Betty Bird

Betty Elaine (Fosbury) Bird, who died quietly at home on May 21st, 2021, was born a Cornhusker in Lincoln, Nebraska on Jan. 30, 1921.  Though she traveled the world in between, she ended up back in the heartland, living her last years in Ord, Nebraska to be near her daughter DiAnne Hughes and her family.  She spent her youth in Lincoln as the only child of Robert and Gertrude Fosbury but then met a Wyoming boy at the university there.  She married Dallas (Woody, as she called him) Bird in 1942.  Dallas first become a minister in the Methodist church and then a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force.  So Betty soon found herself setting up households throughout the country (Utah, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Illinois, and Arizona) and around the world (Morocco, England, Okinawa).  And everywhere Betty set up that household, she was always quick to point out, if anyone were to ask her about the family of two daughters and two sons, that four children was what she had planned to have ever since she could remember.  Two boys and two girls.  She had told her mother that--and her aunts--and anyone one who would listen.  "So," she always concluded, "That's what I did."

Travel, while obligatory in the Air Force, continued to occupy Betty and Dallas even after all those four children were grown and off on their own.  Their foreign travel in those retirement years was as various as it was exotic, including The Holy Land and Egypt, the canals of France, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, South Africa, Borneo, Mexico and Italy.  Life between trips, on the home front near Raymond, Nebraska, was filled with Dallas' garden and their two horses--and always a cat and a dog--and, of course, the endless visits by their children with their own growing families.  Soon Betty and Dallas would bring Betty's mother (Gertrude Fosbury) out to live with them, too.  And, of course, they made enduring friendships all along the way, especially while Dallas was the pastor at his last church in nearby Goehner.

Dallas and Betty built one last home together in Colville, Washington to be near their older daughter Linda and her husband Harv (Wier).  There, after Dallas suffered a stroke and a heart attack, Betty looked after him herself until he died.  In turn, Linda and Harv helped to keep Betty in her house in Colville until she moved into assisted living.  When Linda died twelve years later of cancer, Betty's younger daughter, DiAnne (with the help of her older son Stephen--and their two spouses) moved Betty from Colville to an assisted living apartment in Ord.  All the remaining children (including the younger son, Jim) spent as much time there with her as they could--often bringing Betty out to enjoy meals and lively conversations at DiAnne and Allen's beautiful country home in Ord.  Eventually that home would become Betty's last residence, living out her life surrounded by the love she had always helped to create.

Betty Bird's life was a remarkable a journey through the world's wonders--most importantly, the wonders that are only offered to a woman who is capable of loving so many for so long and so well.  All those she loved are deeply in her debt.  She is survived by her three children, Stephen (DottyAnne) Bird, DiAnne (Allen) Hughes, James (Karen) Bird, and a son-in-law Harvey Wier, along with nine grandchildren and twenty great-grandchildren.

A Memorial Service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday June 7, 2021, at the Ord Memorial Chapel.

In lieu of flowers, we think Betty would be pleased to have donations made to a charity of your choice.