Betty Jo Lindsey Lewis

At Home with Grand: A Life in Full Bloom

A celebration of Betty Jo Lindsey Lewis

From the garden she loved to the heavenly home she was promised.

Betty Jo Lindsey Lewis was born June 2, 1934, in Morton, Mississippi, to John Wesley and Zee Lindsey. To those who knew and loved her, Betty was so much more than a name or a collection of accomplishments. She was a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, cook, artist, gardener, and a woman whose presence made people feel at home.

Her love story began when she was still a schoolgirl. Her future husband, William Oscar “Billy” Lewis, was driving a school bus when he picked her up one day and took notice of the pretty redheaded girl who had climbed aboard. He announced that he was going to marry her someday. And he did.

Betty Jo and Billy were married on June 26, 1951, beginning a marriage that would last just shy of 70 years. Their long life together was built on love, respect, faith, family – and plenty of adventures. Betty Jo loved traveling with Billy and groups of friends throughout the United States. Billy even gave his always-ready-for-an-adventure wife a fitting nickname: “Betty Go.” Billy preceded her in death in May 2021.

Each morning, Betty looked forward to going out into her garden. She spent countless happy hours tending flowers, nurturing beautiful blooms, and creating a yard that welcomed everyone who came to her home. Her garden was a place of joy, beauty, and quiet contentment. Its beauty reached beyond her own yard, because Betty loved sharing her flowers with others throughout the community.

She was a devoted homemaker, wife and mother and also served as a substitute teacher at Morton High School. Her home was a place where people were welcomed, fed and cared for. She was an excellent cook who prepared wonderful meals not only for holidays but on ordinary days as well. Family, children’s friends and grandchildren knew where there would be something good to eat at Miss Betty’s house, and many still remember those meals today.

She loved making holidays special, decorating her home and creating the kind of place everyone wanted to come back to. She was there to listen when someone needed her, available when her family needed help, and delighted in loving her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Betty was a gifted artist in more ways than one. She painted on canvas: acrylic, watercolor and oil, often selling her paintings. But she also painted her garden—using flowers, color, and careful attention to turn the earth around her into a living work of art. Visitors were greeted not only by the warmth of her welcome, but also by the flowers and lovely yard that reflected her creative spirit. Her enormous ferns were well-known enough that friends borrowed them, and people came to her yard to cut fresh flowers for special events – or simply to take home and put in a vase.

For her grandchildren, she was simply “Grand.” When her first grandchild, Lindy, was born, Betty was asked why she wanted to be called Grand. Her answer was perfectly Betty Jo: “Because I am Grand!” And she was. She made holidays memorable, ordinary visits special, and every gathering feel like coming home. Her younger grandchildren later shortened her name to “Gran” but it still had the same “Grand-ness” because she was that.

Her friendships mattered deeply to her as well. In a tradition belonging to a different and perhaps gentler time, Betty Jo and a group of women friends regularly gathered for cake and coffee while their children played. They would even drive through ice and snow to get together. Those friendships endured for more than 70 years, with the women continuing to be there for one another through the many seasons of life.

A homemaker and substitute teacher, Betty was also a longtime member of Morton United Methodist Church, where she participated in the choir and hospitality ministry. Her love for people showed itself in the ways she welcomed, encouraged, and served them. She was a member of the Garden Club and Homemaker’s Club.

Those who knew Betty Jo also knew her strength. Despite living with severe rheumatoid arthritis and heart disease, she did not make her suffering the center of her life. She was known instead for her sheer determination – pushing through limitations and continuing to care for the people and things that mattered to her.

And she had a beautiful smile. Long before later generations of the family entered the pageant world as beauties, with one even becoming Miss Mississippi, Betty Jo herself had been MISS MORTON. Her granddaughter Taylor loved asking Grand to give her that “beauty pageant smile,” because to Taylor, her grandmother’s was the prettiest smile of all.

Betty Jo poured her energy into caring for those she loved. She was an anchor for her family – a woman of faith, strength, and home. Her family will miss her wonderful cooking, the house decorated for every holiday, her listening ear, her love for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and perhaps most of all, simply knowing they could always go back home and find her there.

The beloved hymn “In the Garden” offers a fitting image of Betty’s life. Morning after morning, she found happiness among the flowers she loved. Now, in the hope of her Christian faith, we imagine her welcomed into a beauty beyond anything she could have grown here on earth. She made a home for others, and now she has gone Home.

Betty is survived by her children. William Mark Lewis and his wife, Lorin, and Melissa Lewis Lynch and Gary Smith; her grandchildren, Lindy Lewis West (Griffin), Laura Lee Lewis Allen (Will), William Cole Lynch (Jen), Taylor Lynch Mitchell (Cole); her great-grandchildren Vivian Elizabeth West, Rosemary Lee West, Griffin Harold West, Jr., Summer Alyn Mitchell and Mia Jaymes Mitchell. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, William Oscar “Billy” Lewis; her parents, John Wesley and Zee Lindsey; and her sisters, Kay Lindsey Carter, Leslie Ruth Lindsey Brooks and June Lindsey Claypool;

For nearly a century, Betty Jo Lewis’s life was woven into the life of Morton. She leaves behind paintings on walls, flowers that once came from her garden, recipes and meals people still remember, friendships that lasted a lifetime, a family shaped by her faith and strength, and generations who knew there was always a place for them at her table.

She was Betty Jo. She was Miss Morton. She was “Betty Go.” She was wife, mother, Grand, Gran, great-grandmother, friend, and faithful servant.

And to the people who loved her most, she was HOME.