Published: Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 / Updated: Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 06:46 AM

1930-2009

Clover's 'first lady' dies at 78

Sue Kirsh was legislator's wife, mom & much more

Her name was Sue Selikowitz in 1950, when she stepped from a Manhattan apartment house at the corner of West 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York City, into a time warp on another planet.

She moved to a tiny, four corners of a place called Clover. Clover was apparently in South Carolina, but within a cab's horn sound of North Carolina.

Here was Sue, in her heels, makeup, flaming-red lipstick and her Jewish faith. All because Sue had married Herb Kirsh, from Clover's only Jewish family, after meeting him at a tea party at the New York Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

"Herb told me his father owned a department store. I thought Macy's," Sue told me a couple of years ago. "We got to Clover the first time, and Herb said 'We're here,' and I said 'Here? Where's the department store? Where's the town?'"

Sue Kirsh never blinked again and never left Clover. She grew to love the town like it was her own from birth. She was once its "first lady" even. She raised a family and nurtured a husband who became a legendary Democratic Party politician.

On Sunday, after 59 years in both Clover and in marriage, Sue Kirsh had what her husband said appears to have been a heart attack and died. Suzanne "Sue" Kirsh was 78.

The news spread through Clover like Sherman. Tears and remembrance of a woman loved. Herb Kirsh, at 79 the oldest and longest-serving member of the South Carolina General Assembly -- he took his District 47 seat in 1979 -- is respected and admired in Clover.

His wife, Sue, was respected and admired and "just plain loved around here, too," Herb Kirsh said. "Sue loved the people here. And they loved her."

In her almost 60 years in Clover, Sue Kirsh was a stalwart in social and civic circles. She served on the York County Council on Aging, among other interests.

"Unselfish, always tried to give to others," said one son, Kevin. The Kirshes raised four sons, two of whom are still living, and the Kirshes still live in the Bellwood Drive house that they built in 1961. It is a home with relics from Clover's past, her husband's political career, and important Jewish script all on the same walls. It is a home with pictures of Jewish weddings and Baptist ice cream socials, with Sue Kirsh smiling in all of them.

"Her death is a terrible loss to the community," said Donnie Burris, former Clover mayor. "You saw Herb, you saw Sue. They were inseparable. A team."

Herb and Sue Kirsh were a team, from the days Herb ran the family business through all his years in politics. Sue Kirsh was by Herb's side when he won his first race for Clover Town Council in 1970, when he became mayor in 1975, when he took the House of Representatives seat he still sits in today.

Raised four sons

She did all that while making time to send four sons to get their Hebrew educations in Charlotte and Gastonia, N.C., because that is what the Kirshes were and are and it was important to her. The rest of the town went to church, the Kirsh family went to temple. Sue Kirsh's funeral will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Temple Emanuel in Gastonia, and it will surely be crowded to the point people of any faith won't be able to get in.

Bessie Moody-Lawrence, who served with Kirsh for 15 years, called Sue Kirsh "one of the sweetest, finest women I know. She was so nice to me. To everyone."

But religion never defined Sue Kirsh in life: The boys were small; Sue became a Cub Scout mother. Religion didn't define her in death, either. People called and filed into that house Monday and nobody mentioned religion once.

Herb Kirsh fielded phone calls from the Speaker of the House of Representatives and other important politicians, and he heard from people who fix pot-holed streets. And bankers and schoolteachers and everybody in between.

"She was a part of a lot of people's lives in Clover for 60 years, always tried to be smiling and nice to people," Herb Kirsh said.

For most of the past 25 years, Sue Kirsh led tours at the South Carolina governor's mansion in Columbia while her husband made laws down the street. Just last week, she led a group from Central Baptist Church in York on a tour. The day before she died, a card of thanks came in the mail. It said the people of the church were so thankful Sue Kirsh had taken so much time to tell them everything there is to know about the mansion.

Statehouse 'legend'

Herb Kirsh has been in the Legislature for 30 years, and that means Sue Kirsh was there 30 years. Almost every day in session, Sue Kirsh went to work with her husband. Herb Kirsh's deskmate, Rep. Gary Simrill-R, Rock Hill, described her as a wonderful person who was right by her husband's side, even through a budget session Thursday that lasted until midnight. She drove her husband home that night, arriving around 2 a.m.

"The woman was the most generous, nicest person," Simrill said. "A legend here at the Statehouse, just like her husband."

Simrill so admired and loved Sue Kirsh that recently he had read into the record a resolution honoring the Kirsh's 59 years of marriage. When today's session of the S.C. House of Representatives ends, the day will close in honor and memory of Sue Kirsh.

Herb Kirsh is one of the ranking Democrats in the Statehouse. He is a powerful guy who must be talked to before any bills about spending have a chance to get further than a rumor. I asked him Monday if it was fair to say that there was no way he would have made it so far in politics, in life, without Sue. The woman he stole out of a New York soda fountain after a strawberry milkshake with the promise of Clover's red clay dust.

"More than fair," Herb Kirsh said. "It is true. I wouldn't be the man I am today without her. A fine woman and wife. I loved my Sue. She was the greatest."

The Kirsh's have two cars. One is a Mercury Marquis, red. The other is a Lincoln, cream colored. Because Herb Kirsh is the longest-serving legislator in the whole state, he gets a license plate that has only "1."

Except he has two cars with the same "1" tag. Because Sue Kirsh was always "1" in Clover, too.