When it came to travel agents, it was hard to find one as knowledgeable as Susan Lurie. Her familiarity with well-known and less-traveled destinations across the globe continually amazed her co-workers.
“It is great to have read about places in a book, but at some point you’ve got to experience them for yourself,” said Judy Udwin, a friend and fellow travel agent. “And that’s what she did. She went to these places and she knew what she was talking about.”
Ms. Lurie, born Susan McCallum, was interested in travel before she landed a job in the offices of Pan American World Airways in the 1960s. She had a double major in college, including geography, said her daughter, Laurie Suzanne Garza of Portland, Ore.
“We can only guess that her interest [in travel] dates back to that time,” Ms. Garza said. “She was interested in the world and its various cultures.”
Ms. Lurie, who traveled by train, plane, car or boat, had just taken a road trip in May with her daughter when her heath took a sudden turn.
Susan Lurie McCallum Garza DiMaggio, of Atlanta, died Sunday at Saint Joseph's Hospital from complications of congestive heart failure. She was 71. A funeral is planned for 11 a.m. Friday at H.M. Patterson, Spring Hill, which is also in charge of arrangements. Her body will be cremated following the service.
Ms. Lurie was born New York, went to high school in Illinois, went to college in Oklahoma and lived in Texas and Washington, D.C., before moving to Atlanta in the ‘90s. In between the Texas and Atlanta moves, she married and divorced, raised two children, started a travel business, closed the business, then married and divorced again. After her second divorce, Ms. Lurie dropped all of her former surnames and took on her middle name as her last name.
“She’d introduce me as her daughter Laurie and people would think, ‘You named your daughter Laurie Lurie?'” her daughter joked. “But she did not.”
With a shortened name, she moved to Atlanta, looking for a new start with an old friend: travel. She met Mrs. Udwin, who owned her own travel agency, and took a job with her. The women worked together for eight years before they both took jobs with Century Travel in Atlanta, where Ms. Lurie was working at the time of her death.
“We were trying to get her to retire,” said Carlos Lino Garza, her son, of Edinburg, Texas. “She was even training my sister in the business, so all of the clients she’d been working with for years wouldn’t have to find a new agent.”
Ms. Lurie’s job brought her much joy, Mrs. Udwin said. When her health was better, she would gladly accompany large groups on various trips. And even as her health declined, she found other ways to travel, such as cruises, that were less taxing, her daughter said.
“She didn’t stop traveling, by any means,” Ms. Garza said. “Traveling was her life.”
In addition to her son and daughter, Ms. Lurie is survived by one step-grandson.
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