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Dear Classmates,
I was just told that our dear childhood friend, Betsy Wentworth, died yesterday. She just returned on Sunday afternoon from a trip to the Caribbean.
Her son told me that she may have had a heart attack. However, on 1/15 she wrote to me that she had “developed a rare type of headache, temporal arteritis, which means that I will have to take a high dose of steroids for a prolonged period. That’s hard on the bones. However all of the sudden I have plenty of energy and don’t hurt anywhere. (I started on Thursday.). I will know more after my cruise. I love the Caribbean. Think warm, blue sky, blue water. I plan to do several snorkel excursions.”
Betsy was even more looking forward to her month up in Wisconsin in July-August, than to her cruise. She also wrote, “I got a note from Tom (Boese). I don’t know if I will still be able to get in and out of a kayak this summer, but of course I want to see them. I will have a kayak and canoe available to use at my rental cabin in Barnes. I am sorry that I will be so far away in Barnes, but it is the best solution for Buddy (dog). I will be on an access canal to Eau Claire Lake and will rent a boat for Brandon and Ben”. (her son-in-law and my son)
Life is so delicate and precious.
Beth (Shoulberg) Johnson
2/26/19
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Carroll Wetzel (Wilkinson)
For now, I will just say I am shocked to hear this news and terribly sorry that our class has lost Betsy. Betsy was a Lake Bluff pal of mine from our earliest years in elementary school. We got into some delicious trouble together when we were probably no more than 8 years old and we went to Phantom Lake camp together in Mukwonago, Wisconin several years later as young teenagers. We won a canoe rescue contest there and thought we were quite a team.
I feel a sense of deep loss and am so glad we had time together at our 50th reunion thanks to Beth and Scott Johnson. This is so sad.
Carroll
Skip Justice
Sorry to hear of Betsy's Passing. May she rest in peace.
Skip Justice
Beth Shoulberg (Johnson)
Here is Betsy's obituary.
http://www.larkspurconservation.org/we-remember-betsy-wentworth/
Karen Wood (Burlingame)
My heart is hurting right now. I have so many great memories of Betsy growing up. Falling into the bushes by her house trying to ride a two wheeler, leg wrestling ( with Tom Boese and others) jumping into freezing Lake Michigan on her birthday (May 30th).each year , falling out of a canoe on Desplains river on a Girl Scout excursion. GAA and so much more. My deep sympathies to her family.
Susan Jane O'Neill
Life is so short and death so sudden and another friend gone.
Laurie Higgins (Dunkerton)
I am so very sorry to hear about Betsy's sudden passing. I remember going over to her house to play and our time in Girl Scouts. Her mother and mine were leaders for awhile along with Karen Woods' mom. My sympathies and prayers are with her family.
Carole Koopmann (Delany)
So very sorry to here of Betsy’s passing! I loved her posts of children and animals as she had a heart for both! So proud of her own children and certainly enjoyed each of her grandchildren! I enjoyed reconnecting with her at our last reunion and will miss seeing her at our next. Such a strong spirit! Rest In God’s glory Betsy
Beth Shoulberg (Johnson)
A part of ‘me’ just departed. I am so sad.
I met Betsy when I moved to Lake Bluff in third grade. She lived on Prospect Avenue and I lived one block away on Ravine Ave. Our childhood was intertwined with walking to school everyday (usually through the ravine), ‘bun bouncing’ in the ravine and sledding down the hill to the Lake Bluff beach, swimming in Lake Michigan in 50-degree water, and riding bikes all over town. In high school we were both junior varsity cheerleaders, on the Guppy synchronized swim team and played field hockey with the GAA. In the summers, my family went off to a resort in Minnesota… and Betsy went off to camp in Wisconsin [and later, a canoe guide in Canada].
It wasn’t until after we ‘found’ each other and reunited at our 50th high school reunion, that we picked up right where we left off in 1964. Our similar love for the North Woods has recently joined us as soul sisters… coming together in Northern Wisconsin, the past three summers, to enjoy fishing, boating, canoeing, kayaking and sitting around the camp fire. A most memorable recent experience was had, as we joined with my husband Scott, and LFHS classmate Tom Boese (who has a cabin nearby) to kayak down the ‘expert rapids’ of the upper Namekagon River near Cable Wisconsin. Betsy and I had no idea what we were getting into… but once started, there was no turning back. Oh, the fear, the laughter, the joy. Oh Betsy, I miss you.
Beth Shoulberg (Johnson)
In case you wish to write a letter to Betsy's two children...
Daniel Cook - 3392 Nina Circle, Lebanon, TN 37087
Katharine Saunders - 2740 Old Shannon Rd, Lebanon, TN 37090.
Thomas Boese
What sad news. Betsy was such a great person. It's hard to lose an old friend from the neighborhood who you played with when you were little kids, or who you sang with in the church choir for ten years, or who in junior high invited you on the first date you ever went on to see Old Yeller at the movie theater in Libertyville, or who you took to Christmas Capers, or who you tried to track down in Vail where she was a ski instructor when you were bumming around out west, or who you went out to dinner with in Washington, DC back in the 70's when you were there doing college admissions work, or with whom more recently you have enjoyed beautiful days kayaking on the Namekagon River in northern Wisconsin. And now, who will Indian leg wrestle with me?
It's wonderful that our 50th reunion brought so many of us back together and we are really going to miss Betsy going forward. I'm not going to let any Wisconsin summers go by without a paddle in her memory.