Elizabeth Goerke

1931 - 2024

Elizabeth (Betty) Goerke
03/16/1931 - 08/25/2024
Betty Goerke, 93, beloved mother to three children, award-winning teacher, author, archaeologist, and historian, passed away peacefully at home on August 25, 2024.
Betty was born on March 16, 1931, in Cedar Rapids to Ralph (Baz) Bridges Bagby (a highly decorated WWI pilot) and Anne Robertson Bagby (a former "columnist for the lovelorn" at the Washington Herald), who raised daughter Betty and three sons in Evanston, Illinois. Betty was preceded in death by her husband Jon (2023) and her brothers John, Jay, and Jim Bagby.
As a child, Betty was a proud prankster whose main-sometimes competing-passions were playing the piano and reading. She often resolved the competition by pretending to practice with a novel propped up on the piano. Betty was certainly helped by her perfect pitch, but she still put in enough hours of real practice time to play the latest Boogie-woogie tunes by ear when her friends wanted to dance to them in high school. Betty cherished her relationship with Roycemore School and friends from that era throughout her lifetime.
After graduating from Radcliffe in 1952, where she focused on history, Betty did some postgraduate study at Northwestern and the American School of Classical Studies in Greece, which inspired her to consider a career in archaeology. Once back in the States, however, that dream was dampened by a professor who commended Betty's work, but noted that her "smartest career move" in this male-dominated field would be to marry an archaeologist.
Instead, Betty met and married medical school student (and eventual physiology professor and researcher) Jon Goerke. She got a taste of teaching in those early years, which she very much enjoyed, at Prospect Hill School in New Haven and Branson School in Marin, while her husband completed his medical degree, internship, and residency in New Haven and San Francisco. Nevertheless, Betty had no second thoughts about trading in teaching for motherhood during Jon's draft service, which took them to an American military base in Germany, and a subsequent residency in Boston. With that training complete in 1962, Jon took a job at UC San Francisco, which enabled the couple to return to their beloved Bay Area and settle in Mill Valley, now with three young children in tow.
Although Betty often later told her students that those years as the mother of three toddlers had been the favorite part of her career, she felt a strong call to teach as they got older. A master's degree from San Francisco State in 1969 enabled her to start the next phase of her career in 1972 as a teacher of archaeology and physical anthropology at the College of Marin. As Betty garnered appreciation awards every year from the student body, it became clear to all that teaching was her true calling. As one student noted: "Betty Goerke is one of the truly rare teachers who can take a general education course, such as her Anthropology class, and turn it into something illuminating. I walked into her class with no interest, except for a credit on my transcript, and walked out filled with passion for Anthropology."
Over the course of her 35-year teaching career, Betty also spent much time in the field, learning about the history of Marin's original settlers, the local Miwok people. As she traveled farther afield to broaden her knowledge in other areas, Betty's trips included flintknapping school with Jeffrey Flenniken in Washington State and archaeological work at sites in Kenya with Richard Leakey, India with J. Desmond Clark, and Egypt with David Silverman. Although she did not get a chance to work with her idols Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall in Africa, Betty's teaching was greatly inspired by these icons and she did manage to arrange for her primatology classes to visit and observe the work of another important primatologist, Francine "Penny" Patterson, then teaching modified sign language to the famous gorilla Koko at Stanford University. Betty was eager to share her passions with the entire College of Marin community and happy to be able to introduce her idols Richard Leakey, Don Johanson, Dian Fossey, and Jane Goodall as guest speakers to the campus.
In the 20 years following retirement, Betty had time to write about and engage more closely with the people and causes that were closest to her heart. She published four books: Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel and Legend (2007); Discovering Native People at Point Reyes (2012); Adventures of Two Coast Miwok Children (2020), which is being used in grade school classrooms in Marin County; and A Broken Propeller (2018), which is dedicated to her father. Betty proudly served on the boards of Marin's Museum of the American Indian (MAI), the Miwok Archaeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM), and the Mill Valley Historical Society (MVHS). And she was happy to be able to lead the effort of installing an historical plaque in Mill Valley in 2009 to recognize the home of Chief Marin, known to the Coast Miwok as Huicmuse. At this ceremony, Betty was deeply touched to be recognized as an Honorary Elder of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. In later years, as Betty continued to write and lecture, she was honored in 2012 with a Milley award for "Creative Achievement in Literary Arts" and in 2022 with a Lifetime Achievement Award (presented to her and Chuck Oldenburg) from the Mill Valley Historical Society.
In carrying out all of these endeavors, Betty had the unwavering support of her husband and "team member" Jon, who always encouraged and accompanied Betty as her private photographer and videographer in the field, and as her first reader and audio-visual technician when she wrote and lectured "in retirement."
Betty is survived by her children Jon (Ann) and Katie Goerke and Robin Heard, nephews Joe (Anne) and Jeff (Kat) Bagby, nieces Jean Cliff-Robertson (Dave Jacquin), Barbara Bagby, and Catherine (Doug) Kolsrud. Although Betty was close to her maternal cousins (now deceased) and fond of all of their six children, she had an especially close relationship with her "honorary niece" Rosemary Cole Nielsen (Dana Nielsen), who looked out after Betty's brother Jay in his later years, and who went out of her way to help Betty stay connected to her hometown and family.
Betty's children are grateful for the long-term help and support of friends and family, and for the dedication and support in Betty's final months and days from the kind and wonderful caregiving and hospice teams from Brightstar Care and By the Bay Health.
Memorial Service: Sunday, November 3rd, 2:00 - 5:00, at the Mill Valley Community Center. All are welcome to attend.
In lieu of flowers, please send any donations to the American Friends Service Committee: https://secure.afsc.org/a/24rr_d?ms=WEB25NV