Betty Moon’s hands have driven school buses, sewn millions of stitches, picked cotton, milked cows, churned butter, fed and loved babies, coaxed newborn calves, baked legendary buttermilk biscuits and persistently prayed for her children and grandchildren. Betty’s hands have always worked and now they rest. Betty Evelyn Miller Moon, 86, died Monday, Aug. 31 at her home in Mt. View. 

Born just months before the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Betty’s young family life was marked by financial hardships. With only a sixth-grade education, Betty climbed a ladder she would build herself. 

At the height of style, Betty owned and operated a beauty shop in Mt. High in the 1960s. From there her resume includes the first woman bus driver for Hayden High School and many years as seamstress for Yielding Department Store, from which she retired in the early 1990s. But, with an entrepreneurial spirit still thriving, Betty opened Gardendale Alterations in her sixties. Her list of accomplishments would be remiss without mention of her third place finish in the Powder Puff Race at Sayre Speedway, a family-favorite memory.

But very likely most remember her as a faithful Christian and churchgoer. Vivid memories pervade of Betty driving a Dodge truck making her rounds to deliver community kids to Mt. View Baptist Church, where she served many years as VBS coordinator, song leader and worked with the youth. She and sisters Della Mae and Bertie often sang at local church gatherings and Betty sang alto with the Mt. View Quartet. For the last few decades, she has been a member at New Bethel Baptist. Among her many loves were gospel and sacred harp music, and later in life, her tablet for crosswords and puzzles. A voracious reader, never far from her hands was her Bible and we may years wonder at the last passage she read. 

Betty was born February 28, 1929 and was preceded in death by parents W.J. and Samantha Miller and husband Dewitt Moon; siblings Annie, Della Mae, Bertie, Jessie, Arthur, Albert and Leola. 

Survivors include brother Billy Miller, son O’Neal Thomas and daughters Virginia Thomas Watts, Shelby (Eddie) Jeely and Carolyn (Neal) Greathouse; grandchildren John David and Samantha Thomas, Kelley (Jack) Upchurch and Elizabeth (Charlie) Thomas, Heather (Chris) Harkins and Michael (Haylee) Jeely, Lindy (Greg) Hallmark and Derrick Greathouse;  ten great grandchildren and a host of step children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. 

Pallbearers were Greg Hallmark, Derrick Greathouse, Charlie Thomas, Jack Upchurch, Kyle Greathouse, Clint Moon, Bobby Moon and Chris Harkins.