CHARACTER
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Susan Smith

Susan Smith

Quick Facts

A reluctant guardian turned steadfast mother, Susan Smith is the grieving recluse who takes in Ada Smith and Jamie Smith during the evacuation to Kent. First seen as a pale, thin woman in mourning clothes, she lives alone in her late friend Becky’s house. Oxford-educated and solitary, she joins the Women’s Volunteer Service (WVS) as the war deepens. Her core relationships with Ada and Jamie reshape her identity, purpose, and home.

Who They Are

At her first appearance, Susan looks like her grief: “a pale, thin woman” in a black dress, hair billowing like “a frizzy yellow cloud,” with dark circles under her eyes. She has no experience with children and no interest in getting any. Yet as war encroaches, she discovers reserves of care, moral courage, and humor that she had buried beneath loss. Susan becomes the living center of the novel’s exploration of chosen kinship, embodying the theme of The Meaning of Found Family: love isn’t inherited; it’s built through daily acts of protection, trust, and tenderness.

Personality & Traits

Susan’s personality shifts from bristling detachment to warm constancy. Her arc makes plain that decency can coexist with bluntness, and that grief can mature into fierce love.

  • Reclusive and depressed
    • Evidence: She keeps her curtains drawn and confesses, “Since Becky died, I don’t sleep well.” Her unkempt appearance mirrors emotional neglect.
  • Curt and unsentimental
    • Evidence: She tells the children, “I don’t know a thing about taking care of children,” and even warns, “I am not a nice person at all.” The brusqueness is real, but it’s also armor.
  • Intelligent and educated
    • Evidence: An Oxford graduate, she is articulate and precise—sometimes to the point of intimidating the children with vocabulary they don’t yet know.
  • Fundamentally decent
    • Evidence: Within hours she bathes Ada and Jamie, feeds them, clothes them, and seeks medical help for Ada’s foot. Action precedes affection, but reveals it.
  • Nurturing and maternal (developed)
    • Evidence: She cooks, sews, reads aloud nightly, and tends both physical needs and invisible wounds.
  • Protective and fierce (developed)
    • Evidence: She confronts Jamie’s teacher for tying his left hand and stands up to Lady Thorton to keep the children safe: “I’ll fight for her. I do fight for her. Someone has to.”
  • Patient and trauma-informed (developed)
    • Evidence: She learns Ada’s triggers, comforts her through panic attacks, and teaches her to read without shame.
  • Brave (developed)
    • Evidence: She travels into the Blitz to rescue Ada and Jamie after their mother reclaims them—placing love above rules and danger.

Character Journey

Susan’s growth mirrors the book’s claim that upheaval can forge new selves. The War as a Catalyst for Change pries open a life sealed by grief. Small, concrete choices become her turning points: bandaging Ada’s foot, paying for proper medical care, and buying clothes. Advocacy for Jamie against his punitive teacher shifts her from reluctant caretaker to unapologetic guardian. As she begins to sew again, welcome visitors, and don a WVS uniform with stockings and heels, her outer order reflects inner renewal. She moves from “I never wanted children” to “how lovely it was to have someone to come home to again,” culminating in her dash into bombed London and, finally, the rubble-side confession that the children saved her life. Her home—and heart—rebuild together.

Key Relationships

  • Ada Smith
    Susan’s most transformative bond. Ada’s wariness, pride, and trauma require patience and steadfastness; Susan meets her needs with structure and respect, proving that love can be dependable rather than dramatic. In learning to fight for Ada, Susan relearns how to fight for herself.

  • Jamie Smith
    With Jamie, trust comes sooner. Susan becomes his calm center—reading to him, defending him at school, and tolerating Bovril the cat. Her protectiveness gives Jamie the safety to be an exuberant child, not a problem to be corrected.

  • Becky
    Becky’s unseen presence shapes everything: the house, the pony Butter, and the emptiness Susan inhabits at the start. Healing, for Susan, means not replacing Becky but making room for new love beside her memory.

  • Mam
    As the children’s biological mother, Mam exposes Susan’s contrast: neglect versus nurture, shame versus pride. Where Mam’s cruelty taught Ada fear, Susan’s consistency teaches worth.

  • Lady Thorton
    Initially an authority figure who strong-arms Susan into taking the children, Lady Thorton becomes a wary ally. Their class-framed clashes soften into respect, especially after Ada helps her daughter, Maggie Thorton—a moment that validates Susan’s instincts and the children’s growth.

Defining Moments

Susan’s pivotal scenes chart a path from obligation to devotion.

  • Taking the children in
    • Why it matters: She claims she’s “not a nice person,” yet opens her door—and life. The action precedes (and predicts) a change of heart.
  • Caring for Ada’s foot
    • Why it matters: She recognizes medical neglect and corrects it immediately, proving that true care is practical, not sentimental.
  • Confronting Jamie’s teacher
    • Why it matters: Marching to school to stop the tying of his left hand, she becomes the advocate Jamie has never had. Maternal love arrives as protection.
  • Comforting Ada’s panic attacks
    • Why it matters: During terrifying episodes, she holds Ada and names what’s happening, modeling how to survive Trauma, Abuse, and Healing with compassion and skill.
  • Rescuing the children from London
    • Why it matters: Defying rules and bombs, she chooses the children as family. Love here is an action—taken at personal risk.
  • The final scene in the rubble
    • Why it matters: “The two of you saved my life” reframes the arc: Susan isn’t only a savior; she is saved by the family she builds.

Essential Quotes

“You’re in luck, then,” she said, “because I am not a nice person at all.”
Bristling honesty shields vulnerability. Susan lowers expectations to avoid disappointing anyone—including herself—but the line foreshadows how her “not nice” bluntness will be repurposed into moral courage on the children’s behalf.

“I wasn’t going to hit you,” she said. “I was going to help you.”
This reassurance redraws Ada’s map of adults. In a world where authority has meant harm, Susan pairs authority with gentleness, teaching Ada to reinterpret touch, tone, and trust.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
The phrasing sounds dutiful, but duty becomes devotion. Repetition of this idea throughout the story marks Susan’s shift from legal obligation to chosen responsibility—care as a promise, not a task.

“I’ll fight for her. I do fight for her. Someone has to.”
Here, love is defense. The escalation from future to present tense—“I’ll fight” to “I do fight”—captures Susan’s awakening agency and the immediacy of her commitment to Ada.

“It’s lucky I went after you,” she said. “The two of you saved my life, you did.”
In the wreckage, Susan inverts the savior narrative: the children rescue her from despair and isolation. The mutuality completes the found-family arc—each heals the other, and that reciprocity becomes the book’s emotional core.