I did not get the opportunity to meet Betty until 2008 while living up Plummer Avenue from her home. She was the strongest and independent senior I ever met in my life. We would talk for hours about anything under the sun as she was an excellent conversationist. She had an incredible active life too and a memory as sharp as a razor. Being a lover of history of life in the City of Pittsburgh, and the working details of a career woman which Betty was for many, many years, we talked about her experiences in driving to work from Plummer Ave. in blinding snow in the what is known now as the antique cars ... she described the interior and all the details of the heaters in them (and lack of for older models) and how difficult they were to handle as they were so heavy. She worked in one job that was miles from her home and every day would make this trip in her car, in all kinds of weather. I bet she was their best employee ... I believe she was doing bookkeeping for this company. We also talked about her family and friends, and her love of visiting those she loved that passed on and always had a great array of floral arrangements in the back of her car for her daily trips to those cemeteries to lay them on the graves. She told me the cemetery people at many of the sites knew her by name for her frequent visits, which is incredible considering how many graves were at these large cemeteries and the number of visitors. She talked about raising her son and living with her 2 aunts, I believe she said and how they each had a talent to provide for the family in taking care of the home and each other. She also talked about her summer home and with technology today when we were on the phone, I would locate the map where her home was and with satellite in Google maps see the homes that were located in the woods - she loved going there right after work on Fridays and did this for many many years while maintaining her own family home in Emsworth. She also talked about her love of being independent and going to the shopping centers by her car to browse for hours, using the motorized chairs the big stores provided to make shopping a wonderful experience for her as her mobility became an issue. I would join her at Sam's Club in the Mt. Nebo Pointe shopping center and coordinate her motorized chair to her from the car to lessen her need to walk with a Sam's Club employee and we would browse the aisles, sharing a cart and putting our groceries in it and stopping to meet with her friends at the various sample stands to chat for awhile. I knew that these trips gave her the opportunity to maintain her personality as she was very friendly, and like myself, others recognized what a joy she was to talk to. I don't think I met anyone other than my dead father who could have a conversation about anything and in such detail. When she had to eventually move to enter a personal care home which she put off for as long as she could manage to drive a car, since she had nixed the idea of living too far from Pittsburgh with other family members, her granddaughter came to her rescue and did all the hard work in showing her places to live in Michigan that were nearby her and her husband, and when she selected one, the long trip back to Pittsburgh then occurred and Betty moved to Michigan and became what I bet in a minute one of the best resident in the place ... she was always thinking of others and I knew she would continue this in any setting, being a help to the staff there and to the residents who may be in need. Then when her home on Plummer Ave. was cleaned out for sale, that was a tremendous undertaking of saving all the precious artifacts of her life with her aunts and son, but deciding what she had room for in her new home in Michigan and what could be given away to family members. When the house was sold, the owner fixed it up and sold it for over 250,000 I heard! And this is a street that has homes only in the 70 to 100,000 range. I know she was proud to have maintained the home and keep it structurally sound for all those years so a new family who lives in it now can enjoy the home today, as she did with hers. As she said to me one day, "you have to live life because it is an adventure you can not repeat", now that I know Betty has passed to become a newborn again, arriving in Heaven only 5 days ago to be greeted by her mother and father, she was right. She lived her life to the fullest and lived it like it truly was an adventure all the way up to the end. I know of no one who could live alone to the age of 96 before she left Pittsburgh to move to Michigan for care in a personal care home and drove her car up until she no longer needed to! That is incredible ... her life is a life to model after and gives courage to me and many who knew her on Plummer Avenue in Emsworth. She has always been missed when she left here but she never turned back and made her new home in Michigan like she had always lived there. Living in the present is the message Betty's life has taught me, and as she said, "life is an adventure." My condolences to her family on having to suffer this passing, as I know during the holiday season, it will be very difficult now for all of them for a long time. I pray that their knowledge of Betty, which was far superior to my own, will ease their pain knowing their love and support helped Betty live a full and fulfilling life on her own terms.