Some General Observations and Comments About Betty

By son Ted Hine

Personality and Social Graces

Dressed for her Oct. 28, 1936 Debutant Party in St. Louis at age 19.

Betty was a very warm and personable individual.  She was friendly, outgoing, direct, confident, assertive without being overbearing, pragmatic, supportive, and organized, along with being a good parent to her 3 sons.   Generally, but with a few exceptions, she practiced the old saying that "if you don't have anything good to say about someone, don't say anything at all".   She was not prudish, prim, or overly proper but rather was down-to-earth and mater-of-fact.  She was always supportive of her children in what ever we wanted to do.

Her upbringing in St. Louis society circles had schooled her in all the proper social graces of the day and even in her later years when formal meals were mostly a thing of the past she knew how to set a formal dinner table and could tell you which of the three forks at your place setting were to be used for the salad, the main course, and the desert.  Her manners were always good and she usually followed the teachings of Emily Post, a famous writer on proper etiquette in Betty's day.  She always sent thank-you notes after receiving a gift or present (and always encouraged her sons to do the same).  While practicing all the proper manners and social graces she never did so in an intimidating, over bearing, or over-done fashion.  She always came across as very down-to-earth, sincere, and genuine whether interacting with a well educated wealthy socialite or a Hermann farmer who had never made it through high school.  She had a good, although sometimes subtle, sense of humor though she wasn't much of a joke teller.  She was always polite and showed common courtesy to everyone.

Friendships

Socializing with Kirt and the McKelvys in 1947.

Betty made friends easily and over the course of her life entered into many life long friendships which continue long after she moved to other areas of the country.   During the Hermann years I was always amazed at how many people Betty kept up with from all over the U.S. and could tell you what they were up to in the past year or two.  At the time of her death Betty's address book (actually a card catalog) had several hundred active names in it, many of which were familiar to her sons since Betty had often talked about them.  Till she was no longer capable of doing so in the late 1970's due to arthritis Betty always sent a newsy Christmas letter to all her friends each year which included a copied portion sent to everyone and additionally usually a hand written note.  At other times of the year she would communicate with her friends by letter and by phone.  While Betty had many friends, probably her closest was Charlee Wilbur (wife of the famous prize winning poet Richard  Wilbur) whom she'd met during World War II.  

Communication and Social Skills

Mother possessed good communication skills, both written and verbal.  Having grown up before the age of inexpensive long distance phone service, she had learned to be a good letter writer and she wrote them frequently to family and friends.   In recently digging through her artifacts I am reminded that Betty had a life-long habit of using pens containing green ink which she must have considered her trademark ink color.   She often even used green ribbons in her typewriter when she could find them.  I recall her using green ink my entire life and have recently uncovered numerous samples of her writing in green from the mid to late 1930's.   Her handwriting could be sometimes hard to read as her letters, i, u, w, m, and n tended to all look the same and run together.   After many years of reading mother's writing I could usually decipher it but can understand why other's might have trouble understanding it.  Betty was very conscientious about returning correspondence sent to her and on most of the numerous letters she saved over the course of her life I have found scribbled on the letter or envelope "ans xx/xx", meaning she "answered" it in on the month/day indicated.

Cooking and Domestic Life

Christmas time 1980.

Betty was a good and gracious hostess and everyone who either came as an invited guest to a party or dinner, or who just dropped by unexpectedly, usually had a good time.   She was certainly not a fancy or gourmet cook but Betty was good at "home-cooking" and could turn out anything from scrambled eggs and toast in the morning to a complete traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Thanksgiving.   While I don't think I've ever really known specifically, I suspect that Betty must have learned her cooking skills after moving to New York City in 1939 and continuing after her first marriage in 1942 since during her youth and school years in St. Louis her family employed a full time cook and learning the skill then would have likely been below her social status.   While sorting her possessions after her death I came upon several cookbooks of 1940's and early 1950's vintage along with her card file containing a lifetime of recipes she had collected.   Mother had a number of family favorite meals she would periodically prepare for us over the years.  Probably my favorite of her recipes was what we always called "mommy made pea soup".  It was basically a very green split-pea soup which was so thick that it almost required a fork to eat.  It would take a long time to prepare starting with a ham bone and would simmer on the stove for a day or two ending with a huge pot of soup which would last the family for days.

July 1982 in the Hermann kitchen.

Particularly during her Hermann years Betty regularly used the family formal china dinnerware and crystal stem ware.  Less frequently used were the family sliver flatware and tea service.  In my years growing up in New Jersey we tended to use the formal place settings only on special occasions (for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner), no doubt so the fancy stuff would not be abused by us kids.   I do recall that in New Jersey the family "Silver" was regularly polished to avoid tarnishing due to oxidation.  In the Hermann years I don't recall that the Silver was polished very often and it was usually stored out of sight where it could not be seen.

Betty's homes were always much more functional than formal.  While some people have living rooms in their home that can be so formal and intimidating that you are afraid to use them or touch anything if you do, the living areas in all of Betty's homes over the years were always inviting, warm and friendly, and in no way stuffy.   While not being above cleaning the house herself if necessary, Betty, for most of her adult life, had housekeepers to help with the cleaning a day or so a week.   Her homes were always satisfactorily clean and organized but not overly so.   She often called the style of her furniture and furnishings "Early Matrimonial", a reference to the fact that everything came from different places and times and that there was no overall theme to her decorating.  Betty's homes were always full of knick-knacks consisting of her artworks, presents, ashtrays, pictures, souvenirs, etc. displayed on walls, window sills, shelves, tables, fireplace mantelpiece, etc.   When I moved Betty and John from the Farm 1995 it was a major undertaking to identify which knick-knacks and decorations were valuable and which weren't since there were hundreds of them.  Her homes were not fancy and always appeared "lived-in" but not sloppy.

Personal Appearance and Vanity

Ready for a night out with Kirt in 1961. Betty still had her fur coat when she passed away in 1996. I don't know that she ever  wore it during her Hermann years as genuine fur coats had gone out of style in the late 1970's due to pressure from animal rights activists.  As I  write this son Henry has  the  coat at his home near Nashville, TN.

Throughout her life Betty was always generally concerned about her appearance though not overly so nor obsessive about it.  She regularly wore nail polish on her long fingernails, makeup on her face along with lipstick, wore earrings, and she'd regularly visit a beauty parlor to have her hair done every week or two.  She also wore perfume when going out to anything resembling a formal occasion.  Thinking of perfume reminds me of a little game Betty and her Sister Harriet ("Dede") engaged in for many years.  Some time, possibly before I was born in the mid 1940's, Betty gave Dede a Christmas present of a small bottle of perfume (or perhaps vice versa, I'm not sure I ever knew who was first).  Apparently the recipient didn't like that particular fragrance much and so the next year for Christmas it was re-wrapped and given back.   For years the tiny bottle of perfume was re-wrapped and given back an forth between Betty and her sister at Christmas, but with a twist.  Sometimes who ever had received it last would hold onto it for 3 or 4 years till the other had hopefully forgotten about it and then it would again show up under the Christmas tree.  When I was young an annual Christmas guessing game would always be whether the perfume would be under the tree in any given year.  This little game went on for maybe as many as 30 or 40 years.  The last I recall seeing the perfume bottle it was only about half full, not because it was ever used or even opened, but because it was slowly evaporating over the years through the cap.

Betty wore eye glasses to correct her nearsightedness for as long as I can remember.  I've noted that most of the photos of her during the years she was growing up in St. Louis and before she moved to New York City don't show her wearing glasses however there are a couple of pictures from that period that do show her with them.  I strongly suspect that she was in the habit of removing her glasses when photos were taken in those days for vanity purposes.  Contact lenses became widely available in the 1970's and 1980's but, to the best of my knowledge, Betty never tried or used them, probably by then being of an age that vanity didn't play as large a part in her life.

Religion

I don't think Betty was overly religious but it did play a roll in her life.  She grew up as a Presbyterian in St. Louis.  As I was growing up in New Jersey she was a member of the Episcopal church and during my childhood she regularly attended church on Sundays and for years took us kids to Sunday School each week even though her husband, Kirt, never attended church.  On the other hand, topics of religion and/or religious beliefs never came up at home either in my youth or in later years suggesting that they were not all that important to her.  After her divorce and move back to St. Louis she continued as a member of the Episcopal church.  To the best of my knowledge however, she and her second husband John did not attend church often, if at all, during the 23 years they lived in Hermann, Missouri and I am aware of no formal church affiliation during that period.   The only open acknowledgment of religion I noticed during the Hermann years was that John would regularly say grace before each sit-down meal, at least when family was visiting.  Will not being outwardly religious in her later years, Betty did enjoy the pageantry and religious music associated with the Christmas season.

Superstitions and Traditions

Christmas morning 1978.  John explains the Treasure Hunt rules.

Betty was not overly superstitious but she did subscribe to a few of what I would call "fun" superstitions and/or traditions which she always shared with her children and which I think she only took semi-seriously but usually adhered to.   Saying "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" aloud before getting out of bed on the first day of the month would bring you good luck all month.  If you forgot, you could also walk up or down your first set of stairs of the month backwards.  Betty always considered it bad luck to, at a table when eating, pass the salt shaker to another with out first putting it down on the table.  In other words, when passing salt, you put it down for the next person to pick up rather than handing it directly to them.   She would usually "wish on a star" when the conditions were appropriate ("Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish tonight".)  Another way to increase the odds of having a wish granted was to recite out loud the rhyme "hay, hay, load of hay, make a wish and turn away" and follow it's instructions whenever seeing a truck or trailer full of hay (bailed or otherwise) being driven down a road.  Christmas traditions included always having a box of chocolate candies available for everyone to nibble on while decorating the Christmas tree and the Christmas morning "Treasure Hunt" which was a ruse developed when her sons were little to keep us kids away from the tree and the presents under it while mother and father dressed and prepared breakfast.  Written and/or drawn clues were given to the kids who then needed to find the next clue based on it which was hidden somewhere around the house.  A hidden present would be waiting at the end of the clue trail which was always the only one we could open till after breakfast.  Another Christmas tradition when I was a small boy (shared in one form or another by many I believe) was for us kids on Christmas Eve to leave a glass of milk on the fireplace hearth for Santa and several whole potatoes there for his reindeer.  When we'd get up the next morning the milk glass would be empty and all that would be left of the potatoes were their pealed skins.

Vices

Betty didn't have many vices or compulsive behaviors that I recall.  She wasn't a gambler by nature though she'd bet a few dollars on something occasionally.  The only vices and/or over indulgences that I can think of that Betty was regularly involved with were cigarette smoking and the consumption of alcoholic beverages, both of which she did to excess pretty much all her life.   She was a heavy smoker and always had something in the neighborhood of a "two pack" a day habit (40 cigarettes) for as long as I can recall.  She was also a heavy social drinker and her beverage of choice as I recall was the "Manhattan", a mixed drink served on ice containing whiskey, sweet vermouth, and a dash of bitters.  In Betty's defense I'll note that by today's standards her cigarette and drinking levels are clearly considered excessive but that they were accepted as much more normal by her social class at the time she grew up and lived for maybe two thirds of her life.

Politics

Betty was never a political activist though she did stay informed about the issues of the day and always considered it her duty to vote in elections.  Politics were never a major or regular topic of discussion around the house but were not ignored either.  I believe that mother was always a registered member of the Republican political party or at least usually voted Republican.  I do recall however that she said she voted for Democratic party candidate, Bill Clinton, the winner in the 1992 Presidential race.

Musical and Cultural Interests

In 1986 with the ever present ashtray and Manhattan on the table.  Behind Betty at the left on the white shelves  is the very high-end McIntosh vacuum tube based stereo component entertainment system purchased in 1959 by her  first husband in New Jersey.  It included a pre-amp, an  FM tuner, a huge heavy power amplifier, and a turntable.   (In about 1982 I had given Betty a cassette tape deck to add to this system.)  She used the McIntosh for many years but by the 1980's it became difficult and expensive  to repair.  A couple of years before this photo was taken Betty's sister had given her a "boom-box" for Christmas  (seen on the speaker behind Betty) which included an  AM/FM radio and a cassette tape deck.  I don't think the McIntosh was ever used again after the arrival of the  boom-box and Betty used the gift mostly to play cassette tapes as radio reception was extremely poor in Hermann.  Today the McIntosh is stored in my home as it still has value to  audiophiles as an early example of high-end analog stereo technology. Betty and John are sitting at a game table at which Betty spent most of her waking hours during her final few years of life.  It had been obtained from the Bradley family soon after moving to Hermann, MO in 1973.  Today the  table sitsin the living room of son Henry's living room in Brentwood, TN.

While Betty's father had played the piano and her sister was a quite good pianist, I don't recall that Betty had ever learned to play a musical instrument.  Betty enjoyed music of various types but wasn't a fanatic about it.   She was not prone to running out and buying the latest record album (or cassette tape in her later days) by the newest hot artist.  Most of her modest music collection at any point in her life primarily consisted of presents she had received from friends and relatives.  I never recall Betty ever turning on the "hi-fi" or "stereo" specifically to listen to a given piece of music in a concentrated way or to study it with the possible exception of the occasional sound track to a Broadway show, a type of entertainment she enjoyed and would see "live" a few times a year while living in New Jersey.  To her, music was something to listen to in the background while other things were going on.  She had grown up in the era of the "Big-Bands" and enjoyed this type of music along with what today is called "easy listening" music.  She also enjoyed Christmas music during the holiday season.  I don't recall her having a particularly favorite genre of music (such as country or symphony), and she could listen to almost anything, at least for a limited period of time.  As I was growing up she happily endured the Rock & Roll her sons listened to so long as we kids were around when it was being played.  Betty was also not a fanatic about going to movies.  She'd go to a few of the better ones and would occasionally watch one on television but generally would prefer to be socializing with friends than sitting in a movie theater.  She was also not a compulsive TV viewer.  For almost the first half of her life TV didn't exist and, after it did become available in the 1950's, she never became addicted to it.  There were very few TV shows that were on her "must see" list and would cause her to drop whatever she was doing and turn on the TV set (except in her final years when she and John made it a point to watch a game show called Wheel of Fortune every afternoon).  She did watch the news if nothing else was going on but as a general rule preferred to read or chat with friends if there was nothing else going on to keep her busy.   She read the newspaper ever day, read magazines, and books, particularly when her social life slowed down in her later years.  For many years she subscribed to the National Geographic magazine and several other similar publications as she enjoyed reading about the topics of geography, travel, anthropology, and natural history.  She always enjoyed visiting museums of almost any type.  Betty had been an excellent Bridge player at least since her college days and played as often as she could.  While her first husband, Kirt Hine, didn't play and thus she couldn't play as frequently as she'd have liked in her New Jersey days, John Alderson was a good Bridge player so she played much more frequently during her second marriage.

Travel

Betty's 1936, 1962 and 1976 passport photo pages. She apparently never used the 1962 and 1976 passports so it is not clear why she obtained them.

Betty enjoyed traveling and was always comfortable doing so.  In late childhood she traveled frequently between St. Louis and the East coast to college and to attend social events.  Her 1936 ocean liner trip to Europe was, I believe, her only overseas foreign travel though she did travel to Canada, Bermuda, and the Caribbean during the course of her life.   During her New Jersey years the family was regularly packing up and heading for New England, in the winter to ski and in the summer, spring, and fall for weekends or vacations.  There were also several trips to visit Kirt's relatives in Washington State via airplane and once by car and several Caribbean sailing vacations in the early 1960's.  During the years I was growing up Betty always traveled toting a "bottle bag" which was in effect a portable bar containing the fixings for all of my parents favorite alcoholic beverages.  When ever we'd get to where we were going or stopped at a motel for the night, out would come the bottle bag.  She also always traveled with a well stocked first aid and medical kit.  If anyone got hurt or sick while on the road, mother could always come up with the appropriate remedy.  After her second marriage Betty and John traveled regularly around the U.S. to visit friends and relatives, usually by car but sometimes by airplane.  I recall mother mentioning more than once that she always wanted to visit Egypt to see the Pyramids, a goal she never achieved, though she and John did once travel to Chicago specifically to see a traveling exhibit about Egypt's King Tutankhamen ("King Tut") in the late 1970's.

Physical Activity

Physical activity did not play much of a roll in Betty's life and I don't recall her ever being involved in anything which today we call aerobic exercise which significantly increases ones heart rate.  I don't think she was athletic by nature.  Her high school year book suggests that she was involved in fencing and tennis but this was likely for required physical education classes.  In all the years I knew her the most exercise she ever got at one time was likely planting or pulling weeds from a small garden near the house in her New Jersey days.   She was not adverse to outdoor activities however and enjoyed activities like going fishing even though I think she enjoyed the going and being there part more than the actual act of catching fish.  She skied with the family in the 1950's but never progressed past the beginner stage on the slopes and usually only spent part of each day actually with skis on.  However, she loved every minute of the socializing and après' ski activates associated with the sport.

Health and Medical Information

According to her 1962 passport, Betty was 5 feet 5-1/2 inches tall, had brown hair and gray-blue eyes. Up until her 1986 breast cancer diagnosis, Betty had been pretty healthy for her entire life.   She was always careful to get the latest recommended vaccines for common diseases and the flu (and saw that her family had them also).  I don't think I ever knew whether she ever had her tonsils and/or appendix removed, reasonably common medical procedures during her lifetime.   Her records show that she had a hysterectomy in 1965, a pretty common operation in those day for women past their childbearing age.  She of course had the usual dental work done over the course of her life such as the filling of cavities and she had one dental bridge that I can recall to replace a tooth which she had somehow lost.   In the late 1970's and early 1980's she developed rheumatoid arthritis which made doing things with her hands somewhat painful.  One one medical adventure that I do recall was her 1980's discovery that she had become very allergic to sulfides in food and wine.  Once diagnosed it was fairly easy to control by watching what she ate and drank and, in case of an emergency, she carried a doctor prescribed syringe and antidote in her purse which John could administer if necessary.  Betty wore eye glasses to correct her nearsightedness for as long as I can remember, perhaps since childhood.  In the later part of the 1980's Betty developed cataracts in her eyes and underwent surgery to have them removed and lenses implanted.   In spite of being a life long smoker, a heavy drinker, and never having engaged in much physical exercise, all of which are today considered fairly risky for your health, Betty never had diagnosed heart or lung problems except for the ever present "smokers hack", a minor ongoing cough, which she exhibited in her later years.  Once her breast cancer was diagnosed Betty began to developed a whole list of medical problems related to the cancer and it's treatment which would plague her for the rest of her life and for which she would continually take a number of doctor prescribed medications.  She underwent a mastectomy, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy.  I believe the cancer went into remission and reappeared at least twice during her last 10 years of life and she finally succumbed to the cancer and/or it's side effects.

Career as a Homemaker, Hobbies, and Volunteer Activities

1957 Prize Winner

With the exception of a few years in the late 1930's and early 1940's and a year in the 1960's when she worked in St. Louis, Betty spent her adult life as a "stay-at-home mom", homemaker and housewife.  Besides maintaining a home for her family, being a good wife, and raising her children, she spent much time over the course of her life involved in numerous volunteer activities and working with her artistic endeavors.

Her volunteer activities included everything from many years of service to the Red Cross during and in the years after World War II to being active in the Parent/Teachers associations of her sons schools in her New Jersey years.  During her Hermann years she was President of the Garden Club, Secretary of the Woman's Club, an active member of the Hermann Weavers Guild, and volunteered for Historic Hermann, the local historical society.

Looking at the photographic record, arts and crafts were clearly a major part of Betty's life though I very rarely if ever remember seeing mother working on her artistic projects.  As I grew up in New Jersey this was likely because she worked on them after she had sent us kids off to school or when we were otherwise not around.  In Hermann I generally visited when other family members were also there so mother would have been to busy socializing to be doing anything else.

In New Jersey and her subsequent 6 year return to St. Louis her creative energies were mostly directed toward ceramics.    In her California years mother took metal working classes.

Betty's 1950's lion.  Several duplicate copies were given to friends and relatives. (2002 Photo)

During her Hermann years she directed her creative endeavors away from ceramics and more toward needle point, hooked rugs, and quilting in addition to taking classes in welding and silk-screening.  By the 1980's, however, the onset of arthritis pretty much put an end to such activities.

Betty and Johns 1977 Christmas card mentions that they had purchased a “100 year old, solid walnut floor loom” which they set up in the Store.  To the best of my knowledge they never got it operational.  When I moved them from the farmhouse to town in 1995 the loom was still in the store in excellent condition and, I believe, they donated it to a local organization.  Also in 1995 when I moved Betty and John, mother's then at least 45 year old electric ceramics kiln was stored unassembled in the basement.  It would eventually go to Tennessee with Betty's son Henry.

Betty the Pack Rat and Compulsive Record Keeper

Two views of Betty's "Birthday Book" which she used to keep track of important dates in the lives of family and friends.  Because of it she never missed sending an important birthday or anniversary card or making appropriate phone calls on time as each year went by.  This well worn book contains entries which suggest that it was used from the 1940's well into the 1990's.  (2004 Photo)

Betty was a "Pack Rat" in that she never through anything away unless she absolutely had to.  I don't think I fully recognized the full extent of this till late in her life when, in 1995, I moved Betty and John from the Hermann farmhouse to a duplex in town.   In addition to the stuff I had to sort through which Betty and John had accumulated in their 22 years of living in the farmhouse, I ran into great quantities of things Betty had saved from earlier periods of her life including, for example, rusting and totally obsolete fishing rods and tackle boxes not used since the late 1950's, huge vacuum tube and crystal operated citizen band two-way radios from the early 1960's which had long since been technically replaced by tiny transistor and printer circuit board versions, wooden tennis rackets long ago made obsolete by larger metal and composite ones, and her skis, ski boots, and poles also not used since the late 1950's.  Such items were quickly disposed of.  Also found, and which she had stored for most of her life and would prove to be of much greater value, were boxes of family photos, letters from her parents, friends, and boyfriends, family records, and artifacts from her early life along with similar items passed on to her by her parents and grand parents.  I was never really aware of the existence of these boxes of family history items which, after Betty's death, have proven invaluable in piecing together and documenting the early years of her life along with the lives of her ancestors.

(Note:  Prior to writing this biography I sorted and examined in detail Betty's boxes of long stored personal effects and family records and have included just about everything notable that I come across here and in the companion biographies of her ancestors.  Not included here nor even really looked at in any detail were Betty's collection of 50 to 100 letters written home to her parents from the East Coast in the mid to late 1930's along with perhaps 100 to 150 letters written to her by St. Louis beau Elihu Hyndman, also in the mid to late 1930's.  I have stored these letter collections with Betty's other personal effects and historical artifacts and perhaps a member of a future generation will someday be able to find them and have the time to look them over.)

Betty was also a compulsive record keeper and was quite organized.  She logged and saved information on all kinds of things.  Records I've found among her artifacts after her death include medical records on all members of her family and logs of the fish each family member caught while vacationing at the Kennebago Lake Club in Maine in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  She saved all the letters her sons wrote home from camp and boarding school and recorded many of the Christmas and birthday presents she and family members received over the years.  She also maintained lists of who she sent Christmas cards/letters to each year and who she received them from.  She also took, filed, and kept notes from important conversations and events over the years including some priceless ones from discussions with her great-uncle Ernest Hulburd regarding her ancestry.

Betty's annual appointment calendars from 1933,   1934, 1935 and 1994.  The small cards (and  their companion tiny pencils on strings) dangling from a couple of the 1930's volumes were "dance cards" showing who she danced with at various  social events which she attended that year. (2004 Photo)

I knew that mother always kept an appointment book (desk calendar), one for each year, with pages for each day or week.  In addition to scheduling upcoming events and appointments she often took notes and recorded comments in them about what she did that day or week, sort of like a diary but with short entries in it as opposed to long ones.  I've recently discovered that she had kept and saved such calendars/diaries for almost her entire life and had them stored in boxes from as far back as the early 1930's.

I think Betty saved every photo of her two families ever taken.  She left a huge box of them from the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's of the family in New Jersey.   This collection had obviously been the source for the photo albums she created for her sons and called "the boys 21 books".  This was a reference to her intent to present each son, on his 21st birthday, with an album containing a photographic record of their life to that point including everything from baby photos to highs school and college photos and all of our activities in between.  As it turned out (in my case anyway) my "21 book" and it's 3 addendum volumes didn't show up till I was about 30.  But it was well worth the wait as these memories of my childhood are priceless.  During her second marriage Betty and John organized their photos into albums which were dated by year through the late 1980's when their medical condition apparently precluded them from continuing to do a periodic photo organization.  Betty's long saved and stored photo collections have provided many of the photos contained in this biography.

Prized Possessions & Heirlooms

January 1976 photo showing samples of Betty's china dinnerware and crystal stemware.

Had she been asked what her most prized possessions were I'm sure her first answer would have been her sons and family.  Beyond that I think there would a have been a relatively short list of special items in her life and financial value would not have been a determining factor.   She had a limited amount of jewelry, some of it I suspect passed on from her mother and grandparents.  Some of this jewelry which might have made the list.  I'm sure she would have listed the family china dinnerware, crystal stem ware, and sliver tea service and flatware, much of which I also believe were passed on from her mother and/or grandparents.  Some of her artwork would have certainly been on the list, particularly her ceramic lion (duplicates of which adorned the gardens and porches of several friends and family members).
 

More about the family China/Silver/Stemware, etc:

Around 1960 in North Caldwell with photos  of the much larger original oil paintings of her sons hanging on the living room wall.

And definitely on her prized possession list would have been the 3 oil paintings of her sons done in 1959 by regionally known portrait artist Lawrence Wilbur, a next door neighbor in New Jersey.  The 3 portraits were commissioned by Betty and Kirt as a present for Kirt's mother shortly after the death of Kirt's father.  Small black & white photos taken of the large portraits were hung in our New Jersey home and the originals were sent to Seattle where they hung in my grandmother Hine's living room till she passed away in 1967.  They were then given to Betty by my father even though they had been divorced since 1962.  The portraits hung prominently in the upstairs hallway of the Hermann farmhouse for all of the 22 years that Betty and John lived there.  Upon mother's death each of us sons claimed our own individual portrait.  Betty's son Henry shot some video footage of them in the Herman house in 1989.  To view this video, click on the link at the left.  (Portraits left to right in the video: Henry, Ted, Greg.  Betty's grandson Charley Hine appears in the video.)

Following are photos of several items I know had special meaning to Betty including a framed limited edition print of an abstract chicken given to Betty by her life-long St. Louis friend Ahden Knight-Hampton in the early 1950's after Betty and Kirt Hine moved into the North Caldwell "Coop".  It was always on display in the Coop as I grew up. In Betty's Hermann days it was prominently hung in the main farmhouse hallway at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor near the front door.  Today it hangs in my Louisville, Colorado dining room.  The crock and jug were already considered antiques when Betty and Kirt found them on their newly purchased property when they built the Coop in 1949.  Betty used them as decorations from then on.  In Hermann, the crock was used to hold stuff in the main hallway.  Today these two items decorate my home.  The two funeral masks were a present to Betty in the early 1950's from John Nalley, the new (or the about-to-be) husband of her sister Harriet (Dede).  Betty recalls in one of her oral history interviews that they are either Balinese or Indonesian in origin, are authentic, and that they were quite old when she received them.  John Nalley worked in the far east for the U.S. State Department in those days and obtained them in their nation of origin.  In the 1954 8mm movie clip of Betty included in this biography these masks can be seen hanging just under the Coop porch overhang.  The masks currently hang in the upstairs hallway of Henry's home in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Limited edition abstract chicken print. (about 9"x12") 2004 Photo.	Crock and jug found when the "Coop" was built in 1949. 2004 Photo.	Aging Balinese or Indonesian funeral masks given to betty in the early 1950's by  brother-in-law John Nalley. 2002 Photo.

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Furniture

Betty accumulated a house full of furniture over the years which included everything from a few quality pieces to what she called her "Early Matrimonial" items, those accumulated inexpensively when she and Kirt Hine could not afford more upscale furniture during their child raising years.  Over the years I never paid much attention to the family furniture but it's not likely that she had much furniture passed on from her parents due to the circumstance of her move from St. Louis to New York in 1939 after the incarceration of her father and the liquidation of the Hulburd family assets to pay restitution.

However, in recently reviewing old family photos I came upon a picture of a small desk and an accompanying chair that I instantly recognize as always being in all of Betty's homes over the years, usually in the living room.  The photo is dated September 1942 and was taken in Betty and Kirt's newly rented Greenbrook Rd. home in North Caldwell, NJ.  My brother Henry tells me that mother had told him that the desk had belonged to her since her childhood and that he had researched it in the late 1990's and found it to be quite old and worth perhaps $500 to $1000 at the time.  This desk is thus the oldest piece of Betty's furniture that I know to be still in the family.  During my lifetime Betty always used it for it's intended purpose; as a place to organize and store bills, records, pencils, pens, staplers, paper clips, stationary, envelopes, etc.  Upon her death the desk and chair went with  Henry to Nashville.  As I write this paragraph (Summer 2005) the desk and chair (re-upholstered several times over the years) are located in a bedroom at the farm of Dick and Lu Bradley south of Nashville (the retirement vacation/weekend home of Cindy Hine's parents which Henry and Cindy care for when the Bradleys aren't there).

Betty's desk in September 1942 in North Caldwell, NJ	Christmas time 1978, in the Hermann, MO living room.	June, 2005, Bradley Farm in  Tennessee

In the late 1950's while living in North Caldwell, NJ Betty had obtained an upright Steinway piano which moved with her to St. Louis, California, and finally to Hermann, MO.  In the 1980's she gave it to son Henry and today it is in his living room in Brentwood, TN.

This mirror hung for as long as I can remember in the master bedroom of the North Caldwell,  NJ Coop and finally ended up in the upstairs bathroom of the Hermann, MO farm house. It currently hangs in my Colorado den.	Betty's Hitchcock rocking chair which was obtained in her early Hermann years.  It sat in the farm house living room and today is in my living room. (2005 photos.)	The antique "water-cabinet" which Betty obtained while in Hermann and which for years decorated the upstairs bathroom. Today it sits in my Colorado den.

Other Heirloom Items

When Betty was a child her family obtained all the books in the famous Wizard of Oz series written by L. Frank Baum.  I believe they were all read by Betty and her siblings.  When I was a child I read some of these same books and at some point they were given to Betty's sister so her daughter (my younger cousin) Lex Nalley could read them.  In the 1980's Lex shipped them back to Betty in Hermann, MO for storage where they remained till Betty's death.  The copyright dates in the 28 volumes in this collection range from 1900 to 1931 and various books have the names of Betty, her sister, myself, my brothers, and Lex written in them.  Today I have this 28 volume collection stored at my home. (2006 Photo.)

When sons Greg and Henry married Betty gave them each a diamond ring which had been passed down from her ancestors.  As I write this neither of my brothers can remember which ancestor their ring belonged to and I believe the diamonds in both rings were removed and re-set into other rings for their wives.  Betty also gave me a ring (see the photo above) which is still intact and contains many small diamonds.  I believe she indicated that this had been the wedding ring of her grandmother, Harriet ("Hattie") Varner Shipley-Coudy but I am not positive of this.  I currently have it stored with my important personal papers.  (2006 Photo.)

This was Betty's portable typewriter which she used for as long as I can remember to type letters to her family and others till she obtained an electric IBM Selectric typewriter in the 1980's.  She may have had it since she was in college in the 1930's.  Today I have it stored in my Colorado home. (2006 Photo.)

Christmas was Betty's favorite time of the year and she always decorated the house for the holiday season.  The above snowman was one of her favorite decorations from the time of my early childhood, perhaps in the late 1940's.  It runs on flashlight batteries and when turned on the eyes and nose flash, the head moves back and forth, and a small styrofoam ball floats on a stream of air above the head.  (2005 Photo.)

This coo-coo clock was a present to Betty from her sister Harriet ("Dede") and first husband Ben Erstein in the mid 1940's.  Ben was involved in international finance and was one of the first U.S. civilian businessman allowed back into Germany immediately after World War II.  He obtained the clock in Germany's Black Forrest area.  It hung in the hall of the North Caldwell, NJ "Coop" for all the years we lived there and Betty would "wind" it daily by relocating the weights and their chains which provided the energy to keep it ticking.  The pendulum was always in motion making a clicking sound and once an hour the bird would come out from behind it's door and "coo-coo" once for each hour of the day that had passed.  Today the clock hangs on the wall of my Colorado den. (2005 Photo.)

Shortly after Betty moved back to St. Louis in 1963 following her divorce a childhood friend recommended her for inclusion in the National Social Directory, an annually published list of prominent Americans (click on above right photo to read eligibility requirements).  She and us children living at home were listed each year from the mid 1960's till about 1977 when she stopped paying for her subscription.  I have the volumes from 1974 till 1977 but don't know what happened to the earlier editions which I do remember seeing over the years. (2006 Photo.)

Family History

The Seward family coat-of-arms on the left hung in the upstairs common area of the Hermann farm house for years.  I don't know where or when Betty obtained it.  Her great-great grandfather  was Israel Seward, a 1st cousin of William Henry  Seward (President Lincoln's Secretary of State of  "Seward's Folly" fame).  In the late 1970's or  early 1980's Betty and John visited the William H. Seward House and museum in Auburn, New York and Betty talked of finding herself and her siblings  mentioned in a book about the Seward's apparently written by her great uncle Upton Seward Coudy. (1978 Photo by the author)	In 2008 I visited the Seward House in Auburn, NY and took the photo on the right of the Seward coat-of-arms which was published in 1891 in the book titled "William H. Seward –  An Autobiography".  I can't explain why the two coats-of-arms are so dissimilar (I note the type faces for the word "Seward" are very  similar in each).  I learned that the book  Betty referred to that contained a mention of  her and her siblings is titled "Obadiah Seward  of Long Island, New Your and his Decedents"  by Frederick W. Seward which was published  in 1948.

Betty had sometimes talked of doing genealogical research on her ancestors and writing down what she knew about then but apparently never got around to doing much in this regard.  She did have the good sense however to save, store, and preserve information and artifacts which had been passed on to her by her parents, grandparents, and other ancestors which has proven invaluable in knowing and understanding many of my ancestors.  As as I write this, I have already completed separate biographies of many of them based on the information saved by Betty.  After her death great quantities of this information was found which had been stored for decades in cardboard boxes.  Also saved and stored was a great deal of information regarding Betty's early years which has been used in this biography and that I didn't know existed till after her death.

In addition, over the years Betty periodically talked to her children about her ancestors and in doing so orally passed along information about the family history to the next generation.  In the 1980's and 1990's all three of her sons at various times took advantage of available technologies to capture, in Betty's own words, some of this oral history.

On July 6,1986 son Greg Hine captured an oral history interview with Betty on audio cassette tape which was conducted in the Hermann living room.  On January 2,1995 I also recorded an interview on audio tape and in May of 1993 Henry Hine videotaped such an interview, also in the Hermann farmhouse living room.  During this video interview Betty is sitting at the game table at which she spent the majority of her waking hours during the final few years of her life when she could no longer get around well.  The audio-only interviews were recorded on inexpensive portable 1/4" cassette tape recorders and have been digitally cleaned up and enhanced to remove tape hiss and other noise and to add clarity to the voices.  This explains why the audio may not at times sound entirely natural.

On September 5th 1990 William A. Gardner ("Bill), an old friend of Betty's and my father Kirt's, was visiting in Hermann.  Bill had attained Ace status as a fighter pilot flying P-38 Lightnings during World War II and, after rotating home from the war in the Pacific in about 1944, had been assigned to do test flying for Curtiss-Wright Corporation's Propeller Division where my father was running the flight-test program at the time.  What with wartime housing shortages, Bill ended up living in a spare bedroom in Betty and Kirt's North Caldwell, NJ home during this period.  Bill and my parents became lifelong friends.

During his 1990 visit to Hermann, and at my request, Betty conducted and taped an interview with Bill about his wartime experiences and the time he had spend working for Curtiss-Wright.  While it isn't about Betty's family history and Bill does most of the talking, I have included the interview here since it is very interesting story in-and-of itself, demonstrates some of Betty's communications skills, and provides some background about the work that her husband Kirt did during the war and thus some information about the environment in which Betty lived in her early married years.  (Copies of this interview were given to Bill and his family for their historical purposes and copies have also been provided to at least two World War II museums as part of their aviation oral history programs, the Commemorative Air Force and the Champlin Fighter Museum.)

Biography Link Summary The following clickable links have been used in other parts of this biography and included here because they may be of particular interest and/or because they span several periods of Betty's life.  This list is not a complete catalog of all links used.  Adobe PDF File Links: Photo Page Links:                                           Video Links: Audio Links: