Elizabeth Rielly Guenther

Our mother, Betty Guenther, passed peacefully from this life on the eleventh of June. Nearly everything she touched grew in love and beauty, including gardens, homes, and people. A gifted teacher and a wonderful mother, Betty left the world better than she found it. She always talked about how she wanted to be with her husband Randy again, and our hope is that she is with him now. Betty is survived by a sister, Mary Yurkosky, a brother, Tom Rielly, and four children: Christy, Susan, Janet, and Dave, as well as a son-in- law, Jim, and a daughter-in-law, Julia. Betty was also the beloved Oma to eleven grandchildren: Grace, Jacob, Anna, John, Lotus, David, Lucas, Tyler, Dylan, Uri, and Mena.

A Passion for Music

If God speaks to us in our native language, then music was how He spoke to our mother. From the time she was very young, Betty longed to be swept up in musical beauty. Self-taught on a basement piano lit by a single lightbulb, her early musical experiences were solitary, but joyful. From a young age, she learned to break down difficult musical concepts—first for herself, and then for others. Betty went on to earn degrees in both teaching and music, determined that her students would have the musical opportunities she hadn’t.

Because Betty hadn’t had a piano teacher to train her to keep her eyes on the music, sightreading up to speed remained a lifelong challenge. So Betty taught all her piano students to sight-read without looking at their hands, and she was quite proud of this. A dedicated teacher, Betty spent Saturdays giving free music theory instruction to the piano students she’d taught during the week. These classes were such a hit that the driveway outside our house was packed with cars each weekend, due to the number of parents who had stayed to learn theory with their kids.

Eventually, Betty retired from teaching piano and music theory and became an adjudicator for theory exams. Possessing an ear as advanced as any jazz players, Betty could name the chords she heard in a song--in real time. This ability landed her in a radio commercial for the local classical music station, as Betty had been able to guess a song after hearing only two notes and had sung it back perfectly in tune. It was a funny thing to be driving along and hear our mother’s happy voice come over the radio. “I know that one!” This was an extension of the “Guess the Composer” car game we’d played for years, when nobody had been able to beat Mom unless our default choice of “Beethoven” happened to be right. Years later, we’d get bored and suggest obscure composers, like Schoenberg or Scriabin— just to see if we could get Mom to try to advanced music theory in the car without any paper to write on, after we’d also hidden the pens. She never caught on. To Mom, everything was an educated guess and it made her so happy to explain things. Sometimes I’m not sure we deserved her. We did, however, absorb Mom’s gift for giving folks the benefit of the doubt.

A Passion for Dancing

Perhaps Mom never discovered our tricks because she began her career as a kindergarten teacher, with the most open little people you could ever hope to know. Betty loved them so much that she kept scrapbooks filled with their artwork and notes. After teaching in Patterson, New Jersey for a few years, she trained to teach ballroom dance. Betty became an instructor at the Fred Astaire Dance Company, partnering with one of her students to take first place as the national Tango/Bossa Nova champion. She was also half of the professional dance team, “Anne and Eric,” working on a cruise ship that sailed the Mediterranean. Our mother had always wished that her family had seen her dance, and it is our hope that she is dancing for them now in Heaven, and that her mother and grandmother are smiling.

A Gift for Creating Connections

Betty was loved by all who knew her. Her students remembered her with such fondness that some of them traveled to see her decades afterward. Betty’s duet partners--Anne Shanahan, Gina Smart, and her daughters Susan and Christy--remember Betty’s laughter, her talent for beautiful phrasing, and the sheer joy she brought to the stage and the rehearsal room. Betty also created several choirs that sang sacred music and secular barbershop music, and her children have carried on this legacy. Betty was the recipient of the German-American Friendship Award during the Cold War, when we lived on an Army base in Germany. She brought her barbershop ladies to visit the German Men’s Choir in the tiny village of Sandhausen, where they shared their music with each other. There was not a dry eye when we had to move to come back to the States because people knew they would miss our mother. Betty had brought joy to so many.

A Final Goodbye

As we gather to honor Betty’s memory, we draw comfort from the fact that so much of our mother survives in the music and the art we create. She was an amazing woman, strongly committed to self-expression and possessing a deep faith in the goodness of life. Our mother gave us the courage to express ourselves. Because of her, we are all musicians and makers.

Celebrating Betty's Memory

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation:

St Francis of Assisi, https://sfadw.org/capital-campaign

Blue Ridge Hospice, https://brhospice.org/donate

Shenandoah Music Conservatory,https://tickets.su.edu/donate/contribute1