CAMDEN — Sue A. (Young) Kandziolka, 78, of Camden, Maine died of a myocardial infarction at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine on November 18, 2025. She donated her body to the University of New England Medical School. Born on October 16, 1947 in New York City, she was the daughter of Barbara Jane (Hunter) Young and George Traub and stepfather Chuck Young.

Sue graduated from Slippery Rock High School and Penn State University, majoring in Rehabilitation Education. She married Michael J. Kandziolka in 1968 at the chapel at Penn State. She made her own wedding dress and worked as a stitcher for theaters including New Jersey Shakespeare Festival and Princeton University. She was prolific in the creation of quilts and knitted garments, and altered clothing for anyone who asked. She volunteered for decades teaching adults to read, assisting those with exceptional abilities, sewing for high school theater, bringing her dog Toby to nursing homes, and helping at animal shelters in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maine.

The common themes in friends’ remembrances are her humor, her curiosity, how intently she listened, how many thoughtful and/ or handmade gifts she gave, and how she spoke her mind. She was unpretentious and put herself second. “She is one of the happiest people I know.” “She taught me so much.” “She was so accepting and kind toward me.” “She is in charge!” “Extremely smart, kind, quirky.” “She was an amazing woman and I think we are all better and stronger for having had her in our lives.”

The entirety of a life is minuscule in geologic time, but Sue’s impact on her community continues to send benevolent ripples. From baking a ginger cake for a friend’s birthday to making a quilt for her sister’s graduation to cross stitching the business card of a realtor friend to sewing beloved kitty hair into a project to offering workers a snack to cutting a friend’s hair to saying yes to invites, she was a fantastic example of generosity. Additionally, if she were alive, she would be editing this. She’d have a comment about that run-on sentence.

Whenever Sue moved, a big priority was choosing a house that had a good view of her bird feeders out the kitchen window. She loved the antics of the squirrels and the large and small birds. She loved plants and geology. She collected feathers and interesting rocks and bug exoskeletons. She loved clever writing and the exacting nature of grammar. She did the New York Times Sunday crossword every week. She always had a cat, or three. She said, “They’re good company.”

Sue’s life goal was “To leave the world a better place than I found it.” The world is better because she was here.

She was preceded in death by her sister, Mary Helen Young.

She is survived by her cats Nellie and Bandit; her daughters Laura J. Kandziolka of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania and Kathy Kandziolka of Camden, Maine; her brother Karl Young, of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania; and her husband of 56 years, Michael J. Kandziolka of Camden, Maine.

It is a magical world. Mary Oliver tells us to “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Mom would agree. Go. Now. Tell others!

Services will be private. Donations can be made to PAWS in Camden, Maine: www.pawscares.org.