Her Children and Grandchildren Were Watching
Three years after the stock market crash of 1929, a baby girl was born in Gainesboro, Tennessee. Her parents named her Betty Ann. The Birdwell family was among the founding families of the Upper Cumberland region, so Betty Ann learned the local dialect and its idioms. She loved laughter. She loved to sing. She loved to talk with her speech peppered with those idioms. A favorite was “as tough as whitleather.”
As a child, Betty Ann helped her parents in their produce business. She graduated from high school in nearby Cookeville in 1950, and then moved to Nashville where she attended Draughon’s Business College. She soon got a job at Nashville Bridge Company and became an executive secretary.
While Betty Ann was working at Nashville Bridge Company, her mother became ill. Betty Ann came home to take care of her mother until she died.
Another career began for Betty Ann when she applied for a receptionist job at WHUB in Cookeville, the first radio station between Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee. There she met local radio pioneer Stacey Mott, seven years her senior, and a romance began. Soon they were married.
Betty Ann became a devoted wife and a mother. Betty Ann and Stacey had two sons and two daughters and were married for sixty years. She taught herself to cook and developed great skills. According to one of her children, she used her early produce skills as a homemaker: she never brought home an unripe watermelon!
One of the greatest joys of Betty Ann’s life was being a grandmother to eight grandchildren who were spread from Tennessee to Iowa to New York state. She and Stacey held grandparent camps and whole family get-togethers at home and at meeting points in other states.
Betty Ann and Stacey also served their community. Betty Ann worked for some years as an executive secretary and later as the executive director of a local senior center. Stacey completed a 47-year career at the radio station and was inducted into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame in 2015 when he was ninety years old.
Ray and I met Stacey and Betty Ann Mott when we came to Cookeville, Tennessee, in 1993 for Ray to become the minister at their church. They were salt of the earth folks. Their faith in Jesus and commitment to their church family were at the center of their lives.
We said so long to Stacey in 2016, and we said so long to Betty Ann this past Sunday. It was beautiful to hear three of her grandchildren read scripture and two of her children “rise up and called her blessed.”
When I think of Betty Ann, the first thing that comes to mind is a smile. She always had a kind and encouraging word. Her love was obvious. Her children were blessed to watch an inspiring life. Your children are blessed to watch yours.