Susan Lynette Castillo-Rinaldi

Susan Lynette Castillo-Rinaldi died in the family home in her beloved Bernalillo, New Mexico on June 8, 2024, at seventy-nine years of age. The legacy of Susan Rinaldi is faith, family, and friends. 

Her Roman Catholic faith led her to Saint Joseph’s College on the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1962 with the intention of entering a convent of a teaching order. At Saint Joseph’s College, she found a circle of friends who remained with her for the rest of her life, and a husband, John Rinaldi, who was on the college basketball team. Apparently, Susie only needed a bit of persuading from Johnny and friends to not return to the convent. They were wed in historic Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Bernalillo in 1964.

Susan then focused her faith and devotion on her family and as an educator in the community. For a woman who had twelve homes in thirteen years as the daughter of a United States Air Force officer, her husband’s deep family roots in one place truly felt like her first home. Susan loved and became part of Bernalillo. Her in-laws taught her the cuisine, traditions, and culture of her new home. She adopted each of these as her own, teaching her children and grandchildren in turn. She was happiest at her kitchen table making rellenos and biscochitos with her grandchildren for Fiestas and holidays.

Susan is the mother of five children, Sean (Brenda), María (Andrew), Susanne (Mike), Joseph (Christine), and Terry (Tamiqua), eighteen grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren, and the teacher to three generations of students in Bernalillo Public Schools, Our Lady of Sorrows CCD Program, and the Town of Bernalillo Youth Conservation Corps. GED Program. She was still teaching her CCD class two days before becoming gravely ill in May.

Friendship was fundamental to Susan’s life. She was life-long pen pals with her best friend from kindergarten, formed many deep and lasting friendships with fellow educators over her fifty-year career, and she supported and was supported by her gynecological cancer survivor buddies for over twenty years.

Susan was eased into her passing with the love and attention of her devoted grandson and caregiver Damion Rinaldi as she was surrounded by family and many loving friends including the “Saint Joseph’s girls”, Lydia, Marie, Geraldine, Bea, and Melba and her sister-in-law and dear friend Cecilia.

Susan is preceded in death by her father Willis Ray, her mother Evelyn Fricke Strawn, adoptive father Robert Strawn, and four grandchildren. She is survived by her husband of fifty-nine years, her children, and siblings Steven Strawn (Sheila), Scott Strawn, and Sara Grummer-Strawn (Larry), and much extended Rinaldi and Strawn family.

Services will be held at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Bernalillo to include a Rosary at 6:00pm on Friday, June 28th and a Funeral Mass at 10:00am on Saturday the 29th of June. 

 Please view photo gallery below.