Betty Jones Gilliam

Betty Jones Gilliam

With an endlessly generous heart filled with kindness and love for her family and friends for almost 91 years, Betty Jones Gilliam of both Charlottesville and Abingdon , Virginia , died December 20, 2011, in Charlottesville , surrounded by her family.

A rapier wit, mother, grandmother, college art professor, sister, aunt, and active community volunteer, Betty was adored and respected by her family and an appreciated figure in her various communities. Always friendly, kind, and unbelievably generous, possessing an insatiable curiosity about things and places, showing an unfailingly positive and upbeat attitude, and an outgoing interest in people, Betty was a joy to be and travel with and was a person many called "a great friend."

Betty Louise Jones was born in North Wales, Pennsylvania , on March 17, 1921, the oldest of six children born to Carl Grover Jones and Emma Ruth Cramer Jones; she grew up in Youngstown , Ohio . She received her BFA in Art Education from Ohio University in 1943 and began her professional career as an elementary and junior high art teacher.

In 1946, Betty began annual summer treks to graduate school at the University of Colorado in Boulder . In 1948, on a student outing in the Rocky Mountains, while sliding down Arapahoe Glacier, she met Marvin William Gilliam of Wise, Virginia, a young Army Major recently returned from Germany. They married on June 10, 1951, in Youngstown , and they honeymooned and attended school in Boulder that summer, when Betty completed her MFA in Art Education.

For almost forty of their fifty years of marriage, Betty and Marvin made their home in Wise, Virginia. She reared five children and always said she was most proud of her family her marriage, children, and grandchildren. She also continued teaching school and was very active as a community volunteer.

Her two proudest community achievements were her roles in establishing the public library system for southwestern Virginia and in the development of Clinch Valley College , now the University of Virginia 's College at Wise. Concerned her children would be growing up in an area with no public libraries, Betty was instrumental in helping create the public library system for the southwestern Virginia /eastern Kentucky region. She was a leading voice in the lobbying of the local school board, the county board of supervisors and state legislators in a successful effort which culminated in the formation of the Lonesome Pine Regional Library System.

In 1960, Betty began teaching at the newly formed Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia (now UVA-Wise). She founded the college's Art Department , teaching studio art, art education and art history for thirty years. Since the southwestern Virginia region had no places to exhibit art, Betty arranged for the college to have access to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' Art Mobile, which traveled with art exhibits into small towns and communities, bringing art from the Museum's collections to the people of southwestern Virginia .

In 1989, Betty retired as a full professor with the title of Professor Emeritus. In 2002, UVA-Wise's Alumni Association honored Betty by presenting her with their "Meritorious Achievement Award." She said she "was proud to take college kids and help them think beyond their own worlds, showing them a world of creating art and art history previously unknown to them."

She and Marvin retired to Blountville, Tennessee, in 1989, and moved to Abingdon in 1998. Marvin died in 2000. Since 2007, she had lived in Charlottesville , where she was a resident of Westminster-Canterbury.

Betty is survived by two sisters, Helen Baugh of Severna Park , Maryland , and Ann Kleinhans Palmer of Brighton , Michigan ; a brother, George Jones of Rotonda West , Florida ; three sisters-in-laws, Jan Gilliam of Williamsburg , Virginia , Barbara Jones of Mt. Vernon , Ohio and Marilyn Jones of Mansfield , Ohio ; and twenty-four nieces and nephews.

She is also survived by her loving and much-loved children, children-in-laws, and grandchildren: son Richard Gilliam and his wife Leslie Flanary Gilliam of Keswick, Virginia, and their three children, Baxter, Julia, and Anna; daughter Susan Gilliam Frere and her husband Dr. Robert Frere of Greenville, North Carolina, and their four children, Elizabeth, Garrett, Zachary, and Olivia; son Marvin Gilliam, Jr. and his wife Marcia Adams Gilliam of Abingdon, Virginia; daughter Jane Gilliam and her husband Dr. Joseph Awad of Nashville, Tennessee, and their three children, Peter, Sarah, and Thomas; and, daughter Anne Gilliam and her husband Timothy O'Brien of Charlottesville, Virginia.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to: The Betty Jones Gilliam Art Scholarship, University of Virginia 's College at Wise, 1 College Avenue , Wise , VA 24293 .

Visitation hours will be held Monday, December 26, from 3-5 PM, at the Main Street Chapel of Farris Funeral Service in Abingdon , Virginia , followed by a brief service. A private burial will be at Forest Hills Memory Gardens in Abingdon.

Mrs. Gilliam and her family are being cared for by Farris Funeral Service and Crematory, 427 East Main Street , Abingdon , VA 24210 (276-623-2700).