After a long illness, Susan Jayne Luck, 74, died peacefully at home in Hollywood, Fla. on June 5, 2022, surrounded by her loved ones.
The daughter of Martin “Mac” Luck and Rose (Goldberg) Luck, Susan was born on Feb. 16, 1948 and grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, N.Y. When she was seven, her mother died of breast cancer, which inspired her future career choices.
She completed high school in three-and-a-half years and soon earned a nursing degree from Kingsborough Community College; she was certified as a registered nurse at age 18. Her first job was in a surgery unit at N.Y.U. Medical Center.
Susan arrived in Provincetown in 1971. She worked as a nurse at the Provincetown Drop-in Center, a free community clinic and counseling center co-founded by Patti Cozzi. Inspired by Cozzi, in 1974 Susan co-founded a health food store on Main Street in Wellfleet that was modeled on Cozzi’s Earth Food, the first health food store in Provincetown.
After leaving Provincetown, Susan continued her studies in health, nutrition, and medical anthropology at the University of California Berkeley and Santa Cruz and at the New School. For the rest of her life, she worked in New York City, California, Guatemala, Mexico, and Miami, always expanding her scope of activities and interests. In 1987, the American Holistic Nurses Association presented her with the prestigious Holistic Nurse of the Year Award.
Susan was a pioneer in the fields of integrative health, holistic nursing, and nurse coaching. She was co-founder of the International Nurse Coach Association, and she developed and taught in coaching programs, nationally and internationally. She wrote books on nutrition, environmental health, holistic and integrative nursing, nurse coaching, and leadership.
Her book The Art and Science of Nurse Coaching (2013) led to establishing standards for practice in the emerging nurse coach role. She was co-author of the award-winning Nurse Coaching: Integrative Approaches for Health and Wellbeing (2015).
As a concerned global citizen, Susan developed and implemented integrative health initiatives for diverse communities. She founded and served as education director of the EarthRose Institute (named for her mother, Rose), a Miami-based nonprofit dedicated to environmental health education and advocacy. She was the nutrition consultant for special immunology services at Mercy Hospital in Miami and served as the director of nurse coaching at Rezilir Health in Hollywood, Fla.
She leaves her sisters, Francine Luck and Karen Luck Firestone, and brother-in-law, Mark Firestone; her nephew and nieces, Jared, Emmy, and Tara Firestone; and her partner, Robert Daigler.
Susan was predeceased by her parents and by her stepmother, Beatrice Luck.
A memorial service to celebrate Susan’s extraordinary life will be held on June 17, 2022 at 2 p.m. at Levitt-Weinstein Memorial Gardens, 188840 West Dixie Hwy., North Miami Beach, Fla.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the EarthRose Institute (donate.earthrose.org).
Editor’s note: Because of a fact-checking error, an earlier version of this obituary, published in print on June 16, erroneously identified Patti Cozzi’s 1970s health food store in Provincetown. It was called Earth Food, not Earth Rose.
