Betty Magnuson

Betty Ruth Ellen Thorsgaard was born in Bottineau, North Dakota on May 22, 1943, to Hans Theodore Thorsgaard and Mimi Johanna Lervik Thorsgaard. The fourth of six children, she grew up on the family farm southeast of town. She attended public school in Bottineau, graduated from Bottineau High School in 1961, and attended the North Dakota School of Forestry in Bottineau. She was proud of her heritage, and her family background and history, and often spoke of her parents, Hans and Mimi, noting that, while not exactly poor, they were definitely not well-to-do; still, they never turned away anyone less fortunate than they themselves were, including neighbors who might conveniently turn up at their doorstep for a “visit” right around suppertime. Betty would say that her father Hans was the kind of man who would quite literally give the shirt off of his back to another man if he were in need.

On June 8, 1962 at age 19 she married Nels D. “Bud” Magnuson, and became Betty Magnuson. They left Bottineau in their 1954 Oldsmobile 98 on a honeymoon road trip that took them first to Seattle, and the 1962 World’s Fair (the “Century 21 Exposition”), after which they proceeded to make their way south, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, the “Land of Enchantment,” where Bud had accepted a position with Sandia National Laboratories. Betty found employment with The Prudential Insurance Company of America agency on Silver Avenue, as secretary to the manager.

A son, Nels Corey, was born in November of 1963, and two and a half years later they purchased their first home, on Roberta Place Northeast. Later that same year, they welcomed into the world their second child, a daughter, Kristi Jo, in June of 1966. When the children were young Betty chose to be a full-time, stay at home mom, but she began attending classes at University of New Mexico. She also volunteered her time and talents in the school system. At UNM, she became a member of Pi Lambda Theta, a national honor society for educators, and Kappa Omicron Phi, a national honor society for students in human sciences. She earned her degree in education, graduating with distinction from UNM.

Family was very important to Betty, and throughout her life she gave her time and attention to helping and supporting not only her own husband and children, but also siblings, uncles and aunts, and nieces and nephews. In time, all but one of her five brothers and sisters would end up relocating to Albuquerque, bringing their families with them or starting new families here. After her father Hans passed away in May of 1971, she brought her mother Mimi down from North Dakota to live with her in Albuquerque. Rosemary had already come to live with Betty and Bud in 1966, and in time Yvonne would follow, along with her sons, then brother Allan and his daughter, and lastly the youngest brother, Marlin. Betty enjoyed having this large extended family living here in Albuquerque, and it was not unusual at Christmas, her favorite time of the year, for the house to be packed, wall to wall, with family members and friends who would stop by to share some holiday laughter and cheer.

Betty taught at Bernalillo Junior High School for six years. She later taught at Polk Middle School and John Adams Middle School in Albuquerque. In 1988 she completed her Master of Arts degree in Computer Technology Education from Lesley College, and became one of the first computer technology teachers in Albuquerque, retiring from the profession in 1999.

Betty was for many years a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, and she was involved in charitable and volunteer efforts through a number of organizations and institutions, including the public schools, her church, the Brownies/Girl Scouts of the USA (as a troop co-leader), All Faiths Receiving Home (helping to organize and conduct the annual Apple and Arts Festival), Catholic Services, and Meals On Wheels.

Travel was a shared passion and joy for Betty and Bud, especially after they retired. They would spend the next twenty years traveling across the continent and around the world. In their younger years, they both worked very hard, invested wisely and lived conservatively, and this had provided them with the means to enjoy their later years by traveling frequently to places they had never seen before but had dreamed of going. In 1991 Betty and Bud traveled with Betty’s brother Marlin to Norway, where they rented a car and traveled extensively throughout the land of their ancestors, meeting a number of cousins and other distant relatives along the way. In 1997 they traveled with their son to Catania, Sicily where daughter Kristi and her husband Rob were living while Rob was in the U.S. Navy at Sigonella Naval Air Station. Bud, Betty, and Corey joined Rob and Kristi in celebrating granddaughter Brianna’s first birthday there.

Betty and Bud also traveled to many other parts of the globe, including Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, Eastern Europe, and New Zealand. At Christmas time in 2006 they and their children and grandchildren enjoyed a cruise through the Caribbean together, celebrating Christmas Eve in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2012, again with their children and grandchildren, they celebrated fifty years of marriage with a cruise and rail excursion throughout Alaska, including spending several nights at Denali (Mount McKinley). In addition to their world travels, they also traveled extensively in their motor home from coast to coast and border to border, across the United States, seeing new places and visiting family and friends, and making new friends and acquaintances all along the way.

Betty was a lifelong lover of music, all genres, from classical to pop to country. This was one of many interests that she and Bud shared in common, and throughout their life together, music (both live and recorded) was frequently heard in their home. She enjoyed singing, and learned to play the piano. She sang to her children often, teaching them many happy, fun songs. From early on, she instilled a love of music and the arts in her children, and both children would perform with the Albuquerque Youth Symphony in high school. This passion for music that Betty passed along to her children was in turn passed along by Kristi to Betty’s grand-daughters; both Brianna and Alyssa learned to read music and, among other instruments, Brianna plays the violin, and Alyssa plays the flute.

She also instilled a lifelong love of the English language, both the written and spoken word, in her children, reading to them from the time of their births. She emphasized the importance of education, and helped them to develop an appreciation for knowledge, and the idea that learning was a lifelong process, and that it did not always necessarily occur in a formal classroom setting. She was a natural-born teacher. No one can ever truly be prepared to become a parent; it is an undertaking that requires much on the job training, patience and fortitude, and a gradual overcoming of the learning curve. But, no woman was ever more nurturing, more naturally talented, or more inherently skilled as she was to meet this challenge.

She enjoyed many happy days in her home and in her garden, sitting beside the pool, with Bud, sometimes with family and friends surrounding them, often just the two of them, but always, grateful for the wonderful life that she had been given, and which she and Bud had created for themselves. Even to the very end, she never once complained about the misfortune or unfairness of her diagnosis with AML, instead choosing to remember all of the wonderful moments and memories she had known and experienced in her life. And true to form, even in her final days, when she certainly would have had every right and justification to expect others to be consoling and comforting her, instead it was she who was consoling and comforting others, family and friends, grieving in the knowledge that she was suffering and that her days were numbered. While her children, family, and friends were crying and wishing there were anything they might do for her, it was she who wrapped her arms around them, hugging them, and assuring them that everything was going to be all right again, in time.

Daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, niece, homemaker, nurse, best friend, counselor and advisor, teacher… Betty was all of these things, and more, and she could almost certainly never truly know nor appreciate how many thousands of lives she touched in her time walking through this world. While we mourn her passing, we celebrate her life. Each of us knows our lives were made infinitely more beautiful by having known her love, and care, and deep, genuine concern for us. And we know that if she could she would tell us now not to mourn for her, but instead to go about and make your way through this world and this life, and do your very best every day to be a positive influence, and a source of inspiration, joy, hope, comfort, confidence, and optimism for those you see every day as well as for those who you may meet only once on your journey through this life and who you may never see again. We are comforted by the words she quoted in one of the last letters she wrote to her family:



A limb has fallen from the family tree
I hear a voice that whispers, ‘Grieve not for me’
Remember the best times, the laughter, the songs
The good life I lived while I was strong
Continue my heritage, I’m counting on you
Keep on smiling, the sun will shine through.
My mind is at ease, my soul is at rest
Remembering all…how I was truly blessed
Continue traditions, no matter how small
Go on with your lives, don’t stare at the wall
I miss you all dearly so keep up your chin
Until that fine day we’re together again.



Live your life, live it well, and do your very best not to have any cause for regret when you have reached the end of your life. She did live her life well, and at the end she had no regrets. She is survived by her husband, Bud, of Albuquerque; son, Nels Corey, of Sandia Park; daughter Kristi Jo and husband Robert McKinney, and granddaughters Brianna McKinney and Alyssa McKinney, of Rockville, Maryland; a brother, Allan Thorsgaard, of Albuquerque; and countless other family and friends, far too numerous to mention all of them here. We miss her deeply, and wish we could once more see her smiling face and hear her happy voice and the sound of her laughter in our ears.