Betty Jean Bracklin was born in Hayward, Wisconsin on July 11, 1932 and passed away on December 2, 2021 in Sheridan, Oregon. There was a lot of living in between.
She bravely left Hayward right after high school and moved to Seattle. While living at the YWCA she met Richard DeBere at a dance. He was in the Coast Guard at the time. She later joked that because he was a little pudgy around the middle, she reasoned that he liked to eat and would therefore be a good provider. As it turned out, he was. They married on August 14, 1954 and had three kids. His job at the phone company kept them moving every few years. There was no time for dust bunnies to build up underneath her refrigerator! Homes they made stretched from Arcata, Chico and San Jose, CA, to Pendleton, Gresham and Albany, OR to Vancouver, WA. She worked at the same phone company he did all those years.
Retirement found them in Sun City, AZ because it was sunny and warm! While Richard liked to crank out the miles on his recumbent bike, Betty enjoyed her weekly golf game with the ladies. They went ballroom dancing every weekend and often took classes to keep learning new steps. She bought herself a Lowry organ and played nearly every day.
Summers are just plain hot in Arizona, so they bought a travel trailer and visited their kids in California, Oregon and Washington for a couple of months each summer. While in Oregon, they got together with old friends and met at the Eagles or Elks club for more dancing. The first cool, rainy September days always sent them south again.
Betty and Richard saw a little bit of the world, too. They went on several cruises and traveled to the New England states, Alaska, Hawaii and Costa Rica to name a few.
Betty outlived her husband and many of their dance friends. After living by herself in Arizona for two years, she moved to Sheridan to live with her son and daughter-in-law. Four years later, her Parkinson's disease finally ran its course. She was preceded in death by five siblings and her husband. She leaves behind her sister Sylvia in Wisconsin, two sons, Mike in Bellingham and Mark in Sheridan, a daughter, Tina Moon in Shasta Lake, and a step daughter, Lyn Lamar in Portland plus several nieces, cousins and grand children.
Her ashes will be buried at White Salmon Cemetery with Richard sometime in the spring, when it stops raining.
