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Birth: |
Jun. 14, 1951
Dane County
Wisconsin, USA |
Death: |
Aug. 20, 1997
Dane County
Wisconsin, USA |
Betty Blaska, baptized Elizabeth Rose Blaska, will be remembered
this morning at St. James Church and forever by those who knew
and loved her. That includes siblings, David, Michael, William,
Jane, and Richard; her father, Jerome; and her mother, Helen,
who greets her in heaven. Plus a crop of nieces and nephews,
Max, Amanda, Jared, Ashley, Amber, Olivia, David, Jason, and
Jacqueline. Betty died at her home in Madison earlier this week.
She was born on Flag Day, June 14, 1951, in Sun Prairie, WI, the
third of six children in a hard-working family in the farming
and politics business. There were all kinds of barns and corn
cribs, in which to set up imaginary housekeeping and school days
for her many dolls. Brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles,
grandparents and cousins, worker bees and visitors from the
outside world buzzed through her life, imparting their
impressions of life's joys, disappointments, and mysteries.
Betty was great in school; God gave her the brains and she did
the rest. She was a National Merit Scholar at Sun Prairie High
School, went right after a Bachelor of Arts degree at the
University of Wisconin Madison and then soaked up a Master's
Degree from the University of Iowa, her mother's native land.
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Site did that, all the while fighting through a bipolar disorder in a
family too busy to notice and too slow to understand, like much
of the world then. But a little less so now, thanks to Betty.
She applied what she learned in school and what she experienced
in life by working for the Wisconsin Department of Health and
Social Services. More recently, she was as an advocate for the
mentally ill. She achieved national recognition; people around
the country awaited her presentations. She even formed her own
group composed of fellow fighters, called Prevail. She was
honored by the Dane County Alliance for the Mentally Ill for
that advocacy. As much as we may have tried, in our own ways, we
could never seem to give Betty all the love she needed when she
was alive, so we're going to keep trying. If you would like to
help us, come to St. James Church, where she taught catechism to
kids, after 8:30 a.m. this Saturday morning. It's at 1128 St.
James Court, Madison (near Meriter Hospital, off Brooks St.)
Father Douglas Duschack will help us conduct the memorial
service at 10:00 a.m. WSJ 8/23/1997
Family links:
Parents:
Jerome
L. Blaska (1919 - 2000)
Helen Curl Blaska
(1915 - 1981)
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Burial:
Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Cemetery
Sun Prairie
Dane County
Wisconsin, USA |
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