Betty Eleanor O'Dell

Betty was born Betty Eleanor Pelfrey on 4/4/1933 in Ross County, Ohio. Betty’s father was William Edward Pelfrey. Her mother was Mildred Irene Evans Pelfrey. She spent most of her childhood living on her family’s dairy farm with lots of farm animals. She made pets out of pigs, goats, chickens, horses, and calves in addition to her pet cats and dogs.

Betty’s mother left when she was 12 years old, and she helped raise her three younger brothers that she adored. She attended two years of high school at Chillicothe High in Ohio. She graduated from Murfreesboro High in Tennessee.

She was a young teenager when she got married to Benjamin Elsworth Mead and her husband was a medic in the Air Force. As a young mother and a military spouse, she traveled to Tennessee, Nevada, and Alaska. She had three children during the marriage: Cheryl Louise, Benjamin Ellis, and Sheila Doreen.

She spent many years in Alaska and was a working mother, working for a local television station, and worked in the secretary pool at Morrison Knutson. She was also working as a model and actress. She acted in commercials and in film. Postcards of her modeling as the “Alaska Beauty” were sold at the local drug store. She also won beauty pageants. She was Miss Matanuska Maid, Miss Revere, and Mrs. Alaska in the mid 1950’s.

She divorced Benjamin E Mead, then married Don Jess O’Dell and had two more children, Jess Franklin, and Johni Lynn. They then left Alaska for Seattle and settled in Oregon for a while. At age 29 she moved with her family to Mercer Island where she stayed for a few years, and then moved back to Alaska, where she stayed for a few more years. While back in Alaska, Betty enjoyed raising champion Samoyed show dogs, and won quite a few competitions. She also got into politics, working for congressman Don Young in the 1970’s.

At age 45, she and her husband bought a house to retire in Ocean Shores, Washington. Their house was on the golf course, and they were avid golfers. Just six years after retiring, her husband passed away. She then went to work as a secretary for a small company that rented vacation homes. Betty married again to Earl J. Clayborn in 1995. They both got involved in real estate and Betty became an award-winning real estate agent. They also ran a BBQ Restaurant in Ocean Shores for a couple of years. Betty enjoyed traveling every winter in their RV to Arizona where she took jewelry making lessons and learned the art of gold wrapping. She loved making jewelry amongst other arts and crafts in her free time.

At 67 years of age, she got a serious illness which paralyzed her from the neck down. She was in the hospital for six months before going home to continue physical therapy and she never fully recovered. While at home, she started to study the bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses and was baptized on 07/17/2004. She was known to say, “this is the truth, everyone should know about this!”. Her husband Earl passed away in 2014.

Near the end of her life, friends would visit and write letters of hope to others, and Betty enjoyed taking part. The letters often had illustrations of birds. This made her happy as she was absolutely in awe of birds and all creation. In fact, the reason she loved her home so much was because she was able to be so close to nature. She even had many deer that would visit her so regularly that she named them.

Throughout her life she was a very strong women and excelled at everything she did. She had a very magnetic personality and was well liked by everyone who came to know her. She was a loving wife and mother, and her children adored her.

She is preceded in death by her parents, William and Mildred; siblings, Bill, Pete, and Patty; son Ben; third husband Earl, second husband Jess, and first husband Ben.

She is survived by her brother Kenny; children Cheri, Shiela, Jess, and Johni; eleven grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren..