Susan Kam, 94, Encino
Sister Susan Kam was just two years into her job supporting adoptive families at Holy Families Services in Los Angeles when she was tapped by the Catholic Welfare Bureau to direct its Indochinese Resettlement program in Los Angeles and Orange County in 1975. It was an enormous undertaking. “After the fall of Saigon, there were hundreds of thousands of people f leeing the region, and Los Angeles had a huge resettlement program,” said Sister Maribeth Larkin, general director of the Sisters of Social Service, the order to which Kam belonged for 72 years. “She was in charge of that effort for the diocese of Los Angeles.” As part of the work, Kam identified local Catholic families willing to house new immigrants until more permanent housing could be found. The work also included helping families with other necessities, such as registering children for school.
Kam, born and raised in Hawaii, joined the Sisters of Social Service in 1948 — an order of nuns who feel called to serve in the center of urban life, rather than pursue a life of contemplation at a cloister.
Kam served in the Stanford Home for dependent high school girls in Sacramento and in the Stanford Settlement for children, as well as in the Catholic Youth Organization. In 1963 she and four other nuns were sent to Taiwan to help establish their social service ministry there. She returned to the U. S. 7 1⁄ years later and earned her master’s degree in social
2 work from the University of Hawaii. After graduation she went to work at Holy Family Services in Los Angeles, working primarily with adoptive parents.
Kam was skilled at quilting, sewing, woodwork and Chinese brush painting, and her friends said she was adored by everyone who knew her.
“She was just a sweetheart,” said Sister Patricia McGowan, who met Kam in the 1960s. “I never saw her be harsh or short- tempered or anything.”
Toward the end of her life Kam suffered from dementia and was living in a facility in Encino for people with memory issues. The facility experienced a COVID- 19 outbreak in November, and Kam was among those who tested positive. She died Nov. 15 at age 94.
“The staff was devastated to lose her because she was such an upbeat person,” McGowan said.
— Deborah Netburn