Ida Susan Hedges

Born in Kentucky and raised on a tobacco farm in Tennessee, Ida Susan Sheppard graduated from Gordonsville High School in 1963, and from Tennessee Technological Institute in Cookeville in 1967, where she first studied vocal music and sang in church and college choirs. After teaching music in elementary schools in Missouri, she moved to Modesto, California, where she met and married Tom Hedges and gave birth to a son, David. In Modesto she sang in church choirs as well as community choral groups, and developed a passion for music of the baroque period. She studied baroque vocal performance with Dr. Gary Unruh at CSU Stanislaus before moving to Berkeley, where she was able to more fully engage her love of early music in the Bay Area arts scene. She became involved as a board member and staff member of the San Francisco Early Music Society, which she served for many years.

Susan was also a devoted Christian, and found some of her greatest musical joy over five decades singing with the choirs of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Cookeville, Tennessee, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Modesto, and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Berkeley, where she served as a section leader, singing a wide range of medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, and contemporary liturgical music. She deeply enjoyed the opportunities she received to sing in churches and cathedrals across the United Kingdom and continental Europe with the choirs she loved so much.

Susan is predeceased by her father Joseph Wagoner Sheppard, her mother Helyn Butler, and her stepfather William Butler. She is survived by her husband Tom, son David (Carly Flagg) of Tucson, Arizona, brothers William Sheppard of Detroit, Thomas Butler (Connie), and Bryan Butler, and sisters Elizabeth Cates (Duane) and Barbara Fuller (James), all of Tennessee, one granddaughter, and many nieces and nephews.

Private funeral arrangements have been made, and a public memorial service will be offered at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Berkeley, when conditions allow. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the St. Mark’s Choir Association, 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley CA 94704.