The Unsinkable Betsy Smith

Every once in a while you meet someone who just lights up and completely energizes a room simply by walking into it. Betsy Smith is just that special kind of person. She has a such a joy of life, sense of adventure, incredible love of family and gift for making the lives of many people better just for having known her, that you absolutely want to bask in her glow and have some of that magic pixie dust that seems to emanate from her bounce your way.

I knew I wanted to share her story with all of you, and when she was so generous to answer my call for Christmas family traditions, I was certain we had our perfect December Blog! Kind and generous to a fault, Betsy shares with us not only her wonderful holiday family traditions, but her sense of joy about life, despite the profound loss of her husband at way too young an age. She also gives us a peek at an amazing organization, P.E.O., and her unique and many faceted contributions to their good work.

Here’s much more about the life and times of the fabulous Betsy Smith!

The Unsinkable Betsy Smith!

Betsy, like so many of us, you are not a native to California. Tell us a bit about your childhood, where you grew up, your family values, how you met your beloved husband and how in heck you ended up in California!

I was born in New Jersey and lived there all my life (except for the four years I spent at Marietta College in Ohio) until I moved to California in 1994. After college I taught 7th - 10th grade English and speech for four years. (Fun fact: during the six-week cycle class that every 9th Grader took, I taught Meryl Streep in a speech class. I also taught her in a sophomore English class!). During the last two years of teaching I became a certified speech therapist. I was offered a Federal Fellowship to get my Master’s, so I took a leave of absence, earned my Master’s, and then went back to my school district to set up the speech therapy program, K through 12.

It was during that time that I was invited to the home of a colleague for Thanksgiving dinner one year, where I met this young physicist, Neville Smith, from Yorkshire, England, who was working with my colleague’s husband at Bell Telephone Labs. Neville had just moved to New Jersey from Stanford where he had been doing a Post Doc. He proposed on New Year’s Day and we got married the following March! Our first daughter, Kaci, was born in 1972 and our second daughter, Libby, was born in 1974, and I became a stay at home mom, staying active outside the home as well with volunteer work.

Over the next nine years, my volunteer job in the school library turned into my being a paid librarian. I became very active with the schools (PTO), Girl Scouts, the Youth Commission and I ran a Junior Garden Club as part of the local Garden Club. In fact, we had three juried flower shows in our home! In 1992 I received the Youth Advocate of the Year Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Youth of Somerset County from the Board of Chosen Freeholders. Then I realized that when schools cut their budgets, one thing they cut is the librarians but not the speech therapists. I therefore returned to speech as a therapist for the Somerset County Educational Commission that supplied Speech Therapists and Supplemental Ed teachers to non-public and private schools. I drove a mobile classroom to the Parochial Schools.

With the divestiture of AT&T, Bell Labs began to go downhill. Once it was taken over by Lucent things got really bad and my husband was very unhappy and depressed about work. So on February 28, 1994, he took his 25 years and retired. On that date he punched in and out at Bell Labs and we got on a plane and flew to California. On March 1st, he started work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as the Scientific Director of the Advanced Light Source (ALS). He was thrilled to be back in, as he described it, "Paradise!"

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Neville with his beloved daughters, Kaci and Libby.

We met you at a time of great loss, Betsy, but I have to say that you have the most positive attitude and resiliency of almost anyone I know. How were you able to muster such courage, grace and strength in the face of the loss of Neville at such a young age? What advice would you have for others in a similar place in life?

Basically I am a very upbeat and positive person. I think that helps a lot. We did not have much warning. Nev told me that he did not feel well around July 10th and he was gone on August 18th. He went to work the week before he died, with my assistance, and even went to an off-site retreat all while being on morphine. I think what helped was that I don’t think I would have done anything differently. He was very accepting and resigned to the situation. He did not seem to suffer until the very end and it could have been so much worse for him. He died at home, we were all with him and as the hospice nurse said, "in 30 years of nursing I do not think I have ever seen anyone die so quickly or so peacefully." Another thing that helped was that he had said in the past, "I do not want a funeral but if you feel you have to do something, throw me a party!" So we threw him three parties and these kept us busy for a year.

The first was tied in with the October "User’s Meeting" at the ALS. The ALS is a user facility where people come from all over the world to do experiments. So we had about 200 people at an open house at our home. The girls put together 15 18" by 24" picture boards which were all over the house both indoors and outdoors.

Kaci, Betsy and Libby in Yorkshire, England, at the celebration of Neville's life.

The next was on what would have been his 65th birthday. We had a celebration of his life at a hotel in Leeds, England, near where his parents had lived. Many relatives, friends, college classmates, and scientific colleagues came. Before the party we had taken half his ashes to the local cemetery to be "strewn." The unofficial Yorkshire National Anthem is "On Ilkley Moor Ba Tat." So we took a small urn to Ilkley Moor and his sister, his daughters and I sprinkled his ashes next to the calf of "the Cow and the Calf" rock formation.

Then finally on the anniversary of his death, we took the other half of his ashes to New Jersey where they were put in a cemetery plot that my grandmother had purchased before my parents were married. My ancestors have been buried in that cemetery since the 1600’s! We had another celebration of his life at a restaurant in our old hometown. Friends of the girls, teachers, neighbors, colleagues, my relatives and many others who could not come to either California or England were able to participate.

Your volunteer efforts are nothing short of stunning. But I think your favorite has to be the work you do for P.E.O. Tell us about P.E.O. and the role you play in their organization.

When we moved to California I decided that I would not get a job. I decided that my job would be to become active in my new community. I joined the Section Club whose purpose is to provide service to the University community, to raise funds to aid and support deserving students and student-related groups of the university and to foster study and international understanding. It is made up partly of spouses, domestic partners, current and emeriti faculty, senior staff members of LBNL and LLNL, etc. In the olden days it would have been called the Faculty Wives’ Club. Nev had come from industry and I had never been in an academic environment but within less than 10 years I was Secretary Elect, Secretary, President Elect, President, and Past President/Parliamentarian. Presently I do orientations for the International Students and Scholars Committee every month at I-House (that is the International House at Cal Berkeley) and the Lab for the visiting international scholars. During the last two years I chaired the S.O.S. Committee which gives emergency grants of up to $500 to students in crisis. These students are recommended to us by campus liaisons. It is a very rewarding job.

When I moved to California I was already a P.E.O. I became a P.E.O. in 1983 through the Principal of my daughters’ elementary school. Being a P.E.O. was what made it so easy for me to move to California, in my 50’s, as I knew that I would meet P.E.O. sisters here. I was here 10 days when I received a phone call from a P.E.O. I visited six chapters in the East Bay before I chose the one I transferred to.

P.E.O. was founded in 1869 by seven college students at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It is now an International Philanthropic Organization of over 250,000 women, celebrating the advancement of women, educating women through scholarships, grants, loans and the stewardship of Cottey College. The organization is focused on motivating women to achieve their highest aspirations. Presently P.E.O. has six international philanthropies and the state of California also has several grants available to women. Since 1907, more than 98,000 women have been the recipients of these philanthropies with a total of $251 million given in financial assistance. In addition, since 1961, the P.E.O. Foundation (a nonprofit corporation established to encourage tax-deductible giving to the educational and charitable projects of the P.E.O. Sisterhood) has managed more than $73 million in more than 800 funds. One tenth of the P.E.O. Sisterhood lives in California. There are over 500 chapters in California and over 22,000 P.E.O.’s.

Presently I am the State Chair of the P.E.O. Program for Continuing Education which was established in 1973 to provide need based grants to women in the United States and Canada whose education had been interrupted and who later found it necessary to return to college to be better equipped to support themselves and/or their families. In October 2009 this grant was raised from a maximum of $2,000 to a maximum of $3,000. Since 1973 this philanthropy has awarded over $33 million to more than 31,000 women. P.E.O. - Women Helping Women Reach for the Stars!

Not only do you give generously of your time to P.E.O, but you have also set up a very unique situation in your guest home for out of town guests in a way that directly supports P.E.O. Tell us about that and what inspired you to make this available.

My home has an in-law apartment. In fact a tenant came with our home when we bought it. Our daughters were both in college on the East Coast when we moved to Berkeley. When they graduated they both came out here to see what it was like, found jobs, met partners and stayed. In fact at one point or another, they have each lived in the apartment. When Kaci moved into her own home (Libby already had done so) I decided that I did not want a permanent tenant. I wanted to be flexible. I use it for houseguests, I rent it to individuals that I have known who come to the Lab for short periods of time, and I do Bed and Breakfast for P.E.O.’s.

Once a year, our magazine lists contacts of chapters willing to do B & B for fellow P.E.O.’s. One of the ways we make money for our philanthropies is by providing these B & B’s for each other. I have benefited from this B & B system everywhere from Massachusetts to Ohio and also in Oregon. Most people just share a bedroom and bath in their house, but I am lucky enough to have this little three-room apartment. I am getting some regulars whose children live, work, or go to school in Berkeley. It is fun and I am meeting a lot of nice people. It becomes a philanthropic endeavor because guests don’t pay me --- instead they write their checks to P.E.O., Chapter EL which is my chapter. I love P.E.O. and I love volunteering and being involved.

Hand crafted block print holiday cards.

Another interesting tidbit about you is your creative streak --- which extends through your whole family! The latest artistic endeavors of yours that I learned from you are these absolutely gorgeous holiday cards that you and your family have created over the years. What a lovely tradition you set and have continued to pursue! We’d like to learn more!

When our first daughter was born we made a block print birth announcement. It was so much fun that we decided to make our own block print holiday greeting cards. For the next 33 years during the Thanksgiving week-end we would hand print cards. My husband designed and cut the blocks. I got him all of his supplies. He printed the cards and I got to do the envelopes and the sentiments inside (since they were all blank). As the girls got older they contributed their ideas for the designs.

We only missed one year – 1974 - when we moved and had our younger daughter all within the same month!

When my husband passed away in 2006 the girls asked to make the holiday greeting cards. This is what they printed up and pasted inside each card:

"Neville created his own Christmas cards for 33 years. This year we chose 4 of his (and our) favorites: Cardinal 1979, 2003; Santa 1976, 1985, 2002; Snowflakes 1981, 2005; and Poinsettia 1988, 2004. Lovingly reproduced in miniature by Kaci and hand-printed by Kaci and Libby in his memory."

Betsy's card tree displaying the family collection.

I have tried to carry on the tradition by making my own cards. I do not make block prints but I either paint a picture and reproduce it or I make copies of photos I have taken.

We have one more holiday tradition. Nev always gave everyone a book for Christmas which he put a lot of thought into. To honor this tradition, we now each give each other a book every year.

You have a passion for travel! And you have combined that passion for travel with opportunities to honor your husband’s memory as well as visit and connect with his family and your mutual friends. Tell us about the journeys you have taken, why they have such importance and meaning in your life, and what you have planned this next year.

I talked about all the traveling I did to honor Neville that first year. Also that year my best friend from college said that she, her sister and their husbands were planning a cruise and tour to Alaska and wondered if I would like to join them -- I did! It was wonderful.

Also in 2007, Nev and I were planning to live in Berlin for the months of July and August. There was going to be a scientific conference at the very end of July and into August and we wanted to be there at that time. Nev had been conference chair when it had been in San Francisco. Since he died in 2006, the conference committee flew me over, put me up in a hotel for a week and had a tribute to Neville on the last day, with me as the guest of honor. We had lived in Germany for a total of 10 months on an Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship for senior scientists to work with a German colleague. It is for 12 months spread over 5 years. We had lived in Juelich, Germany (near Cologne) from September, 2000 to March, 2001. Then our host moved to Berlin and we lived in Berlin April, May, and June of 2005. The trip spanning the conference was supposed to be our last two months.

This past September I had a wonderful trip. I went on an eight day Danube River Cruise from Budapest, Hungary to Passau, Germany. I went early and had a few days in Budapest on an extension. In Passau I was picked up by a young woman, Irmgard, who twenty-eight years ago had stayed with us in New Jersey during the month of July. For some reason a whole class of students from Linz, Austria came to New Jersey and we agreed to host two girls. (Editor’s note: Typical Betsy!) We have stayed in touch with her all these years. She and her husband had a long week-end with us in both Juelich and Berlin. Ten years ago we visited them on our way to a conference on Lake Lucerne. In September I was able to spend three days with her and her family. Her boys are the age she was when we met. She even invited the other girl who stayed with us, Elena, over for dinner and it was great to see her after all of this time. By opening our home through the years to these girls and to Rianne, mentioned below, Nev and I enriched our lives, and the long-lasting relationships that we created continue to give me joy.

What travel would you like to still do?

Next year I am planning on going to England, Holland, and Germany in August. I am going to visit the cemetery on the anniversary of Nev’s death to see his name in the Book of Remembrance. I want to contact relatives and friends that came to his celebration of life. Then I will be going to Holland to visit my Dutch "daughter," Rianne, and her family. Rianne lived with us for a year on an American Scandinavian Student Exchange Program, ASSE. She and her family are part of my family. Our whole family went to her wedding when she got married. When we had the open house for Nev, she came all the way from Holland. After I visit Rianne, I am planning on taking the train to Juelich to visit the friends I made when I lived there in 2000-2001.

Someday I would love to be able to take my whole family on the Alaskan cruise and tour. I also would love to take a cruise through the Panama Canal and I wouldn’t mind another river cruise. About every other year or so I visit my sister at her cottage in New Hampshire. I also love hosting visitors to the Bay Area and showing them around. I like being a travel guide.

Betsy and grandson Vincent

You are such an industrious woman, Betsy, with so many diverse interests! What else should we know about you and what else would you like to share or discuss?

I adore my grandson, Vincent, who was named after Neville. Vincent was Nev’s middle name. Vincent was born in 2008 and is just a little over two and a half. He is loved and adored by the whole family. He is funny and talks all the time. He is a good, calm, mellow little boy. He has added so much to our family. I do not think there is another little boy so loved.

Superhero Vincent was Super Why for Halloween.

I enjoy the various sections of the Section Club. As part of the Music Section I sing in a chorus which meets for 2 hours every Tuesday morning during the Academic year. I love singing in this chorus. I belong to the Berkeley City Club and am a Docent there. I love to read and I am in three book groups. I love to swim which I do at the City Club and when I don't have time to swim I like exercising on my treadmill. I love theater. I attend Cal Performances, Cal Shakes, Aurora, Berkeley Rep, ACT, the San Francisco Opera and others.

Betsy has very generously offered to take calls and emails from any of our readers who’d like more information about volunteering with P.E.O. or donating to the P.E.O. Foundation, renting her guest home, travel ideas or just to hang out and have a great meal! Here’s how you reach Betsy: betsysmith510@sbcglobal.net 510-843-1643.

I think you’ll agree that Betsy is inspirational. We feel incredibly fortunate to have the truly unsinkable Betsy Smith as part of our extensive family of amazing clients. We hope her spirit and message of life’s many joys is one that resonates with you during this lovely holiday season! Thank you, Betsy!