Betty Marie Harkins

Betty Marie (Lantiere) Harkins, doting mother and grandmother, passed away October 27, 2021. Born and raised in Essex, Maryland on the outskirts of Baltimore, she was one of two children to the late Frank J. Lantiere and Billy Sue (Neal) Lantiere.

Betty devoted her life to her job as a Registered Nurse and her main interests of lighthouses, cross-stitch, Civil War history, the Texas Renaissance Festival & medieval reenactment, and travel. Betty loved to travel the United States with her traveling buddy and close companion Richard O’Donohoe, seeing new sights and laughing at each others misfortunes during the trips. They visited such places as the Grand Canyon, Royal Gorge Colorado, Las Vegas, Napa Valley, Mount Rushmore, most of the East Coast from Florida to New York viewing lighthouses and watching the Fourth of July fireworks in Washington D.C., Canada/Niagara Falls, and Mexico.

She visited Naples, Venice, Pompeii, Rome and Florence, Italy with her cousin Vicki. She loved taking her grandchildren to Disney World in Florida and spending as much time as she could with them. Sometimes she worked as an Emergency Room RN and other times as a Traveling Nurse, which allowed her to stay in most every state in the United States, thus enhancing & enabling her love of travel.

She worked at the Texas Renaissance Festival with the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) for a decade and traveled to many SCA events across the United States, learning more about the medieval era and recreating it with other like-minded friends. She enjoyed learning about history and visited many Civil War sites along with visiting the Civil War reenactors at their events. During her downtime, she would pull out her latest cross-stitch and work on it outside during her travels so she could engage with new people and make new friendships.

She leaves her son, Frederick Harkins IV; her brother Brian Lantiere and his wife; her granddaughter Layne Ireland Culberson-Harkins; her grandson Kaile Zachary Harkins; her aunts Jo Dorris Carnabuci and Angie Burns; her cousins Victoria Carnabuci Esse, Antoniette “Toni” Dorris Carnabuci, Charles Carnabuci, and many, many more cousins along with many nieces and nephews. It’s an Italian family!!

In lieu of flowers, Betty may be remembered with contributions to the American Stroke Association at https://www.stroke.org

A reception in her honor will be held Wednesday, December 8, 2021, from 11:00am to 1:00pm, at Forest Park – The Woodlands, 18000 I-45 South, The Woodlands, Texas 77384.

Bring yourselves, your stories, and wear something medieval/Renaissance/Civil War era to celebrate her love of her favorite interests in life.