General Notes

Memories of Betty Jean Crocker Richmond on her retirement to glory party.


The name Betty Crocker has always had a ring to it that seems to touch heart strings in people.  Is it slated to fade from the scene now that the real Betty Crocker is gone?  Amazingly, four days after her death, a Betty Crocker Catalog was received with the heading:  Going out of Business!  Everything must go!   Betty Crocker the missionary often was granted recognition to a far greater extent than most such workers receive. 

Betty's family had more than its share of medical people.  On her father's side of the family both her grandfather and great-grandfather were medical doctors.  Also on her mother's side of the family her grandfather was an old-fashioned country doctor bringing many babies into the world.

Her grandfather Crocker must have been more than a little eccentric.  The story is told that after two years of married life he told his wife that she was not good to him because she had given him no children.  Apparently she took it to heart, because after that every couple of years she presented him with a child until they were thirteen in number and he delivered them all.  Evidently after the birth of a child he was feeling rather exuberant if not a little tipsy, because when he named the children at the county seat he gave them multiple names.  The next to the last child for example was named "Josephine Applewhite Anna Bird Laura Thomas Fannie Leach Gregg Chubbuck Brandt Crocker."  Perhaps the bottle was empty when he reached the last son who was named only "Benjamin R. Crocker."

It is possible that this last son was the spoiled one because when his wife Elsie Beard Crocker brought the infant Betty Jean Crocker home he met them at the door of the house in Kahoka, Missouri, and thrusting out the older sister, he told the mother in no uncertain terms to get lost.   You do have to say this  about his actions.  His sleep was never interrupted by the crying of the infant Betty.  The parents were divorced when Betty was two weeks of age.

Betty's birth took place in Quincy, Illinois on July 28, 1929.  Times proved very hard for Elsie and her two children.  They did babysitting until they were old enough to work.  By age twelve Betty was employed as a waitress in a small restaurant.  After three years of work in that field she became a presser in a dry cleaning establishment.  Her employer was a binge drinker, and one might wonder if that experience started her on the road to alcoholism.  She received training after 1947 to become a licensed beautician in the state of Missouri.  She worked in that field for two years in Quincy, Illinois.  By that time she was a chain smoker and very addicted to alcohol, so by the end of her teen years she had two very big problems. 

The scene changed dramatically for her after she nearly drowned twice in a river.   She became a seeker, desiring earnestly to know how she could go to heaven upon her death.  The answer to her quest came after she met a childless couple, Gerald and Alta Poor.  Alta owned and operated a Mode-O-Day dress shop.  Gerald Poor was a car salesman, but also an ardent Christian worker.  He enjoyed hospital visitation trips, and taught  the Bible message through the use of flannel graphs.  It seems quite apparent that his ministry of God's Word was effectual.  Perhaps the words used were, "For I delivered to  you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."  She placed her faith in Jesus Christ, and was transformed.  By her recollection she quite immediately was delivered from her two addictions.  She smoked no more, and never again intentionally drank any alcoholic beverage. 

Betty retained a life-long love of giving permanents which she would do for any friend, but she did turn her life to other pursuits by enrolling in the Moody Bible Institute where she took the four-year missionary course.  Her sister states that during that entire time her need for funds were somehow met with the arrival each month of the necessary money to continue her education.  Upon completing that training with the honor of being the class speaker, and in high standing academically with her keen intellect, she was able to begin nurses training at Blessing Hospital School of Nursing in Quincy, Illinois. 

Her next step was application to the Overseas Missionary Fellowship for service in the Far East with a goal of reaching others with the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.  After five months of language study in Singapore she began working in South Thailand in the field of missionary medicine.  What is missionary work really like?  She suffered nearly every  tropical disease that has a name, including malaria, dengue fever, hemorrhagic fever, amoebic dysentery, parasites, until one would think that her body would have been ready to call it quits.  However, she was able during those times to fill in for others who were ill, even working 48-hour stretches in surgical nursing.  She excelled in language and by the end of her first four years as a missionary she was fluent in both the Malay and the Thai languages.  Several things may have contributed to this ability in language.  For one she had a radio set and liked to listen to the languages as  spoken over the air.  She had a keenly retentive memory, and she had definite ability to repeat the words she was hearing.  That ability served her in good stead when she was requested to buy meat for the household.  Meat was never refrigerated and was prepared for  market very early in the morning, so to get the best cuts it was necessary to be early to market.  After she proved her ability at the meat market by going out and coming back in record time over a period of several days.  The other missionaries wondered at the secret of her success.  So a fellow missionary who was a good friend went with her.  Even having gone early the line was long, but Betty spoke some words and the line  melted away in front of her like butter on a hot skillet.  Her friend was aghast.  She exclaimed, "Betty!  You must never say those words again."  She only knew the words from having heard them in the market place, but as to the  meaning of the words Betty was never willing  to explain any further.

While in South Thailand, and just before furlough time for her she met a young man from Oregon.  His first recollection of meeting her was in helping her with a flat tire on her bicycle.  After watching her pump the bicycle pump a bit his comment was, "Have you ever seen such muscles on a girl."  Betty took the rudeness in her usual stride, and it is to be recognized that she had a keenly developed sense of humor.   The two enjoyed visiting together, and the man, Elden Richmond, by name often saw her at night when she was pulling night duty by going to the duty room at the back of the hospital just to chat.

Shortly those visits came to an end and she returned to America on her first furlough.  Betty returned for a second term of missionary service which she spent working at a mission hospital in Central Thailand. 

Interestingly enough the hospital at that location was built on donated land.  The property owner found that the land was too low lying to ever serve in rice growing being under water too much of the time.  The English medical doctor in charge of the operation of building the hospital insisted that no pigs would ever root around under his home, so instead of elevating the buildings on pilings as was the usual practice in the area he had them built very low to the ground.  After the first flood covered the floors of the entire compound remedies were put in place, but were ineffective as the next flood was always higher than the last.  Here in this place worked Betty Jean Crocker with all of the courage and strength she could muster.  Snakes abounded during floods, and Betty added snake bite to her long list of health problems she suffered.

Having left missionary service after eight years of work she then began doing nursing in the Midwest serving with distinction in several places before taking a training position at Barnes Hospital School of Nursing.  The young nursing students she trained loved her.

It was during this period that she received a letter from the brash young man, now a bit older, who so enjoyed chatting with her in South Thailand.  They corresponded for two or three weeks when she mailed a letter suggesting that they should discontinue their correspondence.  The reply came promptly to the effect that if she wished to stop writing all she needed to do was mail a letter with the stamp upside down.  It cannot be said here if the fellow in question was worried about it, but he need not have been because the letters continued both ways along with telephone calls, and floral arrangements to Betty, and then a visit or two courtesy of Eastern Air Lines.  All of which Elden Richmond was quite happy to pay, whatever the price.

It was only after Betty's death that Elden learned through a friend that Betty's nickname at Moody Bible Institute (given to her because she was such a live wire) was "Batty Cracker."  Perhaps it was something she herself did not really appreciate.  However, Betty nearly drove Elden her husband to be "Batty" before their marriage and after their engagement when she let him know that they would never be married unless she could sell the mobile home she had been buying for the precise secret amount to the dollar that she was stipulating.  It seemed that she still owed a great deal on the contracted amount before it would be hers free and clear.   Her fiancé Elden did his best to convince her that mobile homes depreciated rapidly, and she could never expect all that of the purchase price.  As it turned out at one time she was offered more than that stipulated amount, but she refused the offer.  This was her "Gideon's Fleece" with God.  She wanted confirmation that God wanted her to marry this man.  It might be thought that this was just a holdover from the days when she hated men having been rejected by her father.  However, having taken a course in Basic Youth Conflicts, and having gone to her father asking for his forgiveness because she had hated him all her life she no longer felt antipathy for men.  She truly and simply wanted to have God's seal of approval on the pending marriage.    And did she get that seal of approval?  You better believe it.  An offer came in for the mobile home that met her demands to the very dollar.  Fortunately for her husband-to-be, Betty did not insist on the second installment of Gideon's fleece by insisting that she had to sell her little Nova car for some precise amount.  That car was vital in moving Betty to Oregon with her goods. 

It was nearly the end of the year on December 21, 1968 that Betty Jean Crocker and Elden Eugeme Richmond were joined in wedlock by a minister who never, never used Velcro in his weddings.  He was of the old-school very, very hard knot type of weddings, and the knot stayed true through over 37 years of happy married life. 

Life in Maupin, Oregon was a brief interlude which could be called a vacation from nursing practice.   Betty did, however manage to fit in community service nursing in addition to her housewifely duties.  She was a fast learner, and had to be.  As a child she and her sister were not allowed into the kitchen by their mother.  She did not have time to clean up after them.  As a result, Betty did not even know how to boil an egg.  In fact while she was staying with Gerald and Alta Poor she experienced a kitchen failure that she jovially told about.  Alta was away minding the store.  Jerry as he was called suggested to Betty that she go to the kitchen and prepare a can of Van Camp's pork and beans. The process was going well until there was a large report in the kitchen which is a normal result when an unopened can of beans is placed in an oven to heat.  Alta's newly cleaned and pressed curtains with many frills were a mess, as was the kitchen ceiling, and floor, and walls.  Betty and Jerry did yeoman service cleaning.  All of Betty's skills in cleaning fabrics were brought into play.  I can only imagine how successful they were, but let us say that when Alta returned only the smell of Van Camp's beans was present to give them away.  As it turned out with Betty's aptitude for learning, and willingness to enlist the help of others in Maupin, her husband Elden's meals hardly missed a beat.  Betty learned cooking, and sewing and a host of other things with hardly the batting of an eye, making life a little bit of heaven in their little house off the prairie.

In 1975 the family moved to Portland where Betty resumed her nursing career, first by serving as school nurse at the Multnomah School of the Bible, now Multnomah Bible College, for one year.  Then began a long stint of 18 years of night duty nursing for Betty at the Portland Adventist Medical Center where she demonstrated repeatedly her fearlessness in the face of adversity.  She worked in the Psych unit all of those years, many of them in the double locked unit where the violently ill patients were brought for care and treatment.  Betty thrived on the night shift work.  It was what she wanted, not only for the shift differential adding dollars to her take home pay, but also because it meant she could always skip sleep just to see her son's sporting events — basketball, which she loved, as well as track events.  She could also be available to serve as home nurse as  occasion demanded.  During all of this Betty seemed completely indefatigable. 

In 1983 she was honored with the coveted Red Rose Nurse award by the hospital.  To this day on the lower level just inside the cafeteria door her name can be seen on a plaque.  Not to be intimidated by pomp and ceremony she demonstrated again her keen sense of humor by a "slip of the tongue."  In her acceptance statement she told her fellow workers that she greatly appreciated receiving the "Red Nose Nurse Award."  A brief vacation at Salishan Lodge was a part of the award where the family had a restful time together.  It might be wondered if that slip of the tongue was the reason the hospital gave the award the next year to several nurses, and the following year it was  discontinued completely.  Could it be that others did not share her jovial spirit?

Upon retiring at age 65 Betty insisted on the purchase of a computer because as she said she wished to write her autobiography.  Let us not say it was Alzheimer's disease that prevented that project, but rather that God did not desire for her story be told in its entirety, so we may wonder what did make this gifted, beautiful, keenly intelligent woman tick.  It can however, be truly stated that after her conversion from a life leading into ever deeper sinfulness,  she had the goal of letting others know the truth about God and Jesus Christ His Son.  As suggested to several care givers now Betty is in Cottage six having walked that golden road called saved by grace street, and she awaits our coming to greet her once again in a better place.  She has truly retired to glory.

An appropriate verse of Scripture in closing would be I Corinthians 2:9.  "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

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  Burial Notes

Cremated in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, USA. Memorial Service on 29 March 2006 in Portland.  Ashes later buried in Kelly Cemetery, near Maupin, Wasco County, Oregon, USA.

  Recorded Events in Her Life

• She worked as a nurse.

• She appeared on the 1940 US Federal Census on 1 April 1940 in Kahoka, Clark County, Missouri, USA.

• Her obituary was published in the The Oregonian on Monday, on 27 March 2006 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA.
  
  Betty Jean Richmond
  
       A gathering will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 29, 2006, in Encore Senior Village at Portland, 1808 S.E. 182nd Ave., for Betty Jean Richmond, who died March 23 at age 76.
       Betty Jean Crocker was born July 28, 1929, in Quincy, Ill. She graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and from Blessing Hospital School of Nursing. She moved to Maupin in 1969 and to Portland in 1976. She was a registered nurse for Portland Adventist Medical Center for 18 years. In 1968, she married Elden E.
       Survivors include her husband; son, -----.; sister, ----- Logsdon; and one grandchild.
       Remembrances to Moody Bible Institute. Arrangements by Alternative Burial.

• Her memorial service was held on 29 March 2006 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA.

• Betty's cremains were buried at Kelly Cemetery up on Juniper Flat, near Maupin, Wasco County, Oregon, USA.