The graveside service for Elizabeth "Bette" Degen, age 84 of Long Beach, CA will be 11:30am Tuesday, May 16, at Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis.


Mrs. Degen passed away on May 1, 2006 in Long Beach, CA.


Elizabeth Hilda Giesler was born on October 18, 1921 to Carl and Ella Giesler of Sanborn, Iowa. She was baptized into Christ as the second of four children and the only girl. The family farmed, but the moist climate of Iowa was hard on Bette's father, who suffered from lingering effects of nearly drowning in an icy river in Germany during military training. Seeking the drier air of northwestern South Dakota, the family moved to the tiny town of Faith in 1928.


While their folks started up a new home and working ranch, Bette and her brothers attended a one-room schoolhouse out on the prairie. They also helped with the homestead chores both before and after school. After graduating from Faith High School with high honors, Bette took a semester of classes in Spearfish, South Dakota, which qualified her to be a country schoolteacher, and she began her teaching career in a one-room schoolhouse. During the same period she also worked two summers in the restaurant of the game lodge in Custer State Park. Nearby, Mt. Rushmore was being carved; she served Gutzon Borglum, the architect of the project, and later his son, Lincoln, their daily meals, along with various dignitaries who visited to see the work in progress.


Bette next attended the University of South Dakota, where she was named to Phi Beta Kappa because of her academic achievement. With aspirations of becoming a doctor, she also attended several other area campuses, but, lacking the funds for medical school, she eventually returned to the career in education for which she seemed destined. She took a job in Hawarden, Iowa teaching high school math, science and P.E. There she met Bill Degen, a young, decorated World War II veteran. They married in 1948, moved to Long Beach, California in 1951, started their family of three children, and purchased their life-long home in 1953. Bill worked, and Bette raised the kids but also attended Long Beach State in the mid-1960s, earning a Masters Degree in education. She returned to her calling in 1967, teaching junior high school math in Long Beach. After nearly 40 years as an educator, she retired in 1987.

Retirement failed to slow Bette down. She gardened, sewed, canned, baked and entertained. She was president and treasurer of her Pi Lambda Theta chapter and was one of the original docents of the Long Beach Aquarium. She was active in her neighborhood and community, with charities and educational groups, and was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church for over 50 years. She traveled extensively in North America and Europe and especially enjoyed the reunions of Bill's bomber squadron, where she met many new friends. Bette never stopped learning; she read voraciously and had a memory that amazed everyone. She loved all facets of education and reveled in her family's and friends' achievements in school. A history buff, she entertained countless people with stories of her family's history, both in Europe and in America, including her personal recollections of a remarkable era.


Bette and Bill were injured in a car accident while traveling through New Mexico in 1999. After recovering, Bette showed her devotion to Bill by helping him to live a relatively normal life at home, despite his limited mobility, until his death in 2004. Ignoring her frailty and mourning her beloved Bill, she again exhibited her spunk by living independently at home with a little help from her children and the neighbor friends who loved her. A sudden onset of weakness, perhaps due to diabetes, prompted a short hospital stay where, while engaged in physical therapy, she fainted and died peacefully a short time later.


Bette possessed a brilliant mind, a thirst for adventure, a gentle heart, a kind and helpful spirit, and was a faithful servant of her Lord Jesus. She will be fondly remembered by all who knew and loved her.


Bette was preceded in death by her parents, Carl and Ella; her brothers, Carl and John; and her husband and sweetheart, Bill.


She is survived by her brother, Darrell of Faith, South Dakota; her daughter, Susan and husband Scott Landgreen of Eugene, Oregon; her son, Marc and wife Kris of Laguna Beach, California; her son, Paul of Long Beach; three grandchildren, Tori and Duke Degen and Jackson Landgreen; two brothers and two sisters of Bill's; numerous cousins, nieces and nephews; and hundreds of friends and colleagues.