I met Elizabeth (Betsy) Nelson as a freshman when we both lived on 3rd floor Myers. I was immediately taken by her sophistication and the breadth of her knowledge. She asked me if I was related to P. G. Wodehouse and I replied, Who? I thought I was pretty well read, but compared to Betsy I was a novice.
I grew up with tea (my mother was British), but we’d only used Lipton’s Tea, and Betsy had a whole shelf full of various real tea leaves – names I’d never heard of – Earl Grey, Darjeeling, English Breakfast. She taught me to put the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup and pour the hot water over them to let them settle to the bottom! So cool!
During the summer after freshman year, I spent several weeks as a guest in her parent’s home in Arlington, VA, where she was already hosting Ann Royal, another member of our class who died too young. Betsy’s parents and brother were very welcoming and gracious. Betsy was determined to show every inch of her town of Washington DC to Ann and me during those weeks. We went to every major museum, memorial, and monument after work each day, and we viewed the 8-hour Russian film, War and Peace, over a few evenings. The three of us had wonderful conversations about what we learned and experienced that summer. I know her passion for adventure and enthusiasm for learning about other cultures seeped into my bones and helped to shape my interests and the adventures I would take.
We roomed together sophomore year when she somehow arranged for four of us (including Sue Hildreth and Ellen Smith) to get one of the choicest rooms on campus – a 2nd Sevy quad with its own bathroom. Betsy and I grew apart as we became juniors and seniors, and I didn’t stay in touch with her after graduation. I wish I had. Betsy loved learning and life and was determined to make the most of it. She was an amazing woman, and I know she had a lot still to do and give when I heard that she had died relatively young of cancer.
-Janice Woodhouse Barbee ’74
Comments
Betsy was my roommate for most of my time at Carleton, beginning with spring term freshman year when I moved into her room in Myers. We had met earlier in the year, probably in connection with the founding of MPIRG (she was enthusiastic about it this new organization and became Carleton's first rep to the MPIRG board). We quickly became friends, and there was a good fit between my need for a room after my previous roommate had been given a single, and the vacancy expected in her room when her roomie left for a spring term program.
Betsy did almost everything with intense passion. MPIRG was one passion. She was very smart and very committed to learning, and she aimed to read all of the world's important books. At the beginning of every term she went to the library, checked out an enormous number of books, and somehow hauled them back to our room, where I think she managed to devour most of them before the term ended (when she had another expedition to return them to the library). Her side of the room was a melange of those library books, her tea-making paraphernalia, and clothing thrown off absent-mindedly.
Another one of her passions was bridge. She enjoyed frequent late-night (sometimes all-night) bridge sessions, as well as the regularly scheduled duplicate bridge sessions at Carleton. I didn't play bridge, but she made sure I learned so I could be a fourth on occasions when she had rounded up two other players (usually Bob Fernandez and Jack Woodruff) in the dorm.
Food was another passion of Betsy's. During our senior year we lived in Hall House in a group of seven women and did our own cooking, with assigned turns to cook or clean up. As she had been an exchange student in Provence, she particularly liked to make soup aux pistou and French onion soup on her cooking nights. The food was great, but her extravagance with pots and pans and utensils caused the rest of us to try to avoid doing cleanup on nights when Betsy cooked.
Betsy was a remarkable woman, whom the world lost too soon.