Susan E. Dickey

Susan Dickey died peacefully at home on January 23, 2026, nine days after her 84th birthday and a long physical and mental decline caused by Frontotemporal Dementia. Her Catholic faith, leadership in the Gilman Lower School music program, and dedication to caring for others earned her the respect and admiration of family, friends, and colleagues. She was born on January 14,1942 in Dickinson North Dakota. Her parents were Louis W. Veigel, a consulting Engineer, and Mary Ellen Kelly Veigel, an architect, who worked together as Veigel Engineering. After graduating from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota; she received her Master of Music degree from Northwestern University. She then taught at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Peabody Preparatory, and the Gilman School in Baltimore. Gilman School recognized Her contributions to its Lower School music program by naming her an Edward K. Dunn Faculty Fellow in 1986 and granting her The Edward C. Russell Chair in 1999. She retired from Gilman in 2012. Always an active volunteer at her parish—initially Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and subsequently Ss. Philip and James, she also served on the Board of the Mother Seton House in Baltimore. In 2017, after several years of prison ministry and service to the poor and the sick, she became a Dame of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta. In 1965, she married G. Edward Dickey, then on active duty in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a 1st Lieutenant in the U. S. Army. After the birth of their two sons, the couple moved to the Guilford neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland where she lived until her death. She enjoyed entertaining, gardening and travel with husband and her family. She spent many summers in North Dakota and in 2010 after the death of her parents acquired a second home in Dickinson to be near her family cattle ranch in Killdeer. She is survived by her husband, her sister, Kathleen Oleson of Cambridge, Massachusetts, her brothers, Alan J. Veigel of Seattle, Washington, and Jeffery K. Veigel of Rapid City, South Dakota, her son, Paul Edward Dickey and his wife, Cindy, and her granddaughter, Katherine Emma of Dickinson, ND. Her son, George Louis Dickey, proceeded her in death in 1998. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Franciscan Center, 101 West 23rd Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, a charity serving Baltimore’s poor, which she supported as a volunteer and as a donor.

Susan E. Dickey

January 14, 1942 - January 23, 2026