Susan ("Mother Budd") Budd
1871 - 1966
Susan Josephine Verner Budd came to Oxford in 1922, where she lived until her death in 1966 at the age of 95. The tradition of calling her “Mother Budd” may have begun in order to differentiate her from her daughter-in-law, but it endured because of the love, affection, and regard she evoked from everyone she met. Her philanthropy was very personal and self-engaged. It was not merely something she practiced; it was her way of life. Her epitaph describes her as having a “transcendent personality” and a “buoyant spirit,” but these qualities were made truly extraordinary by her “genius for friendship.”
Mother Budd was married to William Henry Budd, Sr., a long-time Methodist Episcopal minister who later became Secretary of Missions. They had nine children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. A daughter died in infancy in 1898.
Mother Budd was married to William Henry Budd, Sr., a long-time Methodist Episcopal minister who later became Secretary of Missions. They had nine children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. A daughter died in infancy in 1898.
Several of her children enrolled at Oxford College, so the Budds moved to Oxford to set up a “home base” for their large family. Mother Budd bought several properties in Oxford and Atlanta; large homes she made into boarding houses for students, missionaries, and even ladies who had become unwelcome in the homes of their in-laws. As more of her own children grew up and left home, she filled the empty rooms with more grateful lodgers. When Mary Culler White returned from her missionary work in China, she lived with Mother Budd, either at her home in Oxford or one of her houses in Atlanta, free of charge, for 14 years.
Mother Budd was a beloved matriarch of her community. She conducted a story hour every Thursday afternoon on her front porch for the neighborhood children; she’d drop whatever she was doing to go outdoors and play croquet with children whenever they would stop by; she sewed clothes for the school children of families that could not afford to buy them; she gave piano lessons at the neighborhood elementary school. There is not a person who lived in Oxford during the four decades of Oxford history between the 1920s and the 1960s who does not have a story to tell about how Mother Budd enriched their lives.
Several family members are interred at the family plot in the Oxford Historical Cemetery, including Susan's son, Joe Budd, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 90.
Several family members are interred at the family plot in the Oxford Historical Cemetery, including Susan's son, Joe Budd, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 90.