A Facebook letter from fiddler Suzy Thompson:

Dear friends of Sue Draheim,
Wayde, Sue's sweetheart, has asked me to tell Sue's friends and colleagues some very sad news. Sue Draheim, our beautiful fiddling friend, has incurable brain cancer. About a month ago, she had a seizure, was hospitalized. In the hospital for a week while they did lots of tests and and found that she had a brain tumor, which was removed once they got the swelling down somewhat. At first they were hopeful, but It turned out to be the most nasty kind of brain cancer, glioblastoma, fast-spreading, incurable. She is deteriorating quickly. The docs have said that there's no use in doing any kind of treatment, as the cancer is spreading so fast and is so aggressive. She and Wayde are headed home, which is near Berea KY. I'm going there next week to help out.

Sue can't reply to emails, her verbal skills and sequential thinking is pretty much gone, but if you send an email to Wayde, he will read it to Sue, and I'm sure she would love to hear from her friends even if she can't reply. I'll forward anything posted here, too. Wayde's email is: kentuckylucky(AT)hotmail.com

There will be a concert to honor and support Sue, at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, on Mon. April 1st. All net proceeds (after the Freight takes their cut) will go to Sue and Wayde to help with their expenses. I hope you'll be able to attend and join us in celebrating Sue's life and music.

I don't even have words to describe how this makes me feel and for Eric it's much worse, he's known Sue since 1968 and the Colby Street house days (before my time), from when she was just beginning to get into playing folk music. I met Sue in 1976 and immediately asked her to join Any Old Time and we've been close friends ever since. In sadness, Suzy Thompson — with Val Mindel and 2 others.