Betty Ann Harris Neves Daniel, a resident of the Conroe area for most of her life, passed away on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at the Baylor Regional Hospital in Grapevine, Texas. Her six children and three of her daughters-in-law were with her at the time of her passing.
Betty was born in Houston on October 17, 1931 to Michael Conway and Anna Mae Harris. The family moved to Conroe when she was just a few months old. They returned to Houston in 1940 when her father was promoted to a higher position with South Texas Development Co.
They moved back to Conroe three years later and her father began his own land and timber investment company. Due to disparities in the schooling levels between Houston and Conroe, Betty was moved from the fifth grade into the seventh grade when she returned to Conroe.
Betty graduated from Conroe High School in 1948 at just 16 years of age. While a student at Conroe High, she was a cheerleader and was elected Football Sweetheart. She attended college at Gulf Park By-the-Sea in Gulf Port, Mississippi.
After finishing Gulf Park’s two-year degree program, Betty returned home to Conroe. In the fall of 1950 she entered the University of Houston.
While still in High school, she had begun dating Jesse Ernest “Jake” Neves, another longtime Conroe resident who had recently returned from serving in the Navy during WWII. Betty and Jake became engaged not long after she came home from Gulf Park and were married on October 27, 1951.
At the time, Jake was working as a seismographic field technician for Sun Oil. The job required the young couple to relocate frequently. They moved from Hempstead, Texas to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, then to New Iberia, Louisiana and to Colorado City, Texas.
When Jake got a job working for Montgomery County Surveyor Norman Garrett, he and Betty were able to return to Conroe and establish a permanent home, where they began their family.
Upon Garrett’s retirement, Jake was elected County Surveyor, and after the birth of their first two sons, Betty went to work in the circulation department of John Latham’s Conroe-based publishing company, which produced magazines such as “True Treasure.” When their third child, a daughter, was born in 1958, Betty became a full-time stay-at-home Mom.
By the early 1970s, her family now included a second daughter and all four of her kids were in elementary, junior high and high school. Betty decided to finish her own interrupted college education and enrolled at Sam Houston State University. But before she was able to complete her bachelor’s degree, she was sidelined by an illness that required surgery, and ultimately had to drop out of school mid-semester. Then, before she could resume her courses at Sam Houston, Betty, age 39, and Jake found out they were again pregnant—with twins.
With two newborns, one son heading off to college, another going into his junior year in high school as a varsity football letterman and her two daughters busy with school, gymnastics and dance classes, Betty once again put her own educational aspirations on hold.
She did continue to pursue one of her lifelong passions, art. An accomplished painter and sketch artist, Betty took classes whenever she could and created many drawings, watercolors and oil canvases.
She also enrolled in real estate classes and earned a broker’s license. She worked on her own and also worked as a broker/agent with Jimmie Dinkins Real Estate.
In 1979 when their twin sons were just seven years old, Jake died in a traffic accident while he and their second son, Jesse, were working on a land survey job on Highway 59 near Splendora.
While raising the twins and her youngest daughter alone, Betty found time to finally finish her college degree, graduating in 1980 from Sam Houston State. She continued to work in real estate and to also paint and draw.
In the early 1980s, she and a former Conroe resident and high school friend, Edward Lee Daniel, reconnected and began seeing one another. Ed, known to his family and friends as “Berry,” had been living and working in Vermont for most of his adult life and, after raising a family of three, was now divorced.
Betty and Berry were married in 1982. They returned with Betty’s twin sons Mike and Sam to Vermont, where Berry was the business manager for the Vermont Diocese of the Episcopal Church. They remained in Vermont for two years, until Berry took early retirement and they all returned home to Conroe.
Raised a Methodist, and having worshiped in the Presbyterian Church while she and Jake raised their family, Betty was quickly drawn to the Episcopal Church, of which Berry was a devoted member as well as having served in a professional capacity.
Highly intelligent and inquisitive, she embraced the church’s philosophies and its interpretations of scripture and what she saw as a practical view of spirituality and everyday life.
Until the very end of her life, she enjoyed studying Episcopal doctrine and religion in general. She believed in asking questions and not blindly accepting rote answers. She was a freethinker, but a woman of strong faith.
She touched many lives while on the long journey that was her life, always leaving a strong impression and developing many lasting friendships along the way.
Betty was preceded in death by her parents, by her first husband, Jesse E. Neves, Sr., by her grandson Jacob E. Neves, and by her second husband, Edward Daniel.
Betty is survived by her sons Roy Conway Neves and his wife, Ardia Neves of Spring, Texas; Jesse Ernest Neves, Jr. and his wife Comeiletea Neves of Bedford, Texas; daughters Amy Carole Neves of Grapevine, Texas; and Anna Beth Campbell and her husband Rusty Campbell of Spring; twin sons Michael Timothy Neves and his wife Alice Neves of Magnolia; Samuel Andrew Neves and his wife Wendy Neves of Sugarland; stepson Edward Lee Daniel, Jr. and his wife Kathy Daniel of Acton, Massachusetts; stepdaughter Sarah Daniel Berry and her husband Kevin Berry of Lunenburg, Massachusetts; and stepson John Codding Daniel and his wife Cathy Daniel of Wellesley, Massachusetts.
She is also survived by her sister Emily “Aunt Fee Fee” Signor, of Houston.
She leaves 12 grandchildren: Roy’s son Jeff Neves; Jesse’s children Emily Neves, Christian Neves, Kyle Neves and Michael Neves; Anna’s children Tyler Campbell, Sam Campbell, and Olivia Campbell; Mike’s children Evan Neves, Ross Neves, and Owen Neves; and Sam’s daughter, Eliana “Ellie” Neves; and one great-grandson, Samuel Eric Neves.
As a loving matriarch in every sense of the word, Betty instilled and inspired a love of humor and laughter, a kind-hearted, truthful, tenacious and self-confident spirit, and a passion for learning, creativity, literature, history, art, style, travel, music and enlightening conversation in her children and grandchildren, who she brought together often on vacations or to celebrate special occasions, holidays or just for the simple pleasure of joining as a family to create countless cherished memories—usually ending in everyone joyfully laughing until it hurt. Her elegance, grace, personality and wit truly made her one of a kind.
A memorial service will be held at St. James Episcopal Church, 1803 Highland Hollow Drive in Conroe on Monday, August 31, 2015 at 11:00 a.m.
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