Her mom died a hero. 2023 IndyStar Sports Mom of the Year lives lessons learned from her.
Amy Dinwiddie still remembers her mom’s coffee cup in the sink.
There was something about that sight. The image of something so ordinary and familiar still sticks with her more than seven years after a day that marked the end of one life for Amy and the beginning of something different.
“You realize how quickly something happens,” Dinwiddie said. “You know … but not really.”
Until the afternoon Jan. 26, 2016, Dinwiddie could always count on her mother being there for her. Emotionally and physically. The house Amy shared with her husband, Will, and daughter, Kat, and son, Wilkes, sat just beyond the backyard of her mother’s house, where Amy and her older sister, Lisa, grew up in the Devonshire V neighborhood on the northeast side. Susan Jordan had a gate put in her chainlink fence so Kat could sprint through when she saw her grandmother’s lights turn on when she got home from work.
Amy used that gate, too, as their relationship transformed from mother-daughter to a close friendship. They often sat on Susan’s deck drinking a glass of wine and sharing stories and laughs.
“We were probably co-dependent,” Amy said with a smile, recalling the memories of her mother. “I’d just call my mom. Right or wrong, I’m glad I did it. I got a lifetime with her in 39 years.”
Susan Jordan, a lifelong educator, died a hero to more than just Amy and her family. On the afternoon of Jan. 26, 2016, Jordan, the principal of Amy Beverland Elementary School in Lawrence Township, was conducting her usual afterschool duties of student dismissal, a task then-elementary school grandchildren Kat and Wilkes sometimes helped her with, though not that day. On that cold January afternoon, a distracted school bus driver forgot to set the parking brake. As the bus lurched forward on to the curb, Jordan pushed two students out of the path, but lost her life in a tragic accident.
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Jordan, 69, served as school’s principal for 22 years, gaining a reputation as a generous soul who put kids first and remembered names, even after they had long left Amy Beverland. Teachers, cooks, custodians and students loved and appreciated Jordan. When she died, Lawrence Township Schools superintendent Shawn Smith called her “a legend.” Flags flew at half-staff.
“That staff was modeled in her image — an image of kids first,” Smith said at the time.
Her family was also modeled in her image. Susan coached her daughters in baseball in the Skiles Test league close to their home and in softball at St. Alban’s (before Skiles Test offered softball). Amy, one of two winners recognized as the 2023 IndyStar Mother’s Day “Sports Mom of the Year”, learned a lot from her mother about baseball and softball on those fields.
And a lot more.
“That’s where it all started,” Dinwiddie said. “I knew I wanted to be involved with sports (with my kids) because it was our very favorite pastime. We wanted to be at the ballfields all day. She was always at our games and practices when I coached, too. She would go to everything she could. Sometimes she would go to Skiles Test to watch games even when it wasn’t anyone that she knew playing. She just liked to go.”
Amy coached Kat’s softball teams from age 4 to 12. Susan was right there, too. Her mother’s passion for coaching was obvious at an early age to Kat. “She loved every single player like it was her own child,” Kat said. “She cared about every players’ feelings after games, even if we ended up losing.”
Kat was especially close with her grandmother, spending a lot of one-on-one time with her at her house or running errands. After the accident, both Kat and Wilkes found it too difficult to return to school at Amy Beverland. Before, they had often rode with her to school and home after school. Instead of returning, they enrolled at St. Louis de Montfort to get a “fresh start.”
“It was just too much for them to go back,” said Will Dinwiddie, Amy’s husband. “(Their grandmother) was just a huge part of who they are.”
The days, weeks and months after the accident were hard on the family. In May of 2016, Jordan was honored posthumously with the Sagamore of the Wabash, one of the state’s highest honors. Amy, Lisa and Jordan’s brother, Bob Kelley, accepted the honor from then-governor Mike Pence.
All of the honors and kind words, though, could not bring back her mom and close friend.
“None of us had experienced grief before,” Will said. “We were fortunate that way. But we didn’t know how to handle it. It was really, really hard for Amy at first. We were always second-guessing ourselves like, ‘Is this what we’re supposed to be doing?’ I was thinking, ‘What can I do to help Amy?’ and constantly thinking we need to make sure the kids are alright. Lawrence Township schools were really good supporting us, even sending counselors to our house.”
The Dinwiddies could not bear the thought of strangers moving into Susan’s house. The idea of looking out their back window and seeing anybody but her across the fence was too much. So the family picked up and moved across the backyard and into Susan’s home. It came with its share of pain, too, finding notes and photos Susan had tucked away over the years.
“I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else living in this house,” Amy said. “We loved (our old house), too. But at the same time, it was a no-brainer.”
Amy might not have felt it within herself in those months after her mother’s passing, but Kat found strength from her mom. When it came time to choose a high school, Kat surprised her parents by choosing Lawrence North. She wanted to do it in part to honor her grandmother, but also the mother who had coached her with such passion for so many years.
“My mom’s probably the strongest person I’ve met in my whole life,” Kat said. “The way she handled everything with such grace and just being able to get out of bed after such a traumatic accident and losing someone so special in your life inspired me to do the same.”
Kat, who played volleyball and softball throughout high school, plans to attend Hanover College next year. When Susan died, the Dinwiddies took ownership of her two goldendoodle dogs. One, a fun-loving 10-year-old named Marnie, is especially close with Kat. Amy had a pet pillow of Marnie made for Kat to take with her to college.
“When I see Marnie, it kind of feels like I’m seeing my grandma,” Kat said. “She is sort of the last living thing from my grandma so I feel very connected to her.”
Amy, a Lawrence Central graduate, has always been sports-minded. Like Kat, she played softball and volleyball and also enjoyed running. Through middle school, she also competed in basketball. When Kat started playing sports, that competitive itch transferred to coaching. Will, her husband, was also involved in sports as an assistant coach for North Central’s football team until about a decade ago, often bringing young son Wilkes around the team. When it came time for Wilkes to choose a high school, he picked North Central and plays on the football team.
“It was something that always brought us together as a family,” Amy said. “My mom would walk down and watch practices with us. Kat and I would spend so much time together because I was coaching her and I’d be at practices and games. I got to spend more time with her than if I wasn’t coach and got to know the girls she was with, too.”
Amy, a bit of a “free spirit”, sees a lot of her mother in Kat. Susan had a dry sense of humor, similar to her granddaughter. Dawn Colbert, who worked with Susan for 20 years and taught Kat in fifth grade, commented on the similarities between the personalities of the two.
But Amy also sees herself becoming more like her mom. She laughed when she almost instinctively wrote, “Follow your dreams” and “Push yourself” in Wilkes’ birthday card earlier this week. Those are her mother’s words.
“I don’t think I’ve ever written that in a card,” she said. “But I’m glad I did. I do find myself doing things like talking to the kids in the gym about sportsmanship (she teaches at St. Matthew) and having a good attitude. Sportsmanship, character. Those are things that are always important that she talked about.”
Time has helped, too. The weeks and months after the accident, there were days Amy did not want to get out of bed. Dates are still hard. Birthdays and holidays. Jan. 26. Even today, Mother’s Day.
“I feel like time heals your heart just a little bit,” Amy said. “You don’t forget, but it does make it less shocking, less bring-you-to-your-knees every day.”
Amy is a vocal fan. Loud. But also positive. “Always positive,” she said. “I always try to encourage.” Earlier this week, Amy and the rest of the family, her sister and her family included, attended Kat’s senior night softball game, a win for Lawrence North.
But something else happened that night. Behind the bleachers, a hawk swooped down and picked up a duckling from a group of 10-12 babies. Amy jumped into action and … “We ended up bringing 10 ducklings home (Monday night),” her husband said. Amy brought the ducklings home, where they spent the night protected on the back porch before she took them to the rescue in the morning. “Alert and bouncy,” she said with a smile.
“That’s the similarity to Amy and her mom,” Will said. “They want to make sure people are taken care of and they have a hard time letting things go if they aren’t. They both are always looking for the best in bad situations.”
Both of her kids will be out of the house in the next couple of years. That will be difficult, too. But she remembers another line her mother would tell her: “Believe in yourself.” Those are words she wants her children to hear.
“Giving them wings as well as roots,” she said. “I think that’s one thing mom taught me. In addition to others. But that’s a big one.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mother's Day: Susan Jordan died a hero; Her daughter lives her lessons
