Bettie Norman Memorial Scholarship

(As written by Lon Sherer, colleague in the music department, on the eve of her memorial service and published in the Goshen College Bulletin March 1978.)

Holding a master’s degree in string pedagogy, Bettie taught part-time for several years in the Goshen public schools, where she sparked great enthusiasm for playing string instruments. She found it necessary to stop her public school work after learning of her illness, but still found energy to work extensively in music with the children of the College Mennonite Church. She also served as music teacher and orchestra director at Bethany Christian High School for a year.

I am struck by how little such facts convey about the essence of Bettie’s life, a life that touched many of us so poignantly. Bettie was a friend and a colleague for all seasons. You could laugh or cry with Bettie, for she was one of those lovely people who have insight, empathy, and sensitivity. She did a great deal for the music education field, giving our program a quality that was uncommon in the music schools of the sixties. She was a fine teacher, imaginative and thorough, blessed with the ability to say even hard things softly. Her way of relating to people was extraordinary —— and many people, very young and very old and in between, considered her a special friend

Bettie’s sense of humor was almost legendary. She could be outrageously funny. She wasn’t a clown; that wasn’t her style. Her vision of life’s absurdities was a perfect 20/20, and her cheerfulness and irrepressible good humor permeated our department despite 11 years of chemotherapy, a feat which seems even more remarkable now than it did then.

I am grateful for the years of life that were given to her since the beginning of her illness. They were rich years for all of us who loved her. We saw her falter, and then continue to grow professionally and spiritually. Her faith was deep and mature. It allowed her increasingly more freedom to be herself, without artifice and without undue fears…. When Bettie died, many noticed the evidence of faith that allowed her to die with such peace. I want to remember even more the evidence of faith that moved her to live life with such uncommon grace.