Obituary of Betty Jean (Davis) Wolfe (1926–2015)

The published obituary of Betty Jean (Davis) Wolfe — Chuck Eesley’s great-aunt, Dorothy Davis Wildermuth’s younger sister, and the long-time co-host of 108 Hillcrest Drive. Published in the Marietta Times, 16 September 2015, two months after Betty’s death 18 July 2015 at age 89, six months and nine days after her husband Norman “Norm” Graham Wolfe on 9 January 2015. The obituary opens with one of the warmest first lines in the family archive:

“Betty Wolfe joined her husband, Norman, in heaven.”

What the obituary establishes

The Marietta High School courtship: “Betty and Norm met in study hall at Marietta High School and married in 1945 prior to Norm’s departure to Germany where he served in the Army. In high school, he was the quarterback and she was head majorette of the high school band.”

This is a more detailed account than Norm’s own obituary:

• They met in study hall at Marietta High School — the small intimate detail of where the love started.
• Norm was the quarterback of the Marietta Tigers football team (his obit said team captain his senior year; this one says quarterback).
• Betty was head majorette of the high school band — a high-school-leadership detail that places her right at the center of MHS social life.
• They married in 1945 — before Norm shipped to Germany with the Army.
• Their marriage was 69 years focused on family.

Birth and the lung-cancer caregiving: “Betty was born in McConnelsville, Ohio. Her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 40 and Betty cared for her until her death at 44.”

McConnelsville, Morgan County, Ohio confirmed as Betty’s birthplace.

The next sentence is the central biographical fact of Betty’s young adulthood: her mother Marie Davis (Bessie Marie Hill Davis) was diagnosed with lung cancer at 40 and Betty cared for her until her death at 44. If Marie died at 44 in 1950 (per the family GEDCOM), she would have been born c. 1906; Betty (b. 1926) would have been 20–24 during the caregiving years, the same span she was newly married to Norm and the war had ended. Her elder sister Dorothy was already in California with Robert Earl Wildermuth; Betty stayed in Ohio caring for their dying mother.

Preceded in death:

• Mother Marie Davis (Bessie Marie Hill Davis)
• Father Homer Davis (Homer Edward Davis, d. 1982)
• Sister Mary Murdock — named here as Mary Murdock, confirming that Mary Louise Davis (the eldest of the Davis siblings, b. 1924) married a Murdock. This is a new married-name datum.
• Sister Dorothy Wildermuth (Chuck’s grandmother)
• Grandson Geoffrey B. Schwartz II (predeceased 2009, per Norm’s obituary)

Survived by daughters — with full middle names and home cities:

• Victoria Ann Schwartz (Geoffrey), Topton, North Carolina
• Norma Jean Grundset (Kenneth), Largo, Florida
• Peggy Sue Wolfe, St. Petersburg, Florida

The middle-name pattern: Norma Jean carries her mother Betty Jean’s middle name — the eldest mother-daughter middle-name carry. Victoria Ann and Peggy Sue. Three married-and-daughter generations of Davis-Wolfe women.

Granddaughter: Emily Marie Schwartz Crouch (Zachary), Louisville, Kentucky. Great-granddaughter: Charlotte Victoria Crouch (carrying her great-grandmother’s name and her mother’s).

Surviving brother — William Homer Davis, Carmel, Indiana: “her brother, William Homer Davis, Carmel, Ind.”

This is a crucial correction to the c. 1992 Davis-Angel family portrait caption. The portrait caption identifies Betty’s brother as “William Harvey Davis, Sr.” — but Betty’s own family obituary names him William Homer Davis, with the middle name Homer carrying their father Homer Edward Davis’s name down to the youngest son. The 1992 portrait caption either has the middle name wrong (perhaps a transcription substitution of “Harvey” for “Homer”), or alternately Bill Sr. used both middle names at different times. This archive will defer to the obituary — written by Betty’s daughters in 2015 — as the authoritative version of his name. William Homer Davis of Carmel, Indiana. The Carmel, Indiana detail also pairs with Becky’s residence in Fishers, Indiana (per Faye Angel’s 2011 obituary) — both Indianapolis-area suburbs — making a tight Indianapolis-area cluster of the Davis-Angel younger generation.

What the obituary tells about Betty’s character

The paragraphs are direct family description:

“Her daughters and her favorite grand dog, Lily, were by her side during her final days reminiscing, laughing, and talking about the love and strength of family. Betty loved and cared for family and friends selflessly. She was an excellent cook and baker who loved to have people come for a meal. Everything was delicious.”

“She was an excellent cook and baker who loved to have people come for a meal. Everything was delicious.” — Chuck’s memory of the Hillcrest holiday dinners is, in those two sentences, written by Betty’s own daughters. Every Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas at 108 Hillcrest where Chuck and his parents sat down at her table was “everything was delicious” — the family had been documenting it the whole time.

“Betty and Norm were always ready and willing to help those in need. They were happy to take food to friends and members of their congregation, the Sixth Street Church of Christ, when any family suffered loss or sickness; to visit folks in the hospital or nursing home; and to drive them to appointments or church services.”

The same Sixth Street Church of Christ named in Norm’s obituary, framed here in terms of the practical care the two of them showed across decades: meals for the sick, hospital visits, rides to appointments and church.

The Florida-and-Marietta closing arc

“Betty and Norm spent the final two years of their lives in Largo, Fla., near their daughters. While they left Marietta physically, their hearts remained in Marietta with their many friends. They were not forgotten by those friends who continued to phone and send cards, flowers, and gifts.”

Two years in Florida — long enough to be near Norma and Peggy, short enough that Marietta was still home in their last decade. They were not forgotten by their Marietta friends — the obituary’s own closing-arc framing for the depth of the friendships built across the Sixth Street Church of Christ and the Hillcrest holiday-table years.

Source: Marietta Times, 16 September 2015. Transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026.