‘She never gave up.’ Ugly Pirate matriarch made sure her family celebrated one last time.
Susan Darlene Rubio was determined to see Christmas with her family and did because she was a woman who never gave up.
The lesson will stay with her adult children, Johnnie, Amanda and Travis.
Their father, Kevin Rubio, brought his first and only love to their daughter’s house Christmas Eve morning, which also happened to be his 62nd birthday. Their children were there with their spouses, as were the five grandchildren, Susan’s mother, Willie Shubert, brother Claude and his wife.
The family had a big breakfast and visited through lunch. Then Keith and Susan, owners of The Ugly Pirate in downtown Bay St. Louis, stopped to see friends in Diamondhead. Susan, also 62, was tired by the time they got home. Her husband said that she did not complain, not once in eight years, about her breast cancer.
She died Christmas afternoon, her family at her side.
“I couldn’t tell you how many people have showed up here in the last few days just to visit,” daughter Amanda Rubio Turner said from the apartment where her parents lived above their cafe and restaurant.
“She had so many friends, even outside The Pirate. She got along with everybody and everybody loved her.”
Young love endures
Kevin Rubio fell in love the moment he met Susan at the old roller skating rink in Waveland. They were 12 years old. He was from Algiers near New Orleans, but his family had a weekend home in Waveland. Susan was from Bay St. Louis.
After that first meeting, they got together every Saturday at the roller skating rink. Her mother had a sandwich shop in the building that would one day house The Ugly Pirate. Keith Rubio got a job at the grocery store across the street when he was 15 years old.
“I was kind of stalking Susan,” he said. “I could look out the window and watch her.”
They married when they were 18 years old. The couple lived and worked in Louisiana until 1988, when they packed up and moved to Bay St. Louis. He said they sang the Beverly Hillbilly’s song on the drive over, as in the hillbillies packed up, moved and got rich.
They were just looking to be closer to family and in a quieter place.
Keith at some point wandered into The Ugly Pirate. He liked it there and kept going back. One day, the owner mentioned he was looking to sell the business. Keith took over the bar in April 2012, while Susan continued to work as director of human resources for the Treasure Chest Casino in Kenner.
It was the ideal job for her. She loved people.
She lives on through family, friends
About four months after the bar opened, her doctor found a lump in her breast. The eventual diagnosis was a harsh one: inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and deadly cancer. The cancer had already spread to her lymph nodes.
She had surgery, chemotherapy, and more surgery and chemotherapy when the cancer returned. She would not give up or give in.
“She knew what she was facing,” her son Travis said. “She knew what she was dealing with. There were tears here and there but it was like, “ ‘I’ve got to keep going.’ ”
She had to resign the casino job, but Susan was a worker. She helped out at The Ugly Pirate. Talking to customers was her forté. If one of her friends had a problem, she listened without judgment. Her own problems were forgotten.
The Ugly Pirate has a family atmosphere. The bar and cafe serves pizza and gyros, and the only alcohol is beer.
Ida Stieffel lived only a few doors down from the bar. After her husband died of cancer four years ago, the Rubios became a second family to her. She and Susan watched “Jeopardy! “ together most afternoons. “When I would walk in the door, she would say, ‘There she is. It’s about time you got here.’ ” Stieffel said.
She said Susan Rubio will live on in the hearts of her friends because she was such a dear person.
She asked her son, Travis, a couple of weeks ago to look after his Dad. Travis had tried going off to college after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. But he just couldn’t stay. He missed his mom. She was his person if he had a problem or needed to talk.
“She always gave good advice,” he said. “I always went to mom first.”
Raising money for cancer
Kevin Rubio has a long, white beard. He started looking for a Santa suit before his first grandchild was born. Thereafter, the couple dressed up every year as Santa and Mrs. Claus, delivering toys with their motorcycle club to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. They also dressed up at The Ugly Pirate.
Susan Rubio was active with the Pink Heart Funds, a nonprofit organization that provides wigs and prosthetics to women and children with cancer who are unable to afford them. She was always determined to raise as much money as possible for the group.
She served for three years as treasurer on the organization’s board of directors, said founder JoAn Niceley.
“She never wanted a wig,” Niceley said. “She just preferred the head wrap. I always said that she totally rocked those head wraps.
Keith Rubio has two phones now — his and his wife’s. He can’t keep up with the calls since he posted Christmas night on The Ugly Pirate’s Facebook page that she had passed away.
Until the end, she had the same attitude about cancer as she did about any other challenge in her life.
“She never gave up,” her daughter said. “She would go down with a fight, regardless.
“Even when they told her, basically, this (cancer) is only going to get worse, she was still taking her chemo. She did what she could to keep going, no matter what.”
Arrangements and other details
A celebration of Susan Rubio’s life is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3, at Bay St. Louis Community Hall, 301 Blaize Ave.
The Rubio family is requesting donations in her honor to the Pink Heart Funds, a Long Beach nonprofit that provides wigs and prothetics to woman and children with cancer and limited incomes. You can donate online or mail a contribution to Pink Heart Funds, P.O. Box 1047 Long Beach, MS, 39560.
