Beatrice Bateman

1918 - 2015

March 15, 1918-May 15, 2015 Longtime Winnetka resident Betsy Bateman died in a Scottsdale, AZ, care home on May 15 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 97. Born in Montreal, Canada, Betsy was married to James Bateman for 54 years before his death in 1990. Living in Northbrook and Winnetka, she raised and is survived by two sons, Christopher Bateman of Columbia, CA, and Chip Bateman of Phoenix. The youngest of six children born to Matthew Joseph Kearns and Caroline Drumm Kearns, Betsy was raised in Montreal and graduated from Sacred Heart Convent High School in that city. She attended New Trier High School in Winnetka for her junior year while living temporarily with her aunt and uncle, Kathleen and Walter Primley of Winnetka. While on an earlier visit with the Primleys, she met her future husband - a dashing, 24-year-old Princeton University graduate and family friend named Jim Bateman - when she was 11. At the time, no doubt, she could scarcely imagine what the future held. The two stayed in touch as Betsy grew to be a young woman and in 1936, they eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Indiana. A church wedding two weeks later legitimized the marriage in the eyes of Betsy's at-first-skeptical parents, who soon came to love their devoted son-in-law. Betsy and Jim lived in Chicago in the late 1930s, then in 1940 moved to Brooklandville, a tiny hamlet outside Baltimore. Jim was making $75 a week working as a salesman for William Hooper & Sons Co., a Maryland-based textile manufacturer. Betsy's household budget was $10 a week, which would cover food, laundry and all other domestic expenses. The young couple shared their rural home with Joanie, her beloved cocker spaniel. Jim enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Pearl Harbor in 1941, and was a Supply Corps officer stationed in New Guinea. For the duration of his nearly four-year naval hitch, Betsy lived in Montreal with her parents. Jim returned from the Pacific in 1945 and was assigned to the Boston Navy Yard, where Betsy joined him for three months before his discharge with the rank of lieutenant commander. He then rejoined the Hooper Co. and was sent to its Chicago office. "That broke our hearts," Betsy later said, remembering their idyllic stay in Boston. The couple bought a house on Butternut Lane in Northbrook, and commenced to raise a family. Sons Chris and Chip were born in 1946 and 1948. In the late 1950s, Jim started his own company, Ventfabrics, Inc., a purveyor of hardware, insulation and fabrics for the air conditioning and ventilating industries. Betsy worked tirelessly with Jim to successfully launch the business. At times the dining room table in their Northbrook home was piled high with letters soliciting business and Betsy would spend hours stuffing and sealing envelopes, even expertly forging Jim's signature on correspondence. In those early years, Betsy almost single-handedly raised the two boys, cooking, cleaning and caring for them as Jim took business trips that sometimes lasted as long as six weeks. Despite these exhaustive duties, she made many friends in Northbrook and was active in the Junior League, the League of Women Voters and St. Norbert's Catholic Church parish. She on occasion acted in community theater productions and was a frequent volunteer at North Shore hospitals. Thanks to their hard work and Ventfabrics' resulting success, Jim, Betsy and their sons moved to a larger home on Winnetka's Berkeley Avenue in 1956. The lakefront suburb would be her home for nearly 60 years. She and Jim entertained frequently and were members of Skokie Country Club in Glencoe and Indian Hill Club in Winnetka. In the mid-1960s, the Batemans bought a vacation home in Paradise Valley, AZ, and during Jim's working years would often spend several winter weeks at their warm-weather retreat. In 1970, after both sons had left home, they moved into a smaller house on Winnetka's Hill Road. Jim retired in the mid-1980s, selling Ventfabrics to a group of his employees. At that point the couple began splitting their years between Winnetka and Arizona. Jim was diagnosed with cancer in the later 1980s and Betsy spent many months caring for him before he died at their Arizona home in April of 1990. She lived on her own after that, dividing time between condos on Winnetka's Green Bay Road and in Scottsdale. Betsy remained socially active well into her 90s and had dozens of close friends. She was also well traveled and saw much of the world on trips she took with Jim and, after he passed, on cruises with son Chip. A devout Catholic, Betsy was a member of the Saints Faith, Hope and Charity Church in Winnetka, St. Philip the Apostle parish in Northfield and St. Joseph's Church in Phoenix. Although she never attended college, Betsy was well read and had a knowledge of spelling and grammar that few newspaper editors could match. For years, her morning routine included quickly solving crossword puzzles in the Arizona Republic or Chicago Tribune. An even more cherished routine was her evening cocktail, which for the last several decades was Jack Daniel's on the rocks. She was known to say this was one secret to her longevity. Betsy was preceded in death by her parents, her husband of 54 years, sisters Connie, Catherine, Carol and Alicia, and brother Richard. She is survived by sons Chris and Chip (James Jr.), Chris's wife, Suzy; grandchildren Ben Bateman of Oakland, CA; Hallie Bateman of Brooklyn, NY, and Nick Bateman of Columbia, CA, and by several nieces and nephews in both Canada and the U.S. There will be no services. Messinger Indian School Mortuary in Scottsdale is in charge of local arrangements. In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Alzheimer's Association, by mail at P.O. Box 96011, Washington, D.C. 20090-6011, by phone at 1 (800) 272-3900, or online at alz.org.