie married Bennie Carlton O'Quinn, son of Mr. and Mrs. Silas O'Quinn. Bennie and Susie O'quinn made their home in Jacksonville Florida. They had one son, Sidney Lanier O’Quinn. After a few years their marriage ended in divorce.

During World War II, Susie Crews O'Quinn was a welder in the Brunswick Georgia shipyards. Between 1943 and 1945, the shipyard built 99 vessels, destined for duty in the Atlantic and Pacific, loaded with equipment and supplies.

The J.A. Jones Construction Company assembled Liberty Ships at the southern tip of the Brunswick peninsula. These Liberty ships transported supplies to soldiers in the European and Pacific theatres. Remains of the berths are visible at low tide from the Sidney Lanier Bridge (which by the way, her son, Sidney, helped to construct). The dedication of the men and women of the Brunswick shipyards was best exemplified during December, 1944. Receiving word that six ships would be required during that month, the shipyard workers, instead, guaranteed seven and requested that they not be paid for the extra work required, including work done on Christmas Day!

Eventually Susie married John Gordon Reagin and moved to Atlanta. He worked on Stone Mountain. Later she left Atlanta and Gordon Reagin but they never divorced. Susie and her son moved back to Folkston about 1946.

She went to work at King Edward Cigar Factory in Jacksonville, Florida where she met her lifetime friend Gerrie.

 

Memories from Susie's son, Sidney:

When we were living in St. Mary’s between 1947 and 1952 she had a 41 Ford pickup and liked to race with her friends. The old pick up ran pretty good and she liked to run it. When one of her friends would try to pass her the race was on. (Hey I got my driving honest).
When it would rain another stunt we would pull was to see how many puddles we could run through before it drowned out. We would have to dry the distributor before we could continue our trip.

We used to do our own car repairs. One Saturday afternoon we were trying to finish a repair job. A sales man came by and asked what we were doing. Mom told him when we didn’t have anything else to do we would take the car apart for the fun of it.