Susan Carson Lambert’s life has been defined by movement, reinvention, and a steady pull toward place, purpose, and people. From military childhood to federal mapping work, from Kentucky farmland to South Carolina roots, her path has always seemed to circle back to Columbia.
Lambert was born into a career U.S. Navy family with deep roots in Pennsylvania. The family tree features Scottish and Irish heritage along with a little Viking for variety. In 1948, while her father was stationed in South Carolina, she entered the world at the Charleston Naval Hospital, set on the salt marsh.
“We moved all over the East Coast growing up,” Lambert said. “Dad mostly had sea duty, so I didn’t really get to know him until I was 12. Mom, like so many military wives married to men who deployed often, ran the show. She did wonders with little. Dad retired in Virginia Beach, just in time for us to go to high school in one place.”…