| Notes |
- IN REMEMBRANCE OF BETTY COATE This tribute was delivered by Richard Coate, at the memorial service for his wife, Betty Saturday, April 17, 2004 at the Unitarian Church in Brooklyn heights, New York.
Elizabeth Louise, the daughter of Carl and Luella Scheibert of Trenton, Ohio, was known by most as Betty throughout her life. Hers was a close knit family. With nurturing parents, she reflected the values of not only her Christian upbringing, but those of a generation which placed a priority on nobility of character, good conduct, civility, courtesy, professional ethics and regard for the feelings of others. To the time of her hospitalization she enjoyed her weekly telephone conversations with her younger sister, Doris, to whom she was very close.
On February 4, 2004, after a fall caused by ice on a handicap access from sidewalk to the street in Brooklyn Heights, New York, Betty was conveyed by ambulance go the ER at Long Island College Hospital where she was admitted as a patient in the Respiratory Care Unit. She died of complications the following March 13th. In the five weeks of her hospitalization, Betty would confront four life threatening crises, one involving pneumonia and a mild heart attack. Placed on Life Support she was transferred from the RCU to the ICU for the third and last time where she remained for two and a half weeks, unable to speak. On her back most of that time, her hands were strapped down in restraint. Throughout her entire ordeal, either in the RCU or the ICU, either myself or our devoted daughter Jennifer were at her bedside ten or eleven hours a day.
But on the night of February 8th, following her first transfer to the ICU, I was not granted permission to remain with her overnight. During that long, lonely walk home I fervently prayed that she survive the crisis. When I entered her room at eleven a. m. next morning, she was desperately gasping for breath, still waging a fight for life. "Oh, Dick," she pleaded, "help me breathe." I took her hand in mine. She squeezed it with all the strength she could muster, a reminder of how much she depended upon my love and support. "I will, Betty. I will." I was relieved as her breathing gradually became less labored and she finally closed her eyes. But it was not long before opened them for a reassuring glimpse of me. I held her hand with both of mine and smiled. With each passing hour her breathing became easier and she finally fell into a deep sleep. At the end of five hours, a nurse, gently prodding, aroused her patient. "Elizabeth." ... Betty opened her eyes. "How do you feel?" Her response was immediate. "O. K." "How's your breathing?" "Good." We all smiled in relief.**********************
February 19th, two days after her second transfer to the ICU [both times due, in part, to dangerously low sodium level resulting from trauma to the head] I had reason to believe that she had finally won the odds, that is, she had survived her last crisis. A quote from an e-mail to our long time friend, Jan Jackson, is a testament to my reason for feeling optimistic. "Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers, Jan. It's a great comfort to both of us. She was transferred from the ICU after midnight [of the 17th]. Though her sodium level hasn't changed, the Nurses Station informed me that she is 'stabilized.' Oxygen level 95-98. Her appetite has improved considerably. When I arrived this morning one of her first questions was, 'What's news?' You can imagine how good that question made me feel ..." By the 22nd, her sodium level, now within "safe" level, warranted a transfer back to the RCU. It was not long before she contacted pneumonia resulting in yet another life and death crisis requiring her to be placed on life support and, for the third time, a transfer back to the ICU. Though I didn't realize it at the time, sentiments I expressed shortly after, summed up our 53 years of marriage. "You know, Betty, we've always been a team," I began. Her eyes widened and she nodded, "... and we've always been there for one another." She literally hung on my words. "So, as team players, I want you to know that I'm right here with you, helping you to get through this as you helped me when I needed you most." Squeezing my hand, she smiled and nodded again. I had always known that I married a gal with a strong will ... but the stamina she evoked to survive what proved to be a protracted battle ... was not only remarkable, but an amazing demonstration of a valiance and spiritual strength.*********************
It was during Christmas season of our 8th grade that we made an important discovery. Miss Weinberger, our music and art teacher paired us off to decorate our principal's office window .... we really enjoyed working together ... we were a good team. It was the beginning of a lasting relationship. A polio victim at the age of five, she developed a strength of character which engendered the respect of her grade and high school peers. Despite her handicap, she wielded a wicked ping pong paddle. When we paired in a High School tournament, vying for championship in an overtime game, we lost to Peggy Johnson and Richard Shockey by one point. But she had dramatically demonstrated to all in attendance that she was the real champion. As members of the High School Chorus and orchestra, our affection for one another was hard to conceal. She was great on the dance floor; snuggling close for the slow, sentimental, romantic ballads as well as the wildly energetic jitterbugging of the big band era. By the time we were High School seniors Betty and I were considered to be "steadies."
By this past March 11th, when her lungs were cleared of pneumonia, her breathing stabilized, a tracheotomy was performed to facilitate the weaning process. Late that night, she was transferred to a weaning room in the RCU. At 830 a .m. on March 12th, I was with her when the Respiratory Specialist began decreasing, by increments, her dependency on the respirator. Midmorning, Jennifer joined me for the vigil. 1230 p. m., our anxiety mounting, we watched, cheering her on, as she was removed from the respirator. "Breathe, Betty, breathe, Mom," we urged her. There was a note of triumph in our voices as we exclaimed. "She's breathing. She's breathing on her own. She's off the respirator!" Still sedated, she was not aware of what she had accomplished. Later that evening, long after Jennifer departed for home in Dutchess County, Betty awakened. "Betty, you're off the respirator. You're breathing on your own." Raising her head from the pillow, her eyes widened as if to ask ... Are you sure? ... "It's true, you been breathing on your own for a long time now." She smiled. Obviously relieved, she squeezed my hand and eased back on the pillow. I could only speculate as to her thoughts. .... but I feel sure it was a prayer expressing gratitude.
Five days before ... I had contacted a head and chest infection so I was still on antibiotic. The mask I was wearing prevented me from placing a good night kiss on her forehead. I again expressed many a tender a word before I announced that I had to get a good night's rest so I could be back early in the morning. She pounded the mattress with her hand on the opposite side of the bed. It was obvious she wanted me to linger just a little bit longer. I circled around to hold her other hand. "You're adorable and I'm very proud of you." I remained for an all-to-short five more minutes more. "I'll see you in the morning, darling. Rest well." She smiled as I gently slipped my hand from her grasp. Accepting my departure, she turned her head, as if to focus on the ceiling. While she attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating with excellent grades as a Fine Arts Major, I attended Ohio State, majoring in Theater. Separated by 120 miles, we corresponded throughout the four years. Transferring to Ohio State in the fall of '49 where she received a degree in Education, she accepted my proposal early spring of the following year.
Then came the event which altered the course of history. Late June of 1950, Harvey Seeman, our friend from Trenton High and my roommate at Ohio State, and his date, Marian Ott, Betty and I had good reason to be in high spirits. En route to Old Man's cave, a scenic and natural wonder in south central Ohio, the car radio was playing classical music and the weather was sheer poetry. When the program was interrupted with the announcement that the Communist North Koreans had crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korea, we realized that the "Cold War" had now become a "Hot War."
Late August of 1950 I received my induction notice. Five days before reporting to basic training, Betty and I were married in a hastily arranged ceremony in the living room her home. Members of both families were present. Following our brief honeymoon in picturesque Brown County State Park in Indiana, I was assigned basic training at Fort Knox, KY which was near enough to Trenton for me to make frequent weekend trips home during basic.
During my student days at Ohio State, after my third year of live broadcasting on WOSU, the Ohio State Radio station, I'd been inducted into Alpha Epsilon Rho, The National Broadcasting Fraternity. I was to have been assigned to the Fort Knox Radio Station upon completion of Basic. But with the Chinese entry into the Korean War, anyone with a Military Occupation Specialty of a rifleman were, like it or not, shipped to Korea. Shortly after my arrival on line, a chance encounter between myself and an AP photojournalist produced a classic photograph which, in the ensuing decades, would become an icon of the Korean and Cold Wars. But for Betty's initiative, the photograph would have been lost to posterity. Following my army discharge in June of '52, we moved East to pursue our separate careers, she as an artist, I as an actor. While her first job, a technical illustrator with secret clearance, was with Sikorsky Aircraft, Bridgeport, Conn., I worked as a mechanic on the assembly line in the factory.
Betty continued with Sikorsky while I commuted to Manhattan to study at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In September of 1954, after graduation and two seasons of Summer Stock on Cape Cod, we moved to Brooklyn Heights. Betty was not only my severest critic but my most staunch supporter. She attended the bulk of my performances, from High School through college, The American Dramatic Arts, through my work Off Broadway, The New York Shakespeare Festival, summer stock and regional theater.
Over the years she advanced to become Art Director of the Art Department of a firm in Brooklyn. Her last job prior to retirement was with BMG, again serving as an Art Director. During her tenure at BMG she designed record jackets, page layouts and catalog covers.
Back in October of 1989, I submitted a story I had written, The Unidentified Soldier In The USO Poster to Jan Jackson, Executive Administrative Assistant to the Chairman of the Presidential Korean War Memorial Advisory Board, General Richard G. Stilwell. At my request, she presented it to the general at the fund HQ in Arlington, Va. The board was not only responsible for selecting the memorial design but the fund drive for its construction and installation on the mall in our nation's capital. Though Betty admired my audacity, she knew that the story, which was really "our" story, would not fail to impress the four star general - all the more so, since he was a former Commander of all UN Troops in Korea. After all, the photograph had twice attained national circulation. Upon its first national AP newspaper release, the heading over the photograph of the Spokesman Review, Spokane, WA., read, "Silhouette of Yank Rifleman Symbolizes Fighting Forces it Korea." When the general learned that it resurfaced in 1964-'65 as the linchpin of the USO fund drive, this time symbolizing American fighting forces throughout the globe, he knew that its symbolic value could be an invaluable asset to the fund drive for the Korean War Memorial.
Though the general addressed his letter of appreciation and commendation to me, he was well aware that Betty was a pivotal player in the backstory of the photograph. Had it not been for Betty, the general would never had reason to write that letter. An excerpt reads "I cannot gauge whether your story will evoke that genre of reaction, from publishers and general population who, in the not too distant past, termed Korea a 'Forgotten War.' Whatever, the true value of your work will be measured by the assuredly positive response of those who were there, who knew at first hand the selfishness and suffering of fellow men fighting on inhospitable terrain for dimly perceived objectives - men who can really appreciate the pain of an author valorous enough to experience it all again - and again, for the benefit of others. I salute your courage; I admire your initiative."
Easter Sunday, 1951, during its first nationwide AP newspaper release, the photograph was accompanied by a reporter's interview of Betty in The Middletown Journal, Middletown, OH, our hometown newspaper. Recognizing its archival value, for the family at least, she secured a glossy of the photo and the AP release. Her initiative would have profound impact almost four decades later when she helped me design and prepare the pro bono press packets which targeted some of the more powerful and prestigious newspaper and magazine editors in the nation. Using General Stilwell's letter as the centerpiece, these press packets included literature from the fund HQ, a glossy of the photo and an editorial by me which was first published in The Phoenix, a prestigious and prize winning Brooklyn Heights Newspaper of that era.
Betty followed this up by designing hundreds of posters, using the photograph as anchor, for the fledgling Korean War Veterans Association HQ and 80 or so posters, all designed for individual chapters. Reproduced and distributed throughout the nation, these impressive posters not only generated awareness of the "Forgotten War of Korea," but an inestimable amount of funds for the memorial to be situated in our nation's capital, as well as membership to the Korean War Veterans Association. By last count, the association has well over 260 Chapters. Her sympathy for the plight of the Korean War Veteran dates back to my own tour of duty in Korea. Betty's work on these posters in the early 90s were done, in large part, on her lunch break at Bertlesman Music Group, where she served as Art Director. As a result of her efforts and our press packets, she helped open doors which had hitherto been closed, generating invaluable press coverage for the veterans of the war. The success of our team work became the inspiration for the KWVA's still ongoing "Tell America About The Korean War" campaign. At the time of her passing, five million Korean War veterans were in her debt. **********************
Though I was well aware of Betty's dry wit and gift for repartee, I was more than a little impressed that she was able to hold her own with the comedian who was world renowned for his witticisms and comic timing - Bob Hope. In May of 1990, General Stillwell expressed his gratitude by inviting us to be his honored guest at a black tie, thousand dollar a plate dinner at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D. C., honoring the 46 Congressman who had served during the Korean War. Jan Jackson hosted the table at which we were seated - front row, near the lip of the stage The Key note speaker was the President of the United States, George Walker Bush. He, along with Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores and Rosemary Clooney were seated front row center, two tables away, hosted by the general and his gracious wife. It had already been announced that Hope and Clooney were leaving for Europe shortly after the dinner to entertain the troops. It would be the last of Bob Hope's USO tours.
Having finished their dessert, Betty and Jan made a trip to the lady's room. The president's departure for the White House, however, presented me an opportunity to approach Bob Hope for an autograph - while another guest at our table snapped a photo of the event. I made the approach, noting that Dolores was seated to his immediate left. I'm sure he did not know that my profile had graced hundreds of USO posters. Leaning into Hope to make sure I was "in frame," I extended my program and made the request. Nodding to the cameraman, he smiled and unceremoniously jotted his famous name on my program. Triumphant, I thanked him and made my way back to our table to find that Betty and Jan had returned from the lady's room.
When they learned what I had done, Betty insisted that she, too, approach the comedian for an autograph. Having accompanied her to Hope's side, he was quick to note my presence. "Mr. Hope," Betty asked, "would you autograph my program, too?" Poker faced, he looked at me, then back to her. "You know I charge for these." "Ohio" Betty responded. "How much?" "A dollar per," the comedian replied. "That much? I'm afraid I don't carry that kind of cash with me." "I'll accept an I. O. U." the straight faced Hope replied. Betty pursued with the game playing. "But you're leaving for Europe shortly. Where will I send it?" Giving her a quizzical look, he paused before nodding to Dolores - an acknowledgment that he had a real live one here. Dolores supplied the punch line, "Oh, don't worry, we'll catch up with you." Betty grinned and we all laughed. Mission accomplished, we headed back to our table. **********************
When we attended our first Unitarian Church Fair in the mid-80s, we discovered many of our Brooklyn Heights friends manning the booths. They were all Unitarians. It was not long when we became members and active participants in the church. With the onset of Post Polio Syndrome she was required to be "on" oxygen 24 hours a day for the last several years of her life, she was unable to attend church. A devoted wife, she was a woman of considerable spunk. Up until the date of an hospitalization following an accident late afternoon February 4th, 2004, the direct result of a failure on the part of a building superintendent to remove ice from a sidewalk, she led a highly productive life few could match. Her handicap did not deter her from performing her favorite domestic chore - preparing the evening meal. A gourmet cook, she took great pride in serving not only a delicious dinner, but one that was aesthetically pleasing. She endeared herself to countless people throughout her life, maintaining childhood friendships and some with college chums. She loved the theater and we enjoyed attending Broadway shows together until recent years when her health did not permit. ***********************
On the night of this past March 12th, I phoned the nurses station before I bedded down and again at 7 am in the morning. The reports were good - Betty was still breathing on her own. Upon my arrival at 9 am, I was about to enter her room when I was alarmed to see a doctor, both hands rhythmically pumping her chest. A nurse blocked my entrance. I waited in the corridor, while others on the medical staff rushed to her bedside. Time seemed to stand still as I prayed for a miracle - that she summon the strength to survive one more crisis. At 930 two attending nurses and a doctor emerged to inform me that she had passed away. She died of a heart attack. The trauma she had endured over the prior five weeks had taken its toll. It didn't seem possible! She was so alert the night before. Only two hours before the nurse said she was doing well! I excused myself, walked down the corridor, still in a state of disbelief. Composing myself, I phoned Jennifer with the sad news.
Hers was the passing of a remarkable woman. Beautiful, charming, witty and highly intelligent, she had been my childhood crush, then sweetheart, wife, best friend, colleague, confidant and lover. She was a nurturing mother to our wonderful daughter, Jennifer, and Grandmother to Emma and Christian, to whom she was lovingly known as "Grandma Betty." In all the 74 years I've known her, including our 53 years of marriage, I cannot recall anyone express an unkind word about her. To have known her was to respect her. Spiritually, she is still very much with me. Betty will continue to play the most important role in my life ... until, I too, join her in eternal rest. **********************
EXTEMPORE EULOGY BY MAGGIE CURRAN TO BETTY COATE AT HER MEMORIAL SERVICE AT THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NEW YORK, APRIL 17, 2004 MAGGIE CURRAN, Ret., Literary Agent, Stage Manager, Actress. * I first met Richard and Betty Coate in 1956 when Richard and I both worked for The New York Shakespeare Festival. In 1960 I moved to Brooklyn Heights, had a daughter, as they did, and our lives ran parallel to the present, including membership in the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Brooklyn, NY.
Betty Coate was the most courageous and the most modest person I have ever known. She was, in the terminology of the time, a victim of Infantile Paralysis. She never allowed herself to become a victim. She lived a rich full life. She got a wonderful education - she married her sweetheart, Richard, and they had their wonderful Jennifer.
Betty put in a full working life and I knew her best in retirement (Retirement goes on forever these days.) when a group of Heights women met for dinner about once a month. She was always so neat and elegant. She was quiet, but when she spoke, we listened. We respected her.
Ultimately it was Post Polio Syndrome that robbed Betty of strength to recover from an accident. She was beautiful and she will be missed.* Note By Richard Coate Maggie Curran has great presence and her style of delivery (somewhat in the grand manner of an actress who had honed her skills) was magnificent. Betty would have been so pleased!***************
Tribute to Betty Coate by her nephew, John Thullen Excerpts from the letter John Thullen wrote to his cousin, Betty's daughter, Jennifer Schulz, were read by his sister, Nancy Thullen at the graveside memorial service for Betty at Woodside Cemetery on June 5, 2004 in Middletown, Ohio. John and Nancy's mother, Doris Thullen, is Betty's younger sister. The full text of John's letter to Jennifer's father, Richard Coate, dated June 10, 2004 as well as his original letter to Jennifer reads "Dear Uncle Dick, Nancy told me that she used excerpts of a letter I wrote to Jennifer at Aunt Betty's memorial service. She said you might appreciate a copy. I've left it as I wrote it. I'm sorry I was not able to make the trip to Middletown for the service. But I was thinking of you and Jennifer on that day. I hope you are O. K. I'm so sorry about Aunt Betty's passing. I would love to detour to New York City on one of our trips back east. Also, if you ever get an idea that you might like to visit, Denver, you are welcome and we can show you the sights. Please take care of yourself.[signed]Love, John
"With John and Jennifer's permission, it reads "April 7, 2004 Dear Jennifer, I have been thinking and remembering Aunt Betty these past weeks, as we do at time like these, and I want you to know that here legacy for me was one of genuine human kindness, repeated many times toward me from my earliest childhood. In fact, one of my earliest memories of your mother is of visiting Brooklyn Heights as a very small child for a weekend, I believe, and during good-byes on the sidewalk I dropped a small, glass medicine bottle, which shattered into tiny shards. She had given me the shapely, dark brown bottle, I guess, because I had taken a fancy to it as small children will do as they transform mundane objects into treasures. Of course, I bent to retrieve the shards and immediately cut my finger, which caused a rather alarming amount of bleeding. The adults present rushed to correct the situation, but I remember, not concretely, but as a sort of presence, Aunt Betty's gentle attentiveness to this wound and her comforting me. The memory is soft and blurred, and filled with a gauzy, feathery sort of light, as it might be portrayed, say, in a Bergman film.* Of course, Bergman would have imbued the scene with weighty profundity, with the blood and the city rushing around this little scene. And so it was profound, as an early epiphany that such kindness existed outside of my immediate family in the person of your mother, my Aunt Betty. This attentive kindness came to be something I was drawn to over the years. I loved visiting your parents in New York City. It was exciting, of course, but they were so eagerly receptive and genuinely interested in my plans and dreams and my enthusiasms when I visited as a teenager, and as a college student, and into my twenties. Their attention was of incomprehensible value to me at that age. They let me stay for that summer during college to work which was both cool and miserable for me because of girl trouble. And, of course, I got to sleep on that cot in your room, which must have been absolutely delightful for you. Thank you for your patience. Life is hard, and I know your Mom's life was hard early on with childhood illness of a severity we can only imagine, but she became a graceful, compassionate, unselfish woman. She was that way because she was raised in a kind family by kind people. She was important to me, and I'm sorry time and distance have wrought their trite, little inconveniences in recent years. I want to be a child again and have my family back in full, with Aunt Betty leaning over me, lending comfort. I will miss her. I hope your Dad will be O.K. He and my mother have let me know of the arrangements. Love to you, Jennifer."*
Add on note by Betty's husband, Richard ...Betty, like John, loved Bergman films. I don't believe that John was aware of it, but Betty and I discovered Bergman way back in the '50s, eons before he became world famous. Not long after we moved to Brooklyn Heights in 1954, by chance we passed by a Greenwich Village Theater which featured foreign films. Photo's below the marquee seduced us into seeing the film by a film by a Swedish Director we'd never heard of. Upon viewing "Naked Night," we realized Bergman was in a class all his own. Later came "Seventh Seal." Talk about "weighty profundity!" We were hooked and is subsequent years it became a special occasion to attend a Bergman film with Betty. Her insightful observations were illuminating, inevitably provoking long stimulating discussions with our friends.
Her obituary which follows was lovingly written by her husband: "BETTY COATE, TRENTON, OHIO NATIVE, ARTIST, DIES AT 77By Richard Coate Elizabeth Coate, an artist, with her husband, Richard Coate, helped promote national awareness of the sacrifices made by Korean War veterans, died March 13 at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. She was 77 and had suffered complications from a fall due to an icy sidewalk the prior February 4th.
The daughter of Carl and Luella Scheibert of Trenton, Ohio, Betty's was a close knit family. With nurturing parents, Betty reflected the values of not only her Christian upbringing, but the values of a generation which placed a priority on nobility of character, good conduct, civility, courtesy, professional ethics and consideration for the feelings of others. To the week of her hospitalization, she enjoyed her weekly telephone conversations with her younger sister, Doris, to whom she was extremely close. Betty always kept me abreast of recent family news.
We had known one another from preschool days; I even sat behind her in the first grade of school in Trenton, Ohio. One Christmas during our Freshman year, Helen Weinberger, our Art and Music teacher, assigned us to the task of decorating the Principal, Harry Krueger's office window. It was not long before we became "steadies." A victim of polio at the age of six, she nonetheless led a full and productive life. Vying for championship in a Trenton High School Ping Pong tournament, we lost by one point in an overtime game to our friends, Peggy Johnson and Richard Shockey. During their college years at Ohio State, Betty was game enough to join our friend from High School Days, Harvey Seaman, also an OSU student, and me in scaling a 200 foot cliff outside Columbus, Ohio. It was a daring feat and one that Betty was fond of recalling.
Graduating with Class of '45, she enrolled as an Fine Arts Major at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, attaining her BFA from in 1949; two years later, in 1951, she received her degree in Education at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. I, also an OSU graduate with a BA degree majoring in Theater, proposed to Betty in the Spring of 1950 shortly after her matriculation at Ohio State.
With the outbreak of the Korean War in June of that year, five days prior to my induction into the Army September of '50, Betty became a soldier's bride of what became labeled "the forgotten war." Some four decades later, she would play a significant role in building awareness of the Korean War and drawing attention to the plight of the combat veterans who confronted a wall of silence upon rotation home. The bulk of the five million Korean War Veterans are ignorant of the great contribution she made to their cause. Following its publication in The Middletown Journal on Easter Sunday of 1951, she secured a glossy of the nationally distributed AP photo of the Korean War rifleman in silhouette, "Korean Watch," taken of me shortly before its nationwide release. Had she not recognized its archival value, for the family at least, the now famous photograph would have been lost to posterity after its second national release in 1964-65 when the USO used it as the linchpin of their nationwide fund drive, this time symbolizing American fighting forces throughout the globe.
Beginning in 1991, she designed for national distribution hundreds of posters for the National HQ and Chapters of the fledgling Korean War Veterans Association - using the photo as anchor. Not only did these posters play a major role in building awareness of the Korean war, they were powerful instruments generating both membership to the KWVA and funds for the Korean War Veterans Memorial now situated in our nations capital. All Korean War Veterans are all deeply in her debt.
Following my army discharge in June of '52, we moved East to pursue our separate careers, she as an artist, I as an actor. While her first job, a technical illustrator with secret clearance, was with Sikorsky Aircraft, Bridgeport, Conn., I worked as a mechanic on the assembly line in the factory.
Betty continued with Sikorsky while I commuted to Manhattan to study at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduation and two seasons of Summer Stock on Cape Cod, we moved to Brooklyn Heights, New York, in September of 1954. Over the years she advanced to become Art Director of the Art Department of a firm in Brooklyn. Her last job prior to retirement was with BMG, again serving as an Art Director. During her tenure at BMG she designed record jackets, page layouts and catalog covers.
With the onset of Post Polio Syndrome she was required to be "on" oxygen 24 hours a day for the last several years of her life. A devoted wife, she was a woman of considerable spunk. Despite her severe handicap, she led a highly productive life few could match. And it did not deter her from her favorite domestic chore - preparing the evening meal. A gourmet cook, she took great pride in serving not only a delicious dinner, but one that was aesthetically pleasing.
She never let her limitations prevent her from sustaining her friendship with many friends. She endeared herself to countless people throughout her life, maintaining childhood friendships and some with college chums. She loved the theater and we enjoyed attending Broadway shows together until recent years when her health did not permit.
My severest critic and most ardent supporter, she attended the bulk of the theatrical productions in which I was involved, from my student days at OSU and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, through my professional years in Summer Stock, Regional Theater, The New York Shakespeare Festival and other Off-Broadway productions. Although she was unable to attend church these last few years, Betty enjoyed membership to the Unitarian Church. In all the 74 years that I new her, including the 53 year marriage, I cannot recall anyone ever having spoken an unkind word about her. Betty was not only valiant, but a gifted, beautiful woman of great charm, warmth, gentleness and compassion. Quick to respond to the show of kindness, her disarming smile was in itself a reward. The source of her greatest pride was daughter, Jennifer. "She's enriched our lives so!" Betty would exclaim on many occasions and for good reasons. The violin her instrument, she was a student at both P. S. 8 and Roosa School of Music in Brooklyn Heights.
Following graduation from The High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan, she matriculated to the Music Department of Hofstra University. Graduating Cum Laude, she was one of two in her class to have been accepted in the National Music Society. We loved to attend the concerts with symphony or pit orchestras for numerous theatrical productions. Following graduation, she performed with the Putnam County Symphony Orchestra. Betty was so proud when Jennifer became photographer for the National Office of the March of Dimes in White Plains, NY. Among her many subjects were private audiences with two sitting Presidents of the United States.
Married to Joseph Schulz, our frequent visits to the Schulz home in Dutchess County were a highlight of her life. Known as "Grandma Betty" to her grandchildren, Emma and Christian, she will be sorely missed. Elizabeth is survived by her husband, Richard, her daughter, Jennifer Schulz, two grandchildren, Emma and Christian Schulz, her sister, Doris Thullen of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and her brother, Dr. David Scheibert, a retired neurosurgeon, who resides in Marshallville, Ga.
A memorial service will be held at the First Unitarian Church, Brooklyn Heights on Saturday, April 17, at 3 p. m. followed by a reception. A later graveside service, conducted by Rev. Richard Venus, will follow at the Woodside Cemetery in Middletown, Ohio on June 5, 2004 at 2 p. m. The following reception will be held at The Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 8690 Yankee Street, Dayton, OH 45458-1835, a twenty minute drive from the cemetery. For those interested in learning more about Betty's work for the Korean War Veterans use any Search Engine on the Internet. Type in - "Betty Coate" Korean War. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the March of Dimes. Please have checks sent to Lois Erenberg, March of Dimes, 1275 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, NY 10605. Please add note in memo area of check reading 'in memory of Elizabeth Coate."
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1926 - 2004 (77 years)
[4, 5] 
