In 1894, Susie St. Martin was sent to Tomah Industrial School before she was four years old, shortly after the death of her father, Peter Edward St. Martin. The superintendent kept her there and she was called "the baby of the school."

Susie St. Martin attended the Hampton Institute from 1910-1914. In 1914 Susie compleated her nursing training. Susie St. Martin from Cadott, Wisconsin, remarked: "I have never had anything but institutional life and naturally everything was new and strange to me when I got out of training that I hardly knew how to act."

In 1917 Susie was a nurse, stationed in France during WWI. She married Loren E. Blakeslee on October 18, 1920 in Pocatello, Bannock, Idaho. To the couple two sons were born, Glenn and Jack Norman Blakeslee.

Per Geraldine: When Loren and Susie got married, all ties to her family were cut off because they thought that she married beneath her. As far as I know, they never saw her again. She was a nurse (I have her nurse's book that she used). There was something going around that was very contagious. She volunteered at the hospital to work. She caught whatever it was. I never really heard exactly what it was. She died that year. She left my father Jack (John Norman) and Glenn. My father was 2 and Glenn was 4 at the time. My grandfather never remarried. I was named after my grandmother (Geraldine "Sue" Blakeslee). I was my grandfather's favorite grandchild too. Ha ha, anyway, my father married my mother and had 3 kids, me, my sister, Jeannie, and my brother Jim. My father died in 1980. My Uncle Glenn married Helen and had 3 kids.....Richard, Harold and Virginia "Sue" who also became my grandfather's favorite. My grandfather died in 1966. Glenn died about 10 years ago. Susie died of Streptococcic Septicemia.