Sue Taliaferro Betts

Graveside services will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, February 4, 2013 at Parkhill Cemetery Rev. Dr. Shane Green and Rev. John Fugh, Jr. officiating, according to Striffler Hamby Mortuary, Macon Road.

Mrs. Betts was born June 15, 1943 in Columbus, daughter of the late Richard Henry Taliaferro and Harriet Crawford Taliaferro. She graduated from Columbus High School and from Agnes Scott College. She pursued post-graduate studies at the Middlebury Language Schools of Middlebury College, Vermont. She was a charter member of the faculty at Hardaway High School, where she served as Chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages. On August 12, 1967, she married Oscar Leon Betts, III.

Mrs. Betts was a lifelong member of St. Paul United Methodist Church, where she served throughout her children’s younger years as Superintendent of the church school’s Primary Department. She was a member of The Junior League of Columbus, The Junto, The Sprig and Dig Garden Club and the Oglethorpe Chapter, DAR. In previous years, she served on the Boards of the Columbus Museum, The Museum Guild, The Junior League, The Saint Francis Hospital Auxiliary and the St. Paul Altar Guild.

She was preceded in death by her husband. She is survived by her beloved children Frances Crawford Betts of Basalt, Colorado, Richard Taliaferro Betts of Columbus, and Elizabeth Betts Hakala and her husband, Shaun, of Gardner, Massachusetts. Her grandchildren are Emma Elizabeth Hakala and William Arthur Hakala, also of Gardner, Massachusetts. Also surviving are numerous cousins and a circle of treasured friends.

The family wishes to express deepest gratitude for the excellent care provided by Annie Ruth Short, Alice Davis, Deborah Bunkley, Sylvia Hall and Angel Foster.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Mrs. Betts’s memory to St. Paul United Methodist Church.