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Betty Brown
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Most of those addressed will not know or at least not remember Betty Brown. I got a Christmas Card from Betty this morning. She is the widow of my Dad's half brother (Willie Elven Brown). She lives now and has for years in a house near Lancaster High School in Lancaster Texas. Frank and I went to visit her there about four years or so ago. I would guess that Betty is about 85 or maybe a bit older and she lives all alone in that same house where she and Willie lived when he was alive. It was something that Willie and Betty did once that I think was a very noble and caring thing . They had an acquaintance who had a family of five children. Four girls and a boy I think. One night the friend couple went out on a date of sorts and left the children at home under the supervision of the eldest (a girl12 years old) and they never came back. They were involved in a deadly automobile accident that killed both of them leaving the five kids all alone. Willie and Betty went over to that house, bundled up the kids and took them home, made the preparations to adopt all five kids ---which they followed through. Willie was a welder at a Dallas tank manufacturing company and was already feeling the effects of the occupational lung disorder which caused his death within the next five years leaving Betty all alone with five kids. The story has a happy ending. They all reached adulthood, married and moved away and are now fine citizens. No Child Protective Services, no court supervision that I know of, no insurance from the dead parents---juist Willie and Betty to take care of them and not even Willie for very long.
Betty was a nurse for a local clinic and finally had to give that up due to her health. She is still the same bright and cheerful person that she was thirty or forty years ago. Her Christmas Card that I got today said that her Parkinson's disease had progressed to the point where she could only navigate around her house with a walker but that everything was all right. Imagine that--everything was all right!
Just thought that you should know.
love
dad, granpa, ami
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