ELIZABETH "BETSY" SHANKS

1963 - 2019

ELIZABETH LYNN SHANKS  "Betsy"  
Elizabeth Lynn Shanks passed away on August 24, 2019 due to sepsis, the last in a series of complications following a bone marrow transplant. A Presbyterian and longtime Alexandrian, she was born on June 21,1963 in Atlanta, Georgia to Jim and Sheila Shanks, who preceded her in death.  Betsy, as she was known to friends and family, was raised in Atlanta and attended Woodward Academy in College Park, Georgia. She completed her undergraduate education at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia and the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.  After college, she initially satisfied her wanderlust by traveling widely and then she accepted work with United Airlines for 22 years so she could continue to see the world and fly the friendly skies. To satisfy her love of books and maps, she made a career change after earning a Master in Library Science from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC., becoming a librarian with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency until her recent passing. Betsy was an Anglophile who loved the beach, felines (and also the rest of the Animal Kingdom), Jane Austen, the color yellow, genealogy, and a good cup of hot English Breakfast tea with a bit of honey and milk. Her greatest love, however, was her twins, Duncan McLendon and Adair DeWitt Shanks, who she adopted from Semey, Kazakhstan in 2010 - the long-awaited answer to her prayer to be a mother.  Along with the twins, Betsy is survived by sisters, Barbara Fincher, Leslie Smithwick, Sharon Liebetreu, Colleen Moghadam, and Meg Edson; brother, Jim Shanks; nieces, Jennifer Crownover and Catherine Shanks; nephews, Michael Lanzer, Jeffrey Lanzer, Zach Smithwick, and James Shanks; and she left behind feline family members Coco Chanel and Romeo Montague. No formal funeral or memorial service will be held. A ceremony to cast the ashes is being planned for a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria (https://alexandriaanimals.org; 4101 Eisenhower Ave., Alexandria, VA, 22304; (703) 746 - 4774) or The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (https://donate.lls.org; Donor Services, P.O. Box 98018, Washington, D.C., 20090; (888) 557 -7177).