Betty Venables, 75, an elementary school teacher who taught at Covenant Life Center and at the short-lived Haines Christian School in the 1990s, died of cancer on Feb. 10 in Canby, Calif., where she'd been living since 2006.  

She battled melanoma there for a decade while working at a Christian school. "She taught from a recliner at times and only finally gave up teaching in the last months to go into hospice care – a tribute to her intense love and dedication," said son Robert Venables.

Venables also worked as a caregiver for REACH in Haines and taught driver education refresher classes for the elderly through an AARP program.

  A celebration of her life was held Feb. 25 at the Whitestone community in Delta Junction with family members. There also will be a service in Canby at the In Search of Truth Church at 10 a.m. Sunday.

  Betty June Overhosler was born Oct. 19, 1940 in Miami. Her father Orval Harries Overhosler was a businessman. Her mother Nola was an artist who made stained glass, dolls and tinted photographs. She grew up in Coral Gables.

She graduated from Coral Gables High School and earned bachelor's degrees in social welfare and early childhood education at Florida State University. She met fellow student John Venables there and they married Jan. 30, 1962.

They spent two years in Washington D.C., where John served in the Intelligence Corps of the U.S. Army, and returned to Florida, where she taught elementary school in Miami and Ocala.

  Beverly Leak and Venables lived next door in Miami in the 1960s, and she taught Leak's children there. They attended the same church in Florida and reunited at the Covenant Life Center in Haines. "Betty was an excellent teacher. She was a better than excellent friend – loyal, steadfast. As a teacher there was not a student she wouldn't try to teach, and as a friend, she was just always there," Leak said.

  In 1993 Venables moved to Haines, where her son and his family were living, to be closer to them and to teach at the Christian School located in the Port Chilkoot Bible Church. Bittan Gray's daughter was a student. Gray said Venables was a natural teacher who brought out the best in her students.  "Everything with her became a teaching moment. She could take a scary bug and make it interesting to a 5-year-old."

  Besides teaching, Venables enjoyed growing flowers, attending social gatherings, and sharing comics and jokes with friends and family. She kept prayer lists and her faith helped her maintain good spirits in spite of her severe illness, Leak said. "To live the life Betty lived, you'd have to know the Lord," she said.

  She was preceded in death by her husband John Venables and survived by sisters Janet Bechtold of Atlanta and Jean Willans of Los Angeles and by children Robert Venables of Haines, William Venables of Juneau, and Karen Wenger, Rebekah Bailey, and Esther Venables of Delta Junction, as well as 10 grandchildren.

  "The doctors only gave her 2-3 years to live at the time of diagnosis nearly 10 years ago," Robert Venables said. "She went to one of (the doctor's) retirement parties a couple years back and called another (doctor) soon after, with a question to be greeted with, 'You're still alive?' Needless to say, we were fortunate and pleased for the extra years."