Betty Roscoe, 97,
Unadilla; Loved Farming,
Pursued It In Many Guises
UNADILLA – Beth “Betty” Bernice Roscoe (born Thompson), 97, died peacefully on Dec. 20, 2018, at Bassett Hospital, after a life of farming and diligent productivity.
Betty lived a long, happy and amazingly healthy life, attributing this to spending much of it involved in farming. “I have always been in love with farming,” she once wrote, “to be a farmer has been my aim. I have accomplished it, in a small way, with a lot of luck and help along the way. I still think it is the ideal.”She lived in Northern California from her birth in 1921 until her parents moved east in a Model A Ford to settle in Upstate New York in 1929. Growing up on a farm with her six brothers and sisters, she attended school in a one-room school house in Andes, a brief two-mile walk from their home.
During the 1950s, while her first husband worked for a livestock auction company, she rented a small dairy farm which she ran herself. After marrying a second time in the 1960s to a photographer and music teacher, she decided that operating the farm was leaving her with too much free time, so she opened and ran a home for the elderly.
By the time she became twice a widow in 1971, she had purchased the farm. There she raised a variety of animals for milk, meat and eggs.
Most recently, she finally decided it was time to take a couple of years of vacation, spending them
with her beloved pets on the farm she loved. Betty was always thoughtful, kind, perpetually upbeat and very proud of her independence.
She is survived by her children Gary Little, 63 and Carl Roscoe, 52, by her grandchildren Noah Roscoe, 28, and Jonah Roscoe, 24 and by five younger brothers and sisters.
She was predeceased by two husbands, Charles Little (d. 1959) and George Roscoe (d. 1971), and by one of her younger brothers.
A memorial service was held Saturday, Dec. 29 at the Westcott Madden Funeral Home in Unadilla.
Arrangements are entrusted to the Westcott Madden Funeral Home.