Betty Curry Musick

Mrs. Musick was born August 18, 1918, in Tulia, Texas, the fourth child of Bess Arnett and Alfred Foy Curry, Sr. She graduated from Tulia High School and married Jeff Thornton Musick on a Friday night in June of 1937 at the Methodist parsonage, surrounded by her best girlfriends. On their wedding night, the Musicks danced at the Nat Ballroom in Amarillo. Later, they would do the Silverton Stomp to the music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

A self-described “Yellow Dog Democrat,” Mrs. Musick was the Texas Panhandle Chairwoman of the 1960 Kennedy-Johnson Campaign. In 1962, President Kennedy appointed her to the Texas Civil Rights Commission, and in 1964 she chaired the Texas Panhandle Campaign for Lyndon Baines Johnson. While visiting the LBJ Ranch for a barbeque held in honor of the president of Pakistan, Mrs. Musick went into the Johnson house in search of a bathroom. A woman called to her inside, “Can you help me?” The woman was Linda Bird Johnson, and she needed a hand zipping up her dress. Mrs. Musick was tickled to oblige.

After her husband, Thornton, died in 1971, Mrs. Musick went to work, soon becoming a regional director of the American Heart Association, where she served until 1987. Known to many as Atoo (a name derived from the particular way she greeted people with “How do?”), Mrs. Musick was preceded in death by her husband, five siblings and her son, Michael Curry Musick. She is survived by her sister, Jenne McVicker, of Amarillo, Texas, and by her children, Betsy Morgan (Ed) of Sherman Oaks, California; Sharon Lindemann (David), of Austin, Texas; Marilyn Butler (David), of Houston, Texas; and Melissa Nussbaum (Martin), of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her son and three daughters gave her fourteen grandchildren and twenty-three great-grandchildren, all of whom she adored. This Christmas season they will try to make divinity candy, eggnog, and angel food cakes that are worthy of her memory.

A funeral mass will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at St. Mary’s Cathedral, with burial following at Evergreen Cemetery. Atoo will be dearly missed.

In lieu of flowers, please make gifts in Mrs. Musick’s name to St. Mary’s Cathedral Blessed Sacrament Chapel Fund.

Arrangements under the direction of Swan-Law Funeral Directors, Colorado Springs, CO.