Betty Strickland

Services for Betty Jo Strickland, 88, of Valley Center, California will be held on Saturday, June 18 at 11:00 AM at Stewart Family Funeral Home with Don Spivey officiating. Private burial will be at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont under the direction of Stewart Family Funeral Home. Mrs. Strickland passed away on June 12, 2011 in Southern California. She was born on September 20, 1922 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Mrs. Strickland graduated as a Registered Nurse from the Missouri Methodist Hospital School of Nursing in 1943. During World War II she joined the Army Air Corps as a Lieutenant. She attended the School of Aviation Medicine and became one of the original flight nurses. After leaving the Army, Betty and her husband, Tommy, moved to Beaumont where they lived for 53 years. In 1959 she became a school nurse for the South Park School District in Beaumont. After serving for 17 years, she retired in 1976 as the Director of Health Services for the district. Mrs. Strickland served as President of both the Texas State Teachers Association-School Health Section, and the Texas State School Nurses Association. In 1971 she was instrumental in the creation of a statewide School Nurses Day, an annual recognition of school nurses. She was a volunteer nurse for the Muscular Dystrophy Clinic in Tyler for 8 years and was a docent for the Historic Aviation Memorial Museum in Tyler. Mrs. Strickland was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Tommy Strickland. She is survived by a loving family including two daughters, Sue Spivey and husband, Don, of Tyler and Judy Black and husband, Don, of California; grandson, Cordell Parker and wife, Jennifer, of Whitehouse; granddaughter, Anna Roberts of Houston; brothers, Warren Pearce and wife, Esther, of Florida and E.G. Pearce and wife, Dana, of Missouri; and five great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Odyssey/VistaCare Hospice Foundation, c/o Odyssey HealthCare of San Diego, 9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 290, San Diego, CA 92123 (1-800-299-8245 or online at Odsysseyhealthcare.com).

Betty Strickland

September 20, 1922 - June 12, 2011