Betty (Bell) Swan

Betty B. Swan passed away peacefully after saying goodbye to her family and friends on December 27, 2018 at the age of 88. She left strict instructions that her funeral was not to go longer than one hour because she “hates long funerals.” Her short funeral service will be held on Monday, December 31, 2018 at 10:30 a.m. in the Hobble Creek 2 ^nd Ward Chapel located at 555 Averett Avenue, Springville, Utah. Family members and close friends are invited to gather earlier at the chapel for a breakfast and family prayer at 9:00 a.m. Dedication of her grave and internment will take place at 1:00 pm at Holladay Memorial Park, 4900 South Memory Lane, Holladay, Utah.

Born November 6, 1930, Betty was the oldest of the six children of Demont and Ada Bell. Growing up in the very small farm community of Banida, Idaho during the Great Depression was not easy. She attended the Banida two-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade then commuted twelve miles to Preston every day for grades nine through twelve. She was a proud member of the gang of “Banida Bums” that graduated from Preston High School in 1948.

After graduating, she set off to the big city of Salt Lake to seek her fortune. She took a shorthand course from LDS Business College and soon began working as a secretary for the Hewlett Brothers. Betty won an academic competition for a full scholarship to attend nursing school at St. Marks Hospital. Her nursing training was cut short just before she finished when she met and married her husband, Dale E. Swan in 1955. (St. Marks did not allow nursing students to be married.)

In January of 1957 Betty and Dale and their first of five children moved to Seattle, Washington where Dale took a job with Boeing. Betty was a founding member of the Briarwood Sunny Suburbanites Homemakers Club and was known among the Issaquah School District principals as the “squeaky wheel” who made sure her children got a good education.

In 1972, Betty and Dale had a very prescient conversation in which they determined that Betty should re-enter the work force as a backup plan just in case something should happen. Betty learned the emerging world of data entry and business computers and went to work for the new federal Environmental Protection Agency. Because of this, she was able to provide for her children after Dale died in 1976. It should be noted that she never did have anything positive to say about computers and despised them the rest of her life.

Betty survived breast and colon cancer in the 1990’s. She retired from the EPA in 1992 and cared for her aging parents in Banida, Idaho. She became an itinerant grandmother splitting her time between Seattle, Utah, and Minnesota. Eventually, she settled down again in Springville, Utah where she enjoyed new friends and family, reading, and sewing quilts for her 17 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren.

Betty is survived by her brothers Larry Bell, David Bell, Dennis Bell, her sister Charla Ann Windley, her sons Paul Swan, Scot Swan, and her daughters Julie Dalessio, Shari Killpack, and Amy Freisner.