Betty M. Thomas

Betty Marie Thomas,89,went home to be with the Lord on March 12, 2012. She was born in her grandmother's house in Buffalo, NY on September 1, 1922 to Walter Sutherland and Adeline Elizabeth (Bolm) Smith.

Betty grew up in East Orange, NJ, graduating in 1940 from Clifford J. Scott HS where she sang in many operettas. She met and married Clarence W. (Jim) Thomas of Newark while in nurses' training, and in 1943 graduated from Newark Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing with an RN degree. They moved to Kenilworth in 1949 where they raised their family and she was active in the community, at one time serving as PTA President. She worked for a local dentist and volunteered with her husband at the Union County Probation Department, working with juvenile offenders. Betty served as the Kenilworth Board of Health Nurse for 25 years and concurrently was the school nurse at St. Theresa's School, retiring in 1987. She later worked for the Center for Hope Hospice in Elizabeth. She worshipped at the Kenilworth Gospel Chapel where she was often called on to sing solos. Betty moved to Crestwood Manor in Whiting in 1996. She participated in the Nurses' Health Study since its inception in 1976. She loved the mountains, music and singing, knitting, reading and walking in the woods with her late husband and their Springer Spaniels. She was a friend of Bill W.

Betty was pre-deceased by her husband, Clarence W. (Jim) Thomas and her daughter-in-law, Christie J. Thomas. She is survived by her daughter, Susan G. Miller (and her husband Paul) of Red Bank, NJ, her son, Glen A. Thomas of Phoenix, MD, her grand-daughter Michelle A. Griffith (and her husband Christopher) of Fremont, NH and her sister, Dorothy A. Feuerbach of Basking Ridge, NJ.

Visitation will be at McCracken Funeral Home, 1500 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ on Thursday March 15 from 6 to 8 PM. The funeral service will be on Friday March 16 at 10:30 AM at the funeral home with interment to follow at Hollywood Memorial Park and Cemetery, 1500 Stuyvesant Avenue, Union. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Crestwood Manor Employee Appreciation Fund, Crestwood Manor, 50 Lacey Road, Whiting, NJ 08759 or to the VNA Health Group (hospice), 176 Riverside Ave., Red Bank, NJ 07701 .