Bettye Jo Burton Kegley

Bettye Jo Burton Kegley, 90, passed away Tuesday, February 21, 2017, at Miss. Baptist Medical Center. She had 89 years and 10 months that were truly blessed, suffering a light stroke in the summer of 2016 from which she never fully recovered. Up until that stroke, she was still driving (but only in Clinton), cooking, doing light housework, and yard work (raking and bagging leaves and picking up sticks, which were plentiful in her yard even after a light wind).

She was born in Atlanta, Texas, September 27, 1926. She grew up during the Depression but she never realized her family might be considered poor because they always had plenty to eat and a decent roof over their heads. She remembered her childhood, spent living on a small farm in the country several miles outside of Atlanta in the Smyrna community, as a happy one. She was a Christian, having been saved and baptized in the Smyrna Baptist Church.

She graduated from high school early, 1943, and moved to Chicago to live with an aunt and uncle while working as a welder's helper in a defense plant. She recalled that train ride vividly. At the height of World War II, it was jammed full of soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Following her short stay there as a "Rosie the Riveter," she moved back to Texarkana, TX, where she attended Texarkana Business College, receiving a certificate in secretarial services. Two of her fondest memories of that time were seeing Elliot Roosevelt and Faye Emerson at the local hotel coffee shop and learning that the Pacific War had ended. She kept a copy of the Texarkana newspaper announcing the war's end for the rest of her life.

She met Frank Kegley while working at Continental Trailways in Shreveport after the war and they married in 1947. She became a full time homemaker at that point, and to that marriage were born five children. Her interests included oil and acrylic painting, which she took up after her husband’s death in 1976, sewing, reading, cooking, keeping house, and doing yardwork. (She didn’t always enjoy the cooking, keeping house, and yardwork parts, but she never got behind doing it. The family never ran short of clean clothes or ran out of necessities.) She was a good wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She also worked part-time for several years at Sears in the cashier’s office following her husband’s death. Like all native Texans, even though she had not lived in Texas since the end of World War II and had lived in the same house in Clinton, Mississippi, since 1969, she still referred to herself as a Texan.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Frank, youngest son, Steven, parents, two brothers (Casey and Charles), one sister (Maxine Biela), and a niece that was practically a sister (Pat Benson). She is survived by sons Frank Kegley, Jr., of Clinton, son Glynn (Shelia) Kegley of Florence, daughter Karen Kegley, son Russell (Martha) Kegley of Ft. Worth, Texas, grandchildren Sharon (Keith) Fernatt, Heather (Jared) Pierce, Rebecca (Danny) Meador, and Alan (Katie) Kegley, and eight great-grandchildren.

She was also preceded in death by her close friend in Clinton, Betty Melton, with whom she shared many adventures including hunting old house sites to dig for bottles, making the carport sales, and a couple of eventful out of state trips. Armed with their potato forks and other implements, the two Betty’s (one without the “e” on the end and one with) hunted relics all over central Mississippi. Finding themselves stuck on a railroad track in the massive Dodge station wagon they lovingly referred to as the “Queen Mary” and hearing a train approaching was one such adventure. Obviously they survived it (and so did the Queen Mary).

Visitation will be at 1 p.m. Thursday, February 23, 2017 followed by a funeral service at 2 p.m., at Lakewood Funeral Home on Clinton Boulevard, Jackson, Mississippi. Burial will follow at Lakewood Memorial Park.

Please visit lakewoodfuneralhomes.com for online guestbook.