Elizabeth B Hanson

Betty was born in Des Moines, Iowa to Sam and Sylvia Byerly and lived in Nashville and Louisville before the family settled in Houston, Texas when she was in junior high. She was determined to get an education and entered Baylor University in September of 1941 and graduated in May of 1945. She went to Columbia University and Washington University to earn her Masters of Social Work in 1948. She began working for Family Service Center in Houston. She met and married Bill Cossaboom, a Methodist minister, and spent the next twenty years moving around from church to church while working in social work and having five children. Betty and Bill divorced in 1970 and with her usual determination and style she pushed through the bad times and began to blossom into her own person. Once the last child entered college she moved back to Houston and met her second husband, Gene. They married and moved to Monterey and then Chula Vista, California. They lived very happily together traveling and trying new experiences until Gene’s death. Once again she pushed her way through the bad times and came out the other side with the help of friends and family. She was funny and blunt and practical and loved life. She faced the end of her life just like she faced every other experience: head on. She will be greatly missed. She was preceded in death by husband Gene Hanson. She is survived by son Will Cossaboom and grandchildren Tres and Parker Cossaboom, son J.V. and Rose Cossaboom and grandchildren Walker and Whitman Cossaboom, daughter Cori and Brian Bell and grandchildren Leah and Sam Bell, son David Cossaboom, daughter Mari Cossaboom and husband Richard Sinert, sister-in-law Lynn Byerly, and stepson Joel and Tammy Hanson and grandson Kyle Hanson.