Madeline Eunice Alwin Betts
Artist, wife, mother, coquette. Born on May 12, 1915, in Brooklyn, N.Y.; died on Dec. 6, 2014, in Charlottetown, of pneumonia, aged 99.
Petite, quiet and unassuming, Madeline Betts nevertheless lived a fairly adventurous life. As a child, she sailed with her parents, Walter and Elizabeth Alwin, from New York to England, where she and her sister Annette had their early schooling. As a young woman back in New York, Madeline studied painting at the Art Career School in the city's famous Flatiron Building.
In late 1941, she moved to Mutton Bay, Que., to marry Bob Betts, a dynamic young dentist providing health care to remote communities in Quebec and Newfoundland as part of the Grenfell Mission. High-school sweethearts, they had courted for all the years in between. Madeline's steamer arrived in Mutton Bay late on the night of Dec. 23, 1941. As her husband later recalled, she looked down the ship's side and shivered in her tweed suit, saying: "I hope tweed floats, I'm too cold to swim!" Their wedding reception the next day was a lively sledding party on the hills of the tiny community.
In their more than 50 years together, they lived in far-flung and often remote areas of North America. When Bob served as a dentist in the Canadian Merchant Marine during the Second World War, the pair spent two years living aboard a ship. They hit land again in Newfoundland after the war ended and had their first son, Robert, in St. Anthony, on the wild northern reaches of the Great Northern Peninsula.
Sporting matching sealskin mukluks, Madeline and Bob sailed the coasts of Newfoundland and Quebec to bring dental care to the outports. She drew designs on the burlap for the Grenfell Mission's distinctive hooked rugs and assisted with distributing supplies for the cottage industry.
Over the years, the family lived in Labrador, New Jersey, Nevada, Maine, Oklahoma and Alaska (where Madeline successfully panned for gold, and acquired the gold-filled tooth to prove it) and grew by four more children, Peter, Richard, David and Carole. In 1978, Madeline and Bob returned to Newfoundland, moving first to Port aux Basques and then to a small farm in the Codroy Valley. After Bob retired in 1985 they settled in Charlottetown, where Carole lived.
Madeline was known for her creativity, adaptability and wry sense of humour. A letter to a lackadaisical correspondent once featured a little cartoon strip of Madeline skipping gaily to the mailbox, peering in hopefully and then trudging, downcast, back to the house.
Her keen interest in antiques and collectibles, coupled with an encyclopedic knowledge, led her to operate two shops: Yesterware Antiques, which she opened next to Bob's dental office in Eastport, Maine; and Jumbles and Gems, which she helped Carole to run on Victoria Row in Charlottetown after Bob's death in 1996.
Throughout her life, Madeline was a dedicated and talented painter, often commemorating the landscapes of places she had lived in watercolours and oils. As her daughter said, she "wanted to create something beautiful every day." In her late 90s, Madeline joined a painting class in Charlottetown and was thrilled to have her work exhibited in several shows.
Despite increasing frailty and deafness, she took a great deal of joy in life, right to the end. Madeline loved a party and relished the company of younger gentlemen, who reciprocated. At any social gathering, she was likely to be found laughing in a corner with a captivated male admirer.
Ivy Wigmore is long-time friend of the Betts family.