Betty Lucille Powers

Betty Lucille (Williams) Powers was born August 7, 1925, in Alix, Arkansas, to George and Carmen (Dowdy) Williams. Betty lost her mother when she was just 5 years old and was set adrift with her younger sister, Wilma Gene ("Willie"), who was her lifelong best friend and boon companion, her comfort and strength. The girls lived for a time with their maternal grandparents, William and Viola (Holloway) Dowdy in Williams, OK, before returning to Ozark, AR, to live with their paternal grandmother, Maude (Bateman) Williams.

Life with their grandmother was difficult. The poverty in which they grew up was notable, even for rural Arkansas during the Depression. Their grandmother took in laundry, and Betty's first job was baking pies for the local cafe'.

Betty moved from Ozark to Atchison, KS, after high school to live with her father's sister, Hattie (Williams) Davis (later, Kiehl) and was soon joined by Willie. Having escaped the poverty and tragedy of her childhood, Betty planted her feet firmly on the path of self-improvement, going to secretarial school and landing a job at "the phone company." She began immediately to save money, a point of pride for her.

In 1951, Betty married William H. ("Bill") Powers. The Tennessee Waltz was 'their song.' The pair moved to Kansas City, where their son John was born. In 1953, they moved to Omaha, NE, where their daughter Janis and sons David and Daren were born.

Betty's married life was nomadic, based on Bill's career path, which always seemed to equate promotion with mobility. The family moved from Omaha to Tulsa, back again to Omaha, then again to Tulsa and on to Oklahoma City, then to McPherson, KS, on to LeMars, IA, and finally once more to Oklahoma City, where the couple retired.

In her "spare" time as a stay at home mother of a growing family and wife of a frequent business traveler, Betty began in Omaha to pursue two tracks of her creativity that she would continue for the rest of her life. She went to "beauty school" and became a licensed cosmetologist and salon owner, and she took her first art class - a Life Drawing class at Joslyn Art Museum. She opened a full-service hair salon in her home (the Beauty Mark) and became a quarter owner of a tiny art gallery (the Art Mart) - both with the remodeling efforts of her very supportive husband.

Betty evolved from hairdresser to beautician, cosmetologist and teacher of Cosmetology - which she taught at one of the roughest high schools in Oklahoma City during the early days of busing, from 1969 to 1974.

In McPherson, Betty was a founder of Art in the Park, a juried arts festival. She was the President of the McPherson Arts and Crafts Association and the owner of Art Supplies and Creative Framing. She began the "Picture Lady" program that sent volunteers into the elementary schools to show and discuss art with children, and she was active in advocating for Children with Learning Disabilities.

Betty later founded a juried Art in the Park in LeMars, as well, and was the co-owner of Prairie Patchworks, a quilting kit business. She taught art privately and was active in establishing the practice of displaying art by local artists in the Floyd Valley Hospital and other businesses in LeMars.

Betty could be dazzling and daring; she was determined and deliberate. Having begun to pursue a college degree in the early 1970's, she graduated in 1998, with a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma (with a minor in Creative Writing.) She was a member of Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education.

Betty continued to develop as an artist throughout her life; she was a painter (in multiple media - oil, acrylic, watercolor, collage), a sculptor and ceramicist. After she "retired", she became a published author (of poetry, short stories and a corn cookbook) and illustrator, as well as the author of at least one screenplay - and an Editor of the New Plains Review.  She co-founded and was an active member of writing groups Writers of the Purple Page and Play Pens.

She was vibrant and vivacious, with a marvelous sense of style. Betty used to say, "When you look good, you feel good; when you feel good, you do good." Always fashionable, her taste was fun and colorful.  A natural brunette with thick hair (which she described as "straight as a board") she changed its color every few years and was equally glamorous as a blonde, redhead, or with black hair or chestnut. When it finally turned white, it was every bit as lovely as any of the other colors she had sported.

Betty was a lifelong learner. She could bowl, tap dance, hula hoop, roller skate, ride a horse, water ski, kill a snake with a well-aimed rock and name dozens of trees by the shape of their leaves. Always an avid card player, after she retired, she learned to play bridge - and to golf.

She was an intrepid traveler who visited nearly every state in the Union (save Alaska) and a good bit of Western Europe. She was always ready to try something new.

Betty was an inveterate self-help devotee, constantly seeking mental, emotional, spiritual,  physical, financial, artistic and educational improvement. She was a devout Roman Catholic, having converted to marry Bill - conversion was required by the Church at that time, but she embraced it wholeheartedly.

She found no contradiction in also being a knowledgeable and dedicated astrologer and numerologist. A Leo with Libra rising, when everything in the world seemed to be going wrong all at once, she would pronounce, "Mercury must be retrograde!" and that answered everything.

Her philosophical North Star was the Golden Rule. She believed that, though you cannot control many things in life, you can control how you respond to them. She very much believed that you could will yourself to be what you wanted to be. She willed herself to be happy.

Betty had a deep streak of "You can't make me!" matched with "I'll show you!" that served her well all her life. When she made up her mind to do something, she did it.

She was always interested in what was new and hip and happening. All her kids' friends wanted to hang out at the Powers' house. She saw every Elvis Presley movie ever made. She never missed Dean Martin or the Tonight  Show.

In spite of her own fractured childhood - or perhaps because of it - Betty held firm to the belief that family is everything. She was a devoted wife, and a confident and relaxed parent. She was the best mother anyone could ever have. She was fiercely protective and always ready to listen. She taught her children to believe in themselves, to try new things and to follow their hearts. And they knew in their bones that they mattered and were loved.

Betty was predeceased by her husband Bill Powers, her sons John and Daren Powers and by her sister, Willie Eiche. She is survived by her son David Powers and his wife Tonna, her daughter Janis Powers and her husband Kelly Work, her grandchildren Alex Powers, Chandra Powers Wersch and her husband Jared, Andrew Powers and his wife Kallie, Michael Work and Elizabeth Work, and her great grandchildren Avelyn Powers, Karsyn Powers and Addisyn Powers.

Mass of Christian Burial will be Saturday, October 18, 2025, at 10:30 A.M. at St. Benedict Church. Interment will follow at Mt. Calvary Cemetery. A visitation with the family will be Friday, October 17th from 6:00 until 7:30 P.M. at the Arensberg-Pruett Funeral Home.