Betty B. Mc Creery

Beatrice Mae Bates McCreery, known to all as Betty, died peacefully on the Fourth of July of the complications of old age. She was 94 and had lived in the San Gabriel Valley for sixty years. A retired elementary and middle school librarian and secretary for the Glendora Unified School District, she had lavished attention on thousands of students, steering them through the bumps and scrapes of childhood and doling out books, band-aids, lunch money, and comfort in the school office and the library.

Born in Oakland in 1926, Betty was a third-generation Californian and the youngest of five children of Edith Lee Manion and Vernon Graham Bates. Her mother died when she was five, and she was placed in a series of foster homes. She graduated from Berkeley High School in 1944, also working as a clerk at Hink’s Department Store in Berkeley. When foster care ended on her eighteenth birthday, she continued her path of independence and resilience, supporting herself in retail before joining the secretarial pool at Standard Oil Company in San Francisco.

In 1947, Betty married Robert Glenn McCreery, a World War II tail gunner who flew missions from England on a B-17. Bob’s work in sales took them all over the west, first to Arizona, where their daughter Sharon Ann was born, then back to Northern California, where their sons Robert Michael and Thomas Glenn were born, and later to Oregon and Washington. Settling in Glendora in 1961, Bob managed a long-distance freight forwarding business in Los Angeles while Betty made a loving home for their children, did volunteer work, nurtured numerous cats and dogs, and built a career in Glendora public schools (Roosevelt, Goddard, and Sutherland).

After retiring in 1990, Betty volunteered at Foothill Presbyterian Hospital and at the Glendora Public Library Friends bookstore, also cherishing her four grandchildren and playing nine holes of golf twice a week. Always beautiful and stylish, she laughed easily, read constantly, painted in watercolors, and issued a steady stream of cards, poems, and drawings, all in her elegant hand. She traveled to Africa and was inspired by encounters with wildlife on safari. After moving to the Claremont Manor retirement community in 2015 (and to the Care Center following a stroke in 2017), Betty continued to offer kindness and friendship to everyone who crossed her path.

Although her husband Bob and their beautiful daughter Sharon preceded her in death, she is survived by Sharon’s husband, John Anderson; by her son Robert and his wife Laura of Berkeley; by her son Thomas and his wife Jody of LaVerne; and by her beloved grandchildren Michele Mallie Serhan (and husband Ramy); Matthew John Anderson (and wife Donna); Kathryn Ryan McCreery (and fiancé Alex Schmitt); and Adam Glenn McCreery. She is survived also by her adored great-grandchildren Mallie Samira Serhan (age 10), Oliver Abraham Serhan (age 8), and Lincoln Matthew Anderson (age 3 months) and by four nieces.

As the matriarch of four generations, Betty found endless joy in making her home the center of family gatherings—birthdays, holidays, weddings, pool parties, movies and popcorn, or just long talks. Her legacy of unconditional love, of treating others with kindness and compassion, lives on in all those who knew her. Her family gratefully acknowledges the staff of the Claremont Manor Care Center, who assisted her with tenderness and grace for four years and brought her safely through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family and friends are warmly invited to attend a short memorial celebration of Betty’s life at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, August 23, 2021 in the Sunset Chapel at Oakdale Mortuary and Memorial Park, 1401 South Grand Avenue in Glendora. In lieu of flowers, those wishing to honor Betty might consider a donation to City of Hope, to Friends of Foster Children San Gabriel Valley, or to a favorite animal welfare charity.