Betty Jane Rizley

She was born to Jason Joseph and Pearl May Owen on August 23, 1927, in Roanoke, Virginia. Betty graduated from McKinley Tech High School in Washington, D. C. in 1945. She was voted the most beautiful girl in her graduating class. After graduation, she worked as a secretary for her future father-in-law, Ross Rizley, one time U. S. Representative from Oklahoma, who served as the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture from 1953-1954. It was while working at the Department of Agriculture in Washington that Betty met her husband, Max Devone Rizley, a graduate of George Washington University law school. The couple was married in 1955 and relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma after the birth of their first son, Max Devone Rizley, Jr., in 1956. In Tulsa, Betty gave birth to a second son, Martin Owen Rizley, in 1961.

During their years in Tulsa, Max worked as a lawyer for Dowell, the oil division of Dow Chemical Company, while Betty worked as a devoted housewife and mother. In 1970, the couple relocated to Houston, Texas. In Houston, while continuing to work as a homemaker, Betty advanced her education through taking classes at the Women’s Institute and pursued volunteer work by reading newspaper columns on the air for Taping for the Blind radio. She was an avid reader and was always seeking to grow in her knowledge of a wide variety of subjects, including history, literature, the fine arts, religion, and the social sciences.

Betty’s first son, Max Jr., was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in 1965. As his condition worsened, Betty devoted herself to caring for her sick son, spending many days and nights at his bedside in various hospitals over the years. Max Jr.‘s death in 2001 from complications following outpatient surgery was followed in 2006 by the death of Betty’s husband, Max Sr., who died after a fifteen year battle with chronic leukemia. Betty continued to live alone in her house in Houston until November of 2011, when advanced age and disease obliged her to move to Texarkana, Texas, to be closer to her remaining son and his family.

Betty is survived by her son, Martin Owen Rizley, of Nash, Texas, and by her brother, William Edison Owen, of Santa Barbara, California. She is also survived by one granddaughter, three nieces and two nephews.

Funeral services will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday July 11, 2012 in the Memorial Oaks Funeral Home Chapel, 13001 Katy Freeway Houston, Texas 77079. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service.