Betty Owens Brown

BROWN, Betty Owens, 99, died Tuesday, October 14, 2008. Mrs. Brown was born in 1909 near Leesville, Louisiana, to parents who owned a farm and sugar cane mill in Vernon Parish. After her father died when she was 12, Betty moved to Beaumont, Texas, where she graduated from high school and worked for the City of Beaumont. She married L. Maston Meagher, a prominent attorney in Beaumont, who died from leukemia before the birth of their daughter, Leslie. Betty moved to Texas City and worked at the Republic Oil Refinery, where she met her second husband, James Brown. After the birth of their daughter, Janet, Betty's life took another unexpected turn. In 1947, James was injured in the catastrophic Texas City explosion of the ship Grand Camp in the Texas City harbor. Recovering from the disaster, the family relocated to Richmond, where James became the business manger of the Presbyterian Outlook, and their son, James Jr., was born. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she taught Sunday School at the 17th Street Mission in Shockoe Bottom, a Presbyterian ministry led by Miss Eleanor Curry. Betty raised her three children while teaching and attending college part-time at Richmond Professional Institute, (now VCU). In 1969 at the age of 60, she represented the leading edge of adult women returning to college and work while raising a family by graduating with a degree in Early Childhood Education. She taught and directed several kindergarten programs in the Richmond area, including All Saint's Episcopal Pre-School and Jack & Jill Nursery. She retired in 1975, as a first-grade teacher in Goochland County. She was the past president of the Richmond Association for Childhood Education International, the author of children's stories for religious magazines, a founding member of the Ginter Park Book Club and a longtime member of PEO, Chapter Y of Richmond. She has belonged to Tuckahoe Presbyterian Church since 1955, where she served as Deacon, leader of junior high youth, and Sunday School teacher of adults and children. She was preceded in death by husbands, L. Maston Meagher and James S. Brown. She is survived by two daughters, Janet E. Brown of Purcellville, Va., and her children, Senior Chief Petty Officer (USN) Wallace D. Johnson Jr. of Stuttgart, Germany, and Jennifer H. Johnson Hanes of Purcellville, Va.; and Leslie M. Meagher Brown of Herndon, Va., and her children, Rev. F. Wilson Brown Jr. of Bedford, Va., and Allyson Showalter of Herndon, Va.; and one son, Dr. James S. Brown Jr. and his wife, Mary Elliott-Brown of Midlothian, Va., and their children, James E. Brown of Midlothian, Va., and Jacob S. Brown of Midlothian, Va., and nine great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at Tuckahoe Presbyterian Church, 7000 Park Ave., at 4 p.m. Saturday, October 18, 2008.
This obituary was originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.