Betty Bellavance George born on August 10, 1931, or as she recently corrected August 10, 1930, passed away on August 8, 2024.
A Graveside service by Rogers and Breece Funeral Home will be held on Saturday, April 13, 2024, at 11:00 am at Lafayette Memorial Park. A lunch to follow the service.
Betty George, my mother, passed away on August 8 just as the sun began to come back to its full glory. She asked to be known as a loving mother and trusted friend. She had 4 children, Alan, Michael, Joanna, and Kerry. Kerry predeceased her in 2005, leaving a permanent hole in her and her children’s hearts.
While working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet, she would cook for us and our friends and welcome people warmly into our modest home.
She raised those children on her own as a single parent but accompanied in life with lifelong friends who stood behind each other and held each other over the waves of strife. Jayne Holloway, Clairee Stevens, Alease Batchelor all predeceased her but deserve to be mentioned here as my mother’s sisters at heart. To her last days she would ask, “Do you know how hard it is to lose every one of your friends?” I would answer no, but I know it must be very sad and lonely. She and Jayne would laugh until they had to make mad dashes to the facilities. They would plan egg hunts at Clark Park, trips to Holden Beach, and White Lake complete with potted meat and crackers to keep the little ones fed. Clairee, our “nursipoo,” was there for the birth of three of her children. When sickness visited, Clairee was there. Her husband, Harold, would bring a Christmas ham; and, Alease, the solid rock, would send a bit of money each year to make Christmas a little easier.
Those traits, loving mother, trusted friend, that will be memorialized on her grave, only cover a part of who she was. She was a pillar in the community-advocating for children and adults with special needs. Her first child, Alan, born when she was 17 years old, had brain damage at birth. When she was told that she should put him in an institution and go on with her life, she took her son home and worked her entire life to ensure that he and others with Intellectual Disabilities would get the education and life they deserved.
I remember playing hooky from third grade to go with her to the blossoming Day Care Center for Retarded Children. She and Sally Anderson scrubbed and cleaned and added shelves and toys to the old Civitan Building by Carroll pond and created the first place for young pre-school aged children with special needs to go for day care. She started the Thursday night group for adults with disabilities to dance and watch a movie and socialize. As the time came for the education of all citizens became a law, the Day Care Center became the lovely Dorothy Spainhour School where my mother worked for 25 years as a teacher and as a parent liaison.
When she retired, the Cumberland County Commissioners celebrated her life achievements. When most would have been done, she became a board member of Cumberland Residential and Employment Services and Training (CREST) where she continued to advocate for the rights and comforts of the consumers. She was, at once, a gentle soul and a bulldog.
Loss is greatest when you lose much. We have lost, through sickness, through death, a loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and a trusted friend, a gentle soul, and a bulldog.
Survived by her children, Alan, Michael, Joanna and her partner, Kevin. Her grandchildren, Chris George and his partner, Melinda; Keith Allison and his partner, Cam; and Jessica Allison and her great grandchildren, Addison, Emerson, Hudson, Remington, Rowon, Kashton and Baron.
