Betty Walthour Skinner

She was born in Birmingham AL on Feb. 9, 1926. Her parents were Anne Tartt Perry Walthour and Col. Russell F. Walthour.

Betty grew up living the active life of an “army brat”, moving from army base to army base, from Hawaii to Colorado to South Carolina.

She much preferred the outdoor life to dressing up and socializing, as was expected: horseback riding with her father, an accomplished polo player, raising chickens, climbing trees, daily adding to her menagerie, and dodging mean tempered billy goats.

When World War II broke out, her father, a colonel in the “regular” army, was quickly activated and sent to the European theater. War’s misery did not hide from Betty. Her father was a casualty of the war, fighting in the battle of the bulge. Her favorite uncle, Sam Perry, was lost over the Pacific Ocean, and her brother Charlie was killed in action in Korea. These events affected her greatly, and she lived out her life as a dedicated pacifist.

And there was happiness too. She attended Stevens College and the University of Alabama. In 1947, she put on that long suffering party dress and met her soon to be husband, Bryant B Skinner, at a Birmingham debutante ball, where they fell in love.

She set about pursuing an active career as a 1950’s housewife, which included mothering four children, supporting her husband’s endeavors, and sharing life’s adventures in Deerwood and all that the woodsy surroundings had to offer.

She loved the active life. She hiked the mountains of North Carolina, trekked the foot hills of the Himalaya mountains and the Swiss Alps, ran in the Jacksonville River Run. She was captain of the Deerwood Club women's tennis team. She loved fishing and fished from Alaska to South America.. She entertained her numerous grandchildren at her lakefront property on Crescent Lake, from horseback riding, to go¬¬-cart racing, catching butterflies, and boat rides and fishing on Crescent Lake. Betty was always on the move!

Betty’s legacy is and will be the fruits of her ever expanding, always embracing spiritual life. In her sixties she came to understand herself as standing firmly in the Christian mystic tradition. Based in her experience of recovery from debilitating depression decades earlier, she felt called to share how she had overcome her illness by teaching and modeling that undertaking disciplined practices with abiding faith in Jesus could restore hope and wholeness to anyone willing to change old patterns. Establishing herself as BWS Ministries in 1996, she led many retreats across the south and midwest. Her message seemed too important and fruitful not to publish as “The Hidden Life Awakened,” her spiritual biography authored by Snapp and Crenshaw. She wrote beautiful, contemplative poetry which was collected and published as “The Circle of Love,” and “Face To Face With God”, a wisdom collection. Her last 17 years she spent in “blessed solitude” at Vicars Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach, an assisted living facility, which she described as her “hermitage”. Not limited by old age, a small room, a single chair, or even death----Betty’s luminous love and life’s work will continue to touch, encourage, and transform lives.

Thank you, Betty (Mom, Nannie), for sharing with all of us yourself, and a life beautifully lived.

Betty was predeceased by her brothers, Charles Perry Walthour and Russell F. Walthour, Jr., and her husband, Bryant B. Skinner.

She is survived by her sister, Missie Pidgeon McDonald, and by her four children, Bryant B. Skinner. Jr., (Joan), Charles W. Skinner (Laura), Betsy P. Skinner, and Russell R. Skinner (Sandy), eleven grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial gifts be made to BWS Ministries, C/O Katharine K. Crenshaw, 2358 Riverside Ave., #801, Jacksonville, FL 32204.