| Notes |
- Family notes courtesy of Richard Manley Snethen
Betty was born in Saint Augustine Florida. Then as a young child she moved first to Hoboken, New Jersey; while there she remembers a playmate coming down the fire escape to play with her. The family after a short stay in Hoboken moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey, her mother's Bergen County origins.
Betty attended Ridgewood Public Schools graduating from high school in 1939. With the aid of scholarships from the State and Ridgewood Federated Women's Club as well as Work Program jobs, she was able to attend and graduate from New Jersey College For Women (now Douglas College) part of Rutgers University in 1943. She always liked to brag about being one of the first women to help integrate Rutgers. She was in the Rutgers School of Journalism which was housed on the men's campus that was a mile from NJC.
During her adolescence and teen years Betty was involved in Girl Scouts where she remembers her scout leader introducing the girls to snakes. They also spent many hours in Bear Mountain Park as well as winter ice skating on the Duck Pond in Ridgewood. She was baptized in the Ridgewood Baptist Church (the builder of that church was her Grandfather Walthery) and enjoyed being a choir member. This along with participating in the high school orchestra where she played the Viola prepared her for her four year College Choir activities. She spent some of her summers on her Uncle Lee Walthery's farm.
It was while in NJC that Betty met her husband to be Richard Snethen, a fellow Rutgers University student. Although they met at a freshman dance it wasn't 'til the end of their Junior year that they began dating and eventually became engaged; leading to their marriage in June of 1943.
They were married in Morris, New York and resided on a farm in New Lisbon until Richie was inducted into the Army in 1944, shortly after the birth of their first child.. After the stint in the Army the couple took up residence in South Jersey where Richard was an Agriculture teacher in Woodstown and Bridgeton NJ. Their next two daughters were born while residing in New Jersey.
Moving to a farm in Humphrey, New York in 1954, the family was immersed in their dairy farm. The last two children were born in the Salamanca Hospital. After a disastrous milk-strike the family gave up dairy farming with Richard returning to teaching. Betty continued to as a competent housewife and mother until all the children were in school then she obtained a teaching position in Springville Griffith Institute (where Richard was employed) in 1962. She taught English and Journalism for twenty-two years retiring in 1983.
The Buffalo News
January 5, 2005
Mary E. "Betty" Snethen (nee King) Of Springville, NY, January 4, 2005, wife of Richard M. Snethen; mother of Pamela J. Bartkowski (Patricia Oxenholm), Donna L. Snethen, Letty A. Snethen (David McIntosh), Mary J. Snethen (Dick Hegarty) and Perry W. Snethen II (Charlotte Frisbee); also survived by two grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
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1921 - 2005 (83 years)
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