Candles
Betty Lynn Wright Thrift: Kitty’s Tribute to a Wonderful Mother
When I think of my mother, Betty Thrift, the first thing that comes to mind about her was her incredible curiosity about and love for life: first and foremost, people, and also history, travel, literature (!), music, antiques, politics, art, crafts, computers, you name it! A classic Sagittarius with her insatiable intellectual curiosity about the world and it’s people. She especially loved family history and the history of England and of early America.
Betty took many trips to England over the years with her library friends and once with me when we celebrated getting my master’s degree. She was a self-educated walking encyclopedia of historical facts and stories about England’s history and the royal family. As we made the rounds of castles and historic sites, other tourists would be leaning in listening to what she was telling me about the place and its people. They were amazed! As kids, our family visited all the local historic sites in the Washington DC area: historic homes, battlefields, museums; if it was historic, she made sure we saw it. She instilled in me a love of history, literature and learning that I enjoy to this day. She cherished her visits to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. She thrived on traveling and even drove across the country alone at age 70. To celebrate her 80th birthday she treated herself and her three daughters to a trip to Mexico. Her well known enthusiasm for world travel earned her the nickname “Gypsy”.
My mother’s years working for the Montgomery County Library system in Maryland were some of her happiest, especially Kensington Park Library. Always the political “liberal firebrand”, she helped unionize the librarians! Most importantly to her, though, she loved the friends she made through her library positions and the intellectual world it opened up for her. One younger library friend in particular, Linda, became an unofficial adopted daughter and is forever a part of our family. I remember my mother as lively and spunky during these years. When I was in high school, my teenage friends all considered her to be the “cool” mom because she appreciated rock ‘n roll and pop music and she was always welcoming. Betty missed her library and old neighborhood friends when she moved to California, after our father died, but treasured them and stayed in touch with them over the years.
In true Betty style, once she moved to California, she embraced all it had to offer and enjoyed every minute of her 12 years there, in her condo on the hill overlooking the city lights. She made new and dear friends in California and enjoyed the opera, tai chi, theatre, the beach and her new little dog, Winston (after Churchill, of course). For many years she enjoyed being in Oceanside near my sister, Margie, and Betty’s granddaughter, Scarlet. The discovery that her great niece, Beka, and her family, lived in the town of Oceanside was an ongoing source of delight for Betty in her later years in California, as were visits from many family and friends from back east.
Betty’s natural love of children made her a wonderful grandmother to her four grandchildren. Even in her later years, she collected dolls and children’s books because she enjoyed them and loved to share them with kids. She also made dolls and when we were little she made many of our clothes and our doll’s clothes, often all of us wearing matching dresses, down to the dolls! Although Betty (mostly) enthusiastically embraced all of the phases of her life and the places she lived, she often told me that some of the happiest years of her life were on Flack Street in Wheaton, Maryland “when my three little girls were young”. She made lifelong friends there, too. She thrived as a young wife and mother in suburban Washington, but always stayed close to her roots.
Betty grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Perhaps best captured in this favorite passage of hers from Tennessee author James Agee’s work Knoxville, Tennessee, Summer of 1915, it was a slower time and place she looked back on with love and nostalgia:
From Knoxville Tennessee, Summer of 1915
On the wet, rough grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there…. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine…. with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.
After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever, but will not ever tell me who I am.
James Agee
Betty’s father, James Homer Wright, was an especially strong positive influence in her life. She left home at 19, working at Oak Ridge during World War II and then in Washington DC for the Army Casualties Department. In DC, she met and married my father, William B. Thrift, a decorated World War II veteran, who used to drop her notes out of the upstairs window of the bank where he worked as she passed by. They were married for 49 years, until his death in 1996. She embraced my father’s Virginia/DC family and enjoyed researching his family history as much as her own. She will be laid to rest next to Bill, with his family, in Rock Creek Cemetery, in Washington DC. Betty remained close to her brother, Harold and sister, Martha, even though they lived spread out all over the country (remember back when long distance calls were a big deal?). Her nieces and nephews and their children were dear to her right to the end.
My mother had her share of adversity in life, both physically and emotionally. She met her challenges with determination and a positive spirit and never stopped engaging with life or people. During challenging times, she found refuge and comfort in her Lutheran faith and its traditions. An eternal optimist, she had a knack for reassuring people that everything would work out when things looked bleak. We called her our “cheerleader” and “our biggest fan”, always supportive and enthusiastic about her daughters or friends latest ventures. She had a great sense of humor and yet could be very philosophical, serious and reflective about life.
Even towards the end, in her nineties, on oxygen and using a walker, she was moving forward, enjoying her new laptop computer (a gift from a beloved nephew and his wife), making jewelry and continuing her interest in politics. She enjoyed living closer to family again when she moved to Iowa City in 2014 to be near Diana, Witek and two of her granddaughters. They were blessed to have her near in her final years and took good care of her, as did the staff at Melrose Meadows where she was obviously a favorite.
My mother’s influence on me was far reaching. She believed in me and taught me about integrity, high standards, loyalty and love. She knew how to be a good friend and I am proud to say that in her later years we were good friends as well as mother and daughter. We shared many things in common, especially a love of history, of England, of the Southwest and a good cuppa of Earl Grey tea. That’s why whenever my psychotherapy clients enter my office, they are always greeted with an offer of a cup of tea…. because my mother taught me that a shared cup of tea and a thoughtful conversation can go a long way towards making the world seem right again. We never ran out of things to talk about. I will miss her.
