Bette Simpson Funeral

Wife. Mother. Teacher. Antique Furniture Connoisseur. Master gardener and florist. Hospitality Queen. Ultimate accessorizer. Storyteller and embellisher. Perpetual volunteer. Servant of the Lord. Faithful. Beloved friend.

How does one fully begin to describe a woman like Bette Simpson, also affectionately known at times as “B,” “Boop,” and “Bgirl.” How does one go about telling her story?

When I first met Bette several months ago, it seemed that she was much more interested in my story than her own. She had made it a point to know about me before I even met her, asking about my husband and my two daughters. This pattern continued and I am told extended to everyone within her orbit.

Bette was the kind of person who genuinely cared about you and the people in your life. She delighted in regular updates and photos of everyone’s children and grandchildren.

Rev. Brad Corban, her former pastor who sends his deep regrets that he cannot be here today, said that “Bette and Took Mason showed up one day with a Raggedy Ann doll, a Raggedy Ann book, and a Raggedy Ann stitched fabric that was then framed and hung on the wall in Edith’s room.” That was the kind of person she was.

Bette’s love of children grew out of her early years teaching in Shaw. A friend of Bette’s convinced her to move there to teach under the wonderful Principal Hough. She taught 1st grade for a year and third grade for two years, at one point having 60 children in a classroom by herself! As you can imagine, she had a lot of stories about her students. I read in an interview with Mickey Caller Baron that Bette shared how “one little girl complained that a boy in class had been kissing them and they didn’t like it. Bette told the young boy that the girls didn’t like it and she wouldn’t either. The little boy then looked at her and said ‘you better watch out or you’ll be next.’”

Bette wasn’t in Shaw long before she met Jimmy Simpson. After dating for a time, she was wondering if he was going to propose and so she decided to tell him that she had to go to South America to teach school. Whether or not she actually intended to go to South America, her statement did the trick as Jimmy responded “well, I guess I’ll have to marry you now.”

Brad shared a funny story about how when Bette and Jimmy were newly married and it was becoming popular for young women to get their ears pierced. Jimmy wasn’t so sure about the idea. Well, of course she went right out and got her ears pierced. Shortly after that, Bette discovered that she was pregnant. So Bette gets home, sits her husband down, and tells him “I’m pregnant! At which point he responded, “I told you not to get your ears pierced.”

Bette genuinely loved her family and the church, both Shaw United Methodist and later St. Luke. At the closing of Shaw UMC in 2021, Bette shared several comments saying “Our lives were made of church, school, and family.”

Bette served her church faithfully in numerous ways. She once told me that she and several other ladies helped to make the needlepoint kneelers at Shaw Methodist, a project that took 8 years to complete. What dedication that must have taken.

Still, the one talent that so many shared with me about Bette was her ability to arrange flowers. Literally everyone who spoke of Bette spoke of the beautiful arrangements for both churches and for weddings. They also laughed at how she would get the flowers. Bette told me that she never once bought flowers. Apparently, she and Took would just clip flowers from people’s yards. A church member recently told me that everyone would see these two ladies around town in people’s yards cutting flowers. Then this member laughed and said, “if they liked it they wouldn’t just cut one bloom but you might go outside and be missing several.” According to Brad, she would even clip some from the University Campus and decided that if they were caught they would simply say “these are for the president’s desk.” Another member told me that they came in one day and Bette was down on her hands and knees trimming the bushes for a flower arrangement. She said, “things that I would look at and think it’s a weed Bette would gather and create something beautiful.”

Bette had the gift of making things beautiful, from floral arrangements to the inside of her home to selecting pieces of antique furniture when she worked at The Fireside Shop. Bette told me how much she loved going to Europe with June Cassibry, Robert Griffin, and others. Except the last time she went her daughters shared that it took a year for her to get over the time change, after which, she decided that was enough for her.

While Bette had a natural talent for many things, she admitted in the interview with Mickey that she never could play Bridge. She was apparently in a Bridge club at one point but said she couldn’t play. So each Friday when it was time to play, her children would always seem to come down with a fever. Finally, she announced that she was getting out of the club, and everyone clapped. Bette said, “I was as happy as they were to get out.”

I was also told that she knew how to throw a proper party, complete with linens and silver. One friend shared that she once brought over some cokes in a can and realized this was not that kind of gathering.

But at home around the kitchen table, there was a different routine. I don’t know if ya’ll know this or not, but the Simpson family has always had strong immune system. Perhaps the history of this is because when they were together as a family, they rarely used napkins. Instead, they would simply pass the dishrag around the kitchen table, sharing and strengthening their immune systems in love. When friends would visit the Simpsons, they later continued this tradition within their own families, especially the Short family.

When we have strong immune systems, we tend to exhibit a sense of strength in the face of illness.You know, often when I would visit Bette while she was in the hospital and then in long-term care, she would smile and tell me “I’m gonna get better.”

Today’s passage from Isaiah comes as one in which God is comforting God’s people. It even begins by saying “comfort, comfort my people.” It asks to whom will we liken God and to what will we compare God? Then it asks “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” Our God is everlasting. God does not come and go but is constant. God does not grow tired or but gives strength to those who are week. It says while we may grow tired and weary, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. The Message translates it as “those who wait upon God get fresh strength.” Not yesterday’s strength. Not last year’s strength. Fresh strength.

Bette amazed me in her hope. It was always fresh, always persistent, and it sprang from a place of peace in the Lord. The other day Grady brought by Bette’s Bible for me to see. Oh my goodness, look at this. It no longer even has a front or back cover. All that remains is the story, the contents, the pages filled with her notes and her favorite passages. I don’t know about you but I want to love the Lord so much that the cover of my Bible is worn from reading and my feet worn from serving and my voice worn from praying and living out God’s love.

“I’m gonna get better” she would say. For those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint. For in Christ, our end is our beginning.

Bette, we give thanks for your life this day and all days. As you behold all of heaven which I imagine has the most beautiful flowers for you to arrange, we are grateful for the days in which we glimpsed heaven in and through you.