She was also noted for her interest in art and her philanthropy, establishing Ravenscar House Museum in Christchurch with her second husband, Jim Wakefield.
[2][4] She excelled academically, achieving a total of 465 marks out of a possible 500 in her five School Certificate examination papers in 1958, believed to have been the highest in the country that year.
[7] In Christchurch in 1964 or 1965, Turtle married Alex Lojkine, a lecturer in Russian at the University of Canterbury, and the couple went on to have two children before later divorcing.
[1] In May 1992, she married Jim Wakefield, an accountant, businessman, and harness-racing horse owner, breeder and administrator.
[12] In 1987 and 1988, she served on a consultative committee for the Inland Revenue Department to review New Zealand's international tax regime.
[12] Susan and Jim Wakefield bought a property in the Christchurch suburb of Scarborough in 1994 and built a new home, Ravenscar House, completed in 1997 on the site.