Grace ("Gay") Betzer

Grace ("Gay") Betzer
Grace Ione Hammond Betzer, age 83, gently passed away on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, her long ordeal with Alzheimer's concluded.
Nicknamed Gay, a fitting description of her perennially cheery, smiling and kind soul, she was born on February 22, 1938, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Katharine Rees and John Payne Hammond. She grew up in Tulsa, graduating from Tulsa Central High School in 1956. After two years of study at the University of Arkansas, she transferred to the University of Oklahoma, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1960. Shortly thereafter, she married her college sweetheart, Stan Betzer and accompanied him to Washington, D.C. She attended George Washington University taking courses to qualify for a teaching certificate and worked in the DC library system on the bookmobile and at Georgetown Library. Over the next seven years, the couple lived in Fort Benning, Georgia; Dundalk, Maryland; Washington, D.C. once more (where her first son, John Bryan, was born in 1963); Brussels, Belgium; and New York City. In 1967, they moved to Austin, Texas, where Stan attended the University of Texas Law School and her younger son, Evan Stanley was born in 1967. After graduation from law school in 1970, Los Angeles was their next stop for six years, followed by Tulsa for ten years and a final relocation to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they lived in Corrales.

Gay loved art, theater and dance. Growing up in Tulsa, she could ride her bike to the Philbrook Museum and often visited the Gilcrease Museum. She greatly appreciated the works of Remington and Russell, Dorothy Dunn's school of Pueblo painters and the works of the Taos artists. In Los Angeles, Gay volunteered in the boys' schools as a teacher and librarian and in one situation as an emergency beekeeper. She was a Cub Scout den mother and with her neighbor and lifelong friend Bonnie Jennings organized many fun activities for the neighborhood children. She was a nature lover, tending to the orange, lemon, plum, apricot and fig trees on their property, raising bees, chickens, ducks and turtles. In Albuquerque, Gay was actively involved with a dance group that brought Ballet West performances and program to the schools. Over time, this group evolved into the current National Dance Institute program. She also worked with the Symphony Guild and later, the Corrales Historical Society. She enjoyed her membership in the Albuquerque Old Glass Club, as well - a collectors group interested in a wide variety of fine arts and crafts.

Her most long-lasting work was with the Albuquerque Museum, beginning in 1987. She joined the Museum's docent program to learn the history of New Mexico, served two terms on the Albuquerque Museum Board and worked on many fundraisers. In 1999, she received the Museum Foundation's Honor of Distinction. She was in the first group of docents trained for Casa San Ysidro. Among her many activities on behalf of the museum, she most enjoyed serving as a docent for tours of Casa, particularly for groups of students and children.
In later years Gay often enjoyed providing comfort and support for friends whose physical conditions left them with a lack of mobility. She would arrive with a treat and stay for conversation.
Gay is survived by her husband of sixty-one years; her sons and their wives, Isobel and Christine; and four grandchildren, Alex, Leina, Juliette and Claire; and her sisters, Patricia Kay Watt (Bryan) and Sara Jo Hendrix, both of Tulsa.

A celebration of Gay's life will be held in the Spring or early Summer.

Donations in remembrance of Gay may be made to the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, for the Gay Betzer Children's Fund.

Gay's family is grateful beyond measure for the comfort and support provided by her many friends during recent years and especially for her caregivers, Nia Thompson and Kristina Potter.