Betty Jane Dawson

Betty Dawson  (nee Schoepke),

age 93. Born in Wittenberg, Wisconsin on September 19, 1926 and passed peacefully into the Lord’s embrace on May 13, 2020.

Betty attended Wayside Grammar school in Wittenberg, where she met her life-long friend, Mary Anne Nelson (m. Johnson). Wayside was a rural one-room school with one teacher for students in eight grades. It had no telephone or indoor plumbing; students brought in a pail of drinking water from the outside pump and shared it during the day. Following Wayside, Betty and Mary Anne attended Wittenberg High School. After graduating, Betty moved to Milwaukee for a year, then went back to Wittenberg where both girls took the civil service test. Both were assigned to Washington, D.C. in June 1945, just before WWII was ended by the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan. Betty worked as a clerk-typist in the Adjutant General’s office and Mary Anne was assigned to the Judge Advocate General's office as a clerk-stenographer. During their stay in Washington, they took a trip to New York City where they visited the top of the Empire State Building and rode through Central Park in a hansom cab. In 1947 Betty and Mary Anne moved to Chicago. During that time, they vacationed on a dude ranch near Colorado Springs, and took a trip to San Francisco and Seattle. While in Seattle, Betty met Glenn Dawson, whom she married in July 1951. The couple moved to Minneapolis shortly thereafter, where they purchased a home in St. Louis Park and raised their daughter, Deborah, and where Betty has continued to live these many years. Betty worked as a bookkeeper at White Farm Equipment and retired in 1983.

Betty was a favorite with all the people who came to know her in her elder years; she made friends easily and was very sociable with a keen mind and ready wit. She had regular visits with friends and neighbors, and they all looked forward to their time with her. The Meals on Wheels team rotated their route schedule because they all wanted a turn with Betty. The social worker at Our Lady of Peace phrased it best when she said, “It would seem that Betty has left a trail of stardust behind with every step she has taken.”

Betty was preceded in death by her husband, Glenn, and daughter, Debbie; parents, Rudolph and Sophia Schoepke and sister, Joan Schoepke. She is survived by her brothers Rudolph, Jr. and Jon Schoepke, her dear friend Mary Anne Johnson, as well as many nieces, nephews, and good friends. In lieu of flowers, Betty requested donations to Our Lady of Peace Hospice in St. Paul, MN, where both she, this year, and Debbie, last year, received excellent and tender care during their final days.

There will be a memorial service at Gearty-Delmore Funeral Chapel in St. Louis Park later this summer.