Suzann Briand of Montauk, an auditor and fisherwoman, died of liver failure on April 14 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. She was 52 and had been ill with Graves’ disease for a few years.
She is survived by her daughter, Avery, 9, a brother, Donald Briand of Montauk, and two nephews, Alex and Christopher.
Ms. Briand was born at Southampton Hospital on Jan. 24, 1971, to Donald Hugh Briand and the former Marjorie McTurck. She grew up in Ditch Plain, the youngest of three children, and as a kid would go to job sites with her father, a contractor who co-owned Foster and Briand Construction. “Suzann idolized her father,” wrote a friend, Georgica Bogetti. He died in 1990, when she was 19.
Ms. Briand graduated from East Hampton High School in 1989 and pursued a degree in accounting over many years at colleges between New York and Florida.
Her first job during high school was waitressing. Later, she tended bar at her mother’s restaurant, Fish Tales Galley at West Lake Marina. She eventually owned her own bar, the Shebeen on South Edgemere Street in Montauk.
She came from five generations of fishermen and fisherwomen — her mother held multiple records for her catches — and “she found passion in the sea,” Ms. Bogetti wrote. She loved being on the water and sharing those moments with her family. She also worked on the water, including in the galley and as a mate with the Viking Fleet, whose owners, the Forsberg family, were her relatives. In recent years, she got her captain’s license.
Ms. Briand had ovarian cysts at a young age and didn’t think she would be able to have children. She was longlining on the F/V Hannah Boden on a 20-day offshore trip when she found out she was pregnant with her daughter, and was thrilled, her friend wrote.
A single mother, she raised her daughter with the help of her brother, her mother, and other family members. “Suzann was not only an incredible mother to her child . . . but also to her nephew Alex, stepping in to help raise him while her brother worked as a full-time commercial fisherman.”
Her mother taught her to sew as a child. She painted, sewed clothes, and made jewelry, all of which she enjoyed doing with her own daughter. She later took up cooking and baking.
“Suzann was extremely intelligent and great with numbers,” Ms. Bogetti wrote. Her career working as an auditor took her to Long Beach, Calif., Las Vegas, Melbourne, Fla., Manhattan, and many other places, but she “always found home in Montauk.” For the past five years she and her daughter had been living in her childhood home there with her brother, her nephew Alex, and her two dogs, Brutus and Rogue.
She was “a woman like no other . . . loving, intelligent, resilient, caring, and, above all, she was fierce,” her friend wrote. “Family meant just about everything to Suzann. Coming from Montauk she was constantly surrounded by her aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. Some of her favorite memories were spent sitting around the Viking dock laughing and sharing stories with her family.”
Her mother, who had been in poor health in recent years, died last month. Her brother Kurtis Briand died in 2010.
The family plans a memorial gathering in May or June. Ms. Briand wished to be buried at sea, and a ceremony will be held for both her and her mother.
