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or a while, no one spoke on the ride from New Bern Saturday morning. It was somber. Quiet. Ken Brandon’s wife of 47 years, Betty, had just passed away on en route to the hospital, and their friend, Ross Otterbacher, was driving Ken home to Oriental.

They crossed from Craven in to Pamlico County and a few moments later, Ross pointed out the marker noting the first Pamlico County town on Highway 55. “‘Ken,” Ross said, “There’s the Olympia sign.’”

And with that, both men broke out laughing. That a smile and a laugh could come so shortly after her death, was testimony to Betty Brandon and in particular to one of her legacies: the Hiway 55 Acronym.

Ross Otterbacher remembers being seated next to Betty at his first Thanksgiving dinner here. Betty was then in her mid-80s, her grey hair sporting its page-boy cut. Her sweet demeanor gave the retired military helicopter pilot no clue as to what he was about to hear: Betty’s sure-fire method for remembering the order of the towns between the Craven county line and Oriental.

What Betty would tell newcomers such as Ross was that you took the first letter of those Highway 55 towns. You start with Olympia, she’s say, in a voice that ranged from gravel to a fine-china pinggg. “Then Reelsboro. And Grantsboro. And Alliance.”

At about this point she would pause, scanning the listener’s face closely. Noting that for this mnemonic to work, you had to skip over Bayboro, she would continue, “Then Stonewall. And Merritt.”

And then Betty Brandon would wait for it to sink in, before letting a throaty, twinkly laugh escape.

When news spread Saturday that Betty Brandon had died, her acronym for the Highway 55 towns was one of the first things friends brought up.

Betty Brandon at a recent Croakerfest Parade. Laura Turgeon Photo

Betty On Patrol

Those who may not have known Betty personally may remember her for her slow drives up and down the streets of Oriental. In this way, her head barely higher than the wheel of the tan Taurus station wagon, she kept tabs on what was going on in the village. Friends called this activity, “Betty on patrol.” Many afternoons, especially in warmer weather, she would wind up at The Bean, taking a a decaf-iced coffee and a place on the porch from where she kept up with the goings on in the town she’d lived in since 1994.

Few may have realized that the diminutive lady in her 80’s had first come to North Carolina more than a half century earlier to be a Marine. In 1944, Camp Lejeune was her destination. Betty Brandon was among the first small wave of women to serve in the US Marine Corps.

From Pennsylvania To The Marine Corps

Betty was born Florence Elizabeth Croasmun on July 12, 1921 in Kane, Pennsylvania. Flo-Betty, as she was called then, grew up in Redclyff, a town so small, she attended primary school in a one-room schoolhouse. After high school, she worked as a clerk. When she was 22, her clerk job was in a Pennsylvania ordnance plant that made TNT.

Betty said that she enlisted in the Marines because for one, she had a brother who was “fighting his way across Germany.” Secondly, she said, “I was really mad about the Bataan Death March,” in which thousands of Americans and Philippine soldiers died. “I had a school friend who was lost in it,” Betty said, adding that three of the 21 students in her high school graduating class died in WWII.

But there was another reason she signed up for the Marines. Speaking with characteristic candor, Betty said, “I was stuck in a job and couldn’t quit and get a better one.” She wanted to get away from the office at the TNT plant but said quitting wasn’t an option because of ‘national policy’ at the time.

Corporal Betty

So, in March of 1944, at 5-foot-1, Betty Croasmun enlisted in the Marines and in May went to Camp Lejeune for boot camp and quartermaster school. In September, she shipped out to the Navy Base at Camp Elliott in San Diego and after that, what she described as an even better posting in San Francisco. There were no barracks for women in San Francisco, so, Betty recalled, “they just gave us money.”

Another woman who went through the Marine training with her — “my bunkie,” Betty called her — was a harpist who was from San Francisco. Through her, Betty found a room in what she would later describe as a mansion. It was on a hill and had a view of the water. Musicians occupied other rooms. Betty rode the cable cars down the steep San Francisco streets to her job at the wharf. Her work, she said, involved a lot of requisitions and purchase orders.

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When the war was over, Betty was discharged from the Marines with the rank of corporal. She qualified for the GI bill and back in Pennsylvania, she went to Allegheny College.

From College To Work And Nuclear Testing

She graduated in three and a half years, in 1949, with a BA in literature. She worked for several years as a secretary at the University of Pittsburgh’s Medical School and then moved to Los Angeles to a similar posting at UCLA’s med school. The department she was in was the Laboratories of Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Biology, Division of Environmental Radiation.

There, Betty’s work extended beyond the office setting.

One of the nuclear blasts in the Nevada desert that was part of Operation Plumbbob in 1957. Betty Brandon lived and worked at the Nevada Test Side that summer.

In 1957, she was among the 50 UCLA staff who were sent to Mercury, Nevada to live and work on Operation Plumbbob. Plumbbob was a series of above-ground and atmospheric nuclear blast experiments at and over the Nevada Test Site. The workers, Betty among them, lived there for half a year. One task was the gathering of data about the levels of radiation and effects of fallout.

Betty and Ken

In the late 1950’s, back living in Los Angeles, Betty met Ken Brandon, then a young engineer from Indiana working for an LA company. They met thru a roomate, but it was a migraine that brought them together.

Ken says that they were part of a Methodist Church group that went on weekend outings, usually camping trips. On one trip to La Jolla, Betty came down with a horrific migraine headache. Ken bundled her in to the back of his 1956 Ford Fairlane which — like the Scion he drives today — was outfitted for camping. He created a makeshift bed for Betty in the back seat and drove her back to LA.

Betty and Ken married on her birthday in 1962. (Ken says it made it easy to remember the dates.)

They moved to Rochester, NY when Ken got a job with Kodak. Betty went to work for the University of Rochester, mainly in the linguistics department. Her resume at the time noted among other skills her ability at shorthand, which seemed in keeping with her succinct takes on life.

In Rochester, the Brandons sailed, sometimes making the 70 mile trip across Lake Ontario to Canada. Betty, says Ken, “could handle a boat really well.”

After a move to Muncie, Indiana for a few years, Betty and Ken settled in Oriental in 1994. They sailed. Betty volunteered with Meals on Wheels. She was an avid reader – “She always had to have a book,” says Ken – and favored histories rather than novels.

Betty Brandon at a Spirit of Christmas parade.

Betty Remembered

“She was an absolute joy,” says Bonnie Sadler who saw Betty on her weekly visits to Georgie’s hair salon. Bonnie recalls her often “bubbling over” and always asking questions. She had visited the salon last Friday.

“Betty always made me feel like she was glad to see me,” Jacksie Pitts recalled, “It’s a gift.”

She had other gifts. That politeness and gentleness cloaked a very keen and very dry wit. Betty could make friends laugh out loud, both for what she had to say, and the unvarnished way in which she said it.

A few years ago, two friends attended a performance with Betty at Oriental’s Old Theater. She was a tad underwhelmed by the show, but stuck it out for the second half. Wine was served during the intermission. Betty didn’t partake. She noted that when the performance resumed the crowd applauded wildly after a few moments. Betty turned to her friends and said quietly, amid the applause, “The alcohol worked.”

A collection of Betty photos at The Bean.

For more than a few of us, it’s a good bet that that plainspoken voice will be heard for some time to come. Especially as we pass the towns of Olympia, Reelsboro, Grantsboro, Alliance, Stonewall and Merritt.
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A memorial service for Betty Brandon will be taking place on Saturday, March 13 at 11a at Bryant Funeral Home on Hiway 55 in Alliance.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to HOPE Clinic, PO Box 728, Bayboro NC 28515.

Posted Tuesday March 9, 2010 by Melinda Penkava