Betty Jane O'Neal Keane

How to sum up a woman who packed many lives into one?

First Life - Mississippi

Betty started life in rural Perkinson, Mississippi. When her father, Kermit Pershing O’Neal left the family suddenly, 10-year-old Betty, her twin brothers Ottis and Ernest, and her baby sister Lynda went to live with her Aunt Lillian and Uncle Allen. Lois Flurry O’Neal, Betty’s mother, went to work in Pascagoula to send money back to the family. Life in Wiggins wasn’t easy. Lillian and Allen had a small farm, and food was scarce. Betty left school in 8th grade to start work as a soda hop on roller skates. She loved those roller skates so much that she and her brother Ottis competed in dance contests.

Second Life - The Mod Life

In 1961, Betty went on a date to a bar that Michael Keane owned with his mother, Ethel. Her date Pete Kerkendayll was Mike’s best friend, and they stayed life-long friends even though Betty left the bar that evening with Mike. Six weeks later they married in Fairhope, Alabama, and then moved to San Diego. Mike served on a nuclear submarine, and he left San Diego, intending to be home six months later in time for the birth of his first daughter, Mary Ralene. The Cuban Missile Crisis put a stop to those plans, and Mike stayed out at sea until Mary was six months old. Betty worked as a cocktail waitress for the next three years, and always spoke fondly of the restaurants on the waterfront where she worked.

Betty and Mike were a modern couple who had a love of entertaining and towing their toddler around town. Mary Ralene has memories of sleeping on piles of coats on the bed and listening to The Beatles as the adults in the next room danced and drank the night away.

When Mike left the Navy, Betty had plans. She wanted to move to the beach in Hawaii or live on a sailboat and sail up and down the West Coast. Instead, Mike took a job with Westinghouse, working on nuclear power plants. And the moving began.

Third Life - World Traveler and Athlete

As they moved over the next fifteen years, they lived in Pennsylvania (second daughter, Merry Elizabeth was born), Illinois, Japan, Switzerland (third daughter, Mari-Frances was born), Florida, Washington State, Florida (again), North Carolina, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. Betty loved to travel, and she made the most of the moves. In Japan, with two small children, she traveled around a country that had only been free of American occupation for twenty years. The trains had no English signs, and few people spoke her language. How she did it was a mystery.

Betty made friends easily, and she loved to entertain, particularly if the menu was fondue and wine. Fondue pots and long skinny forks were treasured as much as her cast-iron pan. They lived in company housing in Japan, so they were surrounded by families from all over the world. Betty made fast friends with a French woman who introduced her to la cuisine française. Although the ingredients were difficult to source in Japan, when she moved to Switzerland, she let her French cooking introduce her to the neighbors. Mike and Betty made friends, and there is at least one picture of a game of strip poker at a neighbor’s house.

In Sapporo, Japan, Betty had gotten her first taste of skiing, and, when they moved to Switzerland, the family skied almost every weekend during the winter. Betty was an excellent skier while Mike was a fearless one. Mary Ralene broke her leg skiing on a family vacation in Austria, but that didn’t stop Betty – she was back on the slopes the following winter.

Fourth Life - Scuba Diver and Black Diamond Skier

The fourth life began when Betty became a diver, expert skier, and tennis player. She and Mike moved back to the United States, landing in Ft. Pierce, Florida, on a barrier island by the ocean. Betty took full advantage of the ocean life, and she and Mike began to dive with friends in Florida and the Virgin Islands. One of the friends had a sailboat, and the family was on the water every weekend. Mike bought a speed boat so Betty could indulge her other passion – water skiing.

The family then moved to Bellevue, Washington, outside Seattle. Although the diving wasn’t great in the Seattle area, Betty was back to her first love – skiing. She joined a bridge group so she could put her family’s card-counting abilities to use, and joined a ski club where she started skiing at the black diamond level in the winters. In the summers she played tennis, and, like most things, she excelled at the game.

Between the bridge group, tennis club, and the ski club, Betty became a part of a large group of women who became life-long friends.

Fifth Life - Farmer

But Mike had a dream of becoming a farmer, so the family moved to a small farm about 15 miles from Bellevue. And Betty’s fifth life began, trying to teach Mike how to farm. All the daughters were in school, so Betty received her GED, and she went to work as a real estate agent. All while they remodeled an old house on the farm.

Once the house was finished, they moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, leaving Mary Ralene behind at the University of Washington. Betty loved being a real estate agent in the go-go 1980s where buyers would show up to closing with briefcases of cash. They had a large Spanish house with a pool, and everyone was convinced there was at least one ghost living in the attic. The clowns that Betty put on every step of the staircase going up to the second floor didn’t help.

Sixth Life - Educator

When they moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, Betty became an educator. She received her B.A. in English, and she began to teach high school reading. She then went back to school, earning a Master’s in Reading and then in Library Science. If you asked Betty what she did for a living, she always responded that she was a school librarian. She loved introducing middle-schoolers to the joy of reading. Betty and Mike built a house on Oak Island, a beach town outside of Wilmington. Betty did what all people do when they live on the beach – she collected shells. She had lamps filled with shells, shell wreaths, and vases full of shells. Her daughters teased her, but she loved her shells.

Mike and Betty became very involved in the Wilmington Unity church and volunteering with local charities. They built their dream house in Boiling Springs Lakes, but realized soon that they were too far away from their family.

Seventh Life - Grandmother

By this point, their youngest daughter, Mari-Frances had her first child, and Betty was determined to be an active grandmother. So they moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mike went back to work, traveling from Alabama back to Wyoming every couple of months. Betty’s love of bridge helped her make new friends, and her oldest daughter moved to Cheyenne after Mari-Frances’ second and third children were born. Merry Elizabeth was in San Francisco and had a daughter that Betty traveled to see as much as possible.

And that was Betty’s seventh life – grandmother, gardener, and card shark. She hiked in the mountains and skied during the winter. She vowed to take each grandchild on a trip-of-a-lifetime when they turned 14, so Cloud went on a Mediterranean cruise to Spain and Greece, Indigo and Forest went to Japan, and Betty took Resie on a Disney cruise.

When Mike passed away, Betty still had the travel bug. They had continued to travel while they lived in North Carolina – cruises, Paris, London – and Betty wanted to continue traveling. She moved to St. George, Utah, to a beautiful house that she adored, but Covid stopped most of her entertaining. It didn’t help that she was one of the first people in the U.S. to catch Covid in January 2020, and it took her a long time to recover.

Eighth Life - Coloradan

Now that Mary Ralene and Mari-Frances had both moved to Northern Colorado with their husbands and children, Betty decided her final years would be near her family. She moved first to Fort Collins and then Loveland, where she spent time with her grandchildren, daughters, and sons-in-law. Her neighbors became great friends, and she continued to travel. In the last three years of her life she traveled to Italy, Amsterdam, Orange Beach, cruises to Alaska, Hawaii, and the Caribbean.

Betty taught her daughters to be independent. In 1976, when they moved from Florida to Washington State, she bought a motorhome and drove her mother and her three daughters 7,000 miles across the country in a zigzag. She never hesitated to drive across country to visit her mother in Mississippi or her sister in Colorado or go on a cruise. She loved to dance, to laugh, and to feed people. One of her greatest joys was to pull out the good china and invite everyone to a party.

In the days before she died of a sudden heart attack, Betty attended her oldest grandchild’s 24th birthday party, lunched with four friends, had her hair cut, got a pedicure, and spent time with Mary Ralene and her husband. She lived life full to the end.

Betty is survived by her son Stephen Mathieu; daughters Mary Ralene Keane, Merry Elizabeth Keane, and Mari-Frances Keane-Foster; grandchildren Cloud Kline, Indigo Mudbhary, Forest Kline, and Resie Kline; and her sons-in-law Jeff Ginter, Bhushan Mudbhary, and Dan Foster. She is dearly remembered by so many dear friends all over the world who will miss her.

One last note regarding the first picture of Betty. Her daughters had to swear a blood oath that they would use that picture in her obituary or she would haunt us. Mom - we fulfilled our promise, so go pull out the fondue pots and have fun in heaven!

The family will have a service at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Fort Collins on September 2026 at 1 PM. The address is 2000 Stover Street, Fort Collins, CO, 8025. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Betty’s favorite nonprofit, a local charter school where her youngest grandchild graduated high school. Compass Community Collaborative School, 2105 S. College Ave, Fort Collins, CO 80525.