Restoring the “Suzie Q” and Other Treasures

This is an article that I wrote as News Reporter for my university's Alumni Review Magazine. 

Alumnae who were on campus back in the 1950s and 1960s will remember Suzie Q. “The Golden Girl” was a regular at the games of the women’s varsity basketball and volleyball teams. She wasn’t very big- in fact, Suzie Q was less than a metre tall- but whatever she lacked in size, she more than made up for in school spirit.

However, in the late 1950s, when organizers of the Women’s intercollegiate Athletic Union outlawed team mascots- after Suzie Q was kidnapped at a women’s basketball tournament in Toronto, and an uproar ensued- the tattered, kilt wearing mascot was “retired” to a trophy case in the athletics centre. There she sat for more than 40 years. Until recently.

Staff from the Queen’s Archives work with students from the Master of Art Conservation (MAC) program to restore some valuable artefacts belonging to the university and to the City of Kingston. Their latest Queen’s projects include a restoration of Suzie Q and a football signed by players of the 1922 varsity championship football team, the year the Tricolour won the first of three consecutive Grey Cups. The deflated ball was found in a trophy cabinet at Summerhill, the campus home of the Department of Alumni Relations.

To restore and preserve the ball and Suzie Q, Margaret Bignell, ArtsSci ’75, MAC ’77, the Principal Conservator at Queen’s Archives, last fall enlisted the help of students from the MAC program, which is the only one of its kind in Canada.

Corine Soueid, MAC ’13, set to work restoring the football. She said the project took almost eight months of painstaking effort. Soueid carefully cleaned the football so the players’ signatures were legible again, and because the ball’s rubber bladder had disintegrated, she filled the space with polyester felt.  Says Soueid, “Conservation is fragile work. I had to be extra careful to ensure that the ball was restored to its original state and then I created a customized box to preserve it.”

Suzie Q received similar special treatment. The doll was in sad shape, and work on her, initiated in January, is ongoing. So far a team of students has restored Suzie Q’s clothes and has reattached her hands. Suzie Q travelled to the U of T, and that’s where she was kidnapped. When she was rescued, she had an ink tattoo on her back that reads: ‘STOLEN-Mar 2/57 TORONTO.’ The Archives staff reported that the tattoo will not be removed because it is now an important part of Suzie Q’s history. 

University Archivist Paul Banfield, MA '85 says, "The collaborative efforts of the Archives staff and the MAC students enables Archives to restore artefects, books, and city property tax assessment rolls, while the MAC students get to work on projects that let them put their theoretical knowledge to practical use. It's a win-win situation for everyone."

Image courtesy: Queen's Alumni Review Magazine