Mrs. Betty Jean French

was the second daughter of Jesse Woodard and Mary Edna Graham Dodderer. She was preceded in death by her parents, a sister, Mary Frances Dodderer, her husband, Ivan French and a grandson, Christopher Hogan.

Betty spent her childhood in Atoka, and later Goodwell, Oklahoma, where her sister attended Panhandle A&M College (now Oklahoma Panhandle State

University) and her father worked for the college as a carpenter. This was during the dust bowl era and Betty remembered the Black Sunday storm of 1934 very well. When Betty completed high school in 1943 the family moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma, where Betty attended

Oklahoma Baptist University, graduating in 1947 with a degree in English and Journalism. Betty's intention was to pursue a career in journalism, but no openings seemed available, so in the fall she accepted a last minute teaching offer at the high school in Bogue, Kansas. The first day in Bogue she met the owner of the local grocery store, Ivan French. They quickly fell in love and were married June 1, 1948, in University Baptist Church, Shawnee. In early spring of 1948 she had received an offer for a job at a newspaper in Konowa, Oklahoma, but by that time she was entrenched in her life in Bogue and her

newly acquired French family connection, so she declined. Betty received an associate degree in secondary education at Ft. Hays Teachers College, Hays, Ks, 1950, and qualified for an elementary school certificate at OBU in 1958. During the first few years of their married life, the young couple gave birth to three

sons, while moving several times back and forth between the west coast and the Oklahoma/Kansas area. They settled in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1963 where they finished their careers, Ivan as an elementary school principal and Betty as a teacher, bank teller and school secretary. Upon their retirement in 1985, they

moved to Mercedes, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. They moved to Oklahoma in 1998, living in Guthrie for a year, then at the Baptist Retirement Village in Oklahoma City for four years before returning to Guthrie in 2003 to be close to their son Van and family. Ivan passed away in July 2005. They both loved Guthrie and Betty was happy to spend the rest of her days there. Betty is survived by three sons and daughters-in

-law, Terry and Sandy French, Fredericksburg, Virginia; Lanny and Di French, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Van and Cheri French, Guthrie, Oklahoma; seven grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren. Betty was a talented piano player, a fluent sight-reader who often played for church services and sang in the choir. She was a prolific writer, leaving numerous volumes of diaries as well as a two volume autobiography, “A Sentimental Journey”. She authored

several "vignettes” and poems, many of which were published. She had a delightful sense of humor, and a sweet and loving disposition.