Beth E. Warner

The Western Union telegram is dated Feb. 21, 1923, from Cleveland: Greeting to Bethemily and congratulations to her parents. We rejoice with you and hope she will create an atmosphere of love and peace and make your home the abiding place of an abounding happiness. Our hearts are full of love and tenderness for you all. Carrie and Bernie That Carrie Stowe¡¦s sister-in-law Bertha had given birth at age 45 to her first and only child that day was sufficient cause for such a loving and eloquent post. As that little girl¡¦s life would play out, those wishes of love and peace and abounding happiness would come true, in one way or another. Along the way, the twists and turns of life would test her mightily, but in the end she would create for her children an atmosphere of love and peace. In turn, their hearts would be full of love and tenderness for her even beyond her last breath. Beth was born in a bedroom in a duplex on Bernard Street ¡V named after her Uncle Bernie, the one from the telegram, in Hartford, Michigan. A mix of small-town gentility and working-class middle America, Hartford was knit with the relationships of a lifetime. A childhood playmate easily turned into a lifelong friend. Her father, Clair McAlpine, the son of a farmer, owned a corner store that sold automotive supplies in the early days of horseless carriages. He took on the role of poor commissioner for Van Buren County, overseeing the county¡¦s provision of services to the indigent. He held the office until his death in 1930 of pneumonia. Beth was just 7 on the snowy April day that her father was buried in Keeler Cemetery. Suddenly widowed and a single mother six months after the Black Friday stock market crash that harkened the Great Depression, Bertha moved in with her mother in Hartford. Bertha and Beth took care of Grandma Stowe and took on sewing and other work to pay the bills. As the world girded for war in the late 1930s, Beth¡¦s life revolved around traditional high school activities ¡V socializing, homework and part-time jobs. She waitressed at the Hartford House dining room, held a job at the library, and still had time for extracurricular activities. When the Hartford Indians marching band took the field, Beth was front and center as drum majorette. She performed in high school operettas ¡V ¡§Pirates of Penzance,¡¨ ¡§HMS Pinafore,¡¨ and ¡§Jewels of the Desert,¡¨ in which she took the leading role of Nana, ¡§the beautiful child of the desert.¡¨ She graduated from Hartford High School in the spring of 1940, 18 months before the girls of her generation went from dancing to Glenn Miller and Eddie Cantor to kissing the boys good-bye and collecting metal for the war effort. Bertha and Beth moved to Kalamazoo in 1941, Bertha making good on a promise that when their family obligations in Hartford had been fulfilled, they would start a new life in the big city. Bertha took a seamstress job; Beth worked a variety of jobs over the ensuing years, ranging from factory work in Kalamazoo¡¦s signature paper industry to winding strings at the legendary Gibson Guitar Co. factory to a stint at Michigan Bell Telephone Co. A post-war double-date with a tall, gaunt, brown-eyed charmer was a disaster. Somehow, a smitten Bob Warner later convinced her to accompany him as he conducted a clarinet lesson for a young student. A few sharps and a couple of flats later, they were making beautiful music together. They were wed in 1948 at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Kalamazoo. Their honeymoon took them to Detroit. By 1955, Beth and Bob were rejoicing in the birth of their first daughter, Heather Ann. The growing family moved from an apartment above Central Pharmacy on South Westnedge Avenue to a boxy house perched on a steep hill above the city¡¦s south side paper mills. Little Bob, as he was known, arrived in 1957, filling an empty bedroom and a father¡¦s dream of a son to follow in his footsteps. Before the birth of Laurie in 1961, the family endured the tragedy of a stillborn son. Laurie had a special place in her parents¡¦ hearts, by her birth helping to heal the pain and by her lifelong devotion to them providing abiding and abounding happiness to them. Beth served as a Den Mother for Pack 34 at Parkwood Elementary School in the late 1960s, and was active in the Kalamazoo County Democratic Party, especially in the campaigns of state Rep. Paul H. Todd in the 1960s. Beth had an irrepressible creative spirit that shone through in poetry, her regular contributions to ¡§Raffel¡¦s Riddles¡¨ on the old WKZO radio morning program, and her penchant for suddenly bursting into song. She would wake her children in the middle of the night to show them the Aurora Borealis or the opening of a neighbor¡¦s moon flowers. She saw the wonders of the world and shared them with her children. She was a self-cultured woman, substituting a dedicated personal quest for knowledge and a love of words for a formal academic degree. Beth was a loyal and thoughtful friend, who carried friendships forward from childhood to death. Her annual class reunions were a highlight of each of her last 60 years. Among her loves, besides her family, was an olive burger with an order of onion rings and a vanilla shake at West Lake Drive-In. Later in life, after her children were grown, Beth returned to the workforce, becoming known as ¡§the voice of Nazareth College.¡¨ She served as the switchboard operator and was a cherished co-worker among the staff until the college closed in 1992. The measure of her life is in three children who take after her, each in their own ways: all creative, all artistic, all effervescent and curious about the world around them. And all are beneficiaries of their mother¡¦s command of the English language. One writes for a living; one has made a life of acutely sensing the world around her and translating her sensitivity into observation and art; a third finds a broad range of artistic talents flowing from within. Whether it was at one of her class reunions, a backyard picnic, in the car on a trip back to Hartford or, in her later years, from her bed at home, oh, the stories she would tell: ?Þ On the 1960 day that John F. Kennedy spoke in Kalamazoo, she found herself close enough to brush his shoulder with her hand as he passed by her on north steps of City Hall. She loved to recall how he turned and smiled that famous smile at her. ?Þ She was always willing to reprise highlights of her role from ¡§Jewels of the Desert,¡¨ her senior-year operetta. ?Þ She had her version, and her husband had another, of the day the brakes went out on a New England vacation. ?Þ Tales of riding her beloved bicycle all over Hartford, often choosing hilly, wooded Maple Hill Cemetery at the south edge of town as a destination. ?Þ Recollections of the Van Buren County Poor Farm. As poor commissioner, her father often brought home young orphans in hopes his wife would agree to adopt them. ?Þ Her advice to male high school classmates as they prepared for a picnic with the girls: ¡§You bring the wienies and we¡¦ll bring the buns.¡¨ ?Þ The awe-inspiring tale of her mother¡¦s quick response to a lightning-sparked fire in their Hartford home one night. She blew out the flames that had kindled on the underside of a piece of wood furniture and calmly went to bed without disturbing anyone else. The charred, handmade wooden picture box remains a family heirloom. She died peacefully Thursday afternoon at Bronson Methodist Hospital, her children at her side. Just like a sunset, it was at the end of her life that it was easiest to appreciate her gifts, her talents, her spirit and her steel will. When doctors spoke in months of life expectancy, she lived in years of cherished days with her family, times filled with her signature outbursts of song, clever wordplay, stories that set present-day events in a framework that enriched the family¡¦s sense of itself. Her fierce will to live made a mockery of the medical prognoses for her various conditions. Beth¡¦s husband died in 1998, just six months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. Her survivors include her three children, Heather Davis of Las Cruces, NM, and Robert Warner II and Laurie John Jacobs all of Portage; 4 grandchildren, Katherine Jaeseung Whiting, Ben Warner, Ian Ehrnstrom, and John Jacobs Jr.; 2 great-grandchildren, Caleb and Rachel Whiting; and several cousins. A celebration of Beth¡¦s life will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at Pine West, 2425 S. 11th St., at the southeast corner of 11th Street and Stadium Drive west of U.S. 131