Friend Betty Jane Deitzel
Betty Jane Deitzel, 64, Newville, died at her home on Thursday, April 12, 2001. The death was unexpected, preceded by no illness.
She was born on May 2, 1936, in Manheim, the daughter of the late Frank and Lizzie Bradley. She graduated from Lampeter High School, Lancaster County, in 1954. She was awarded a bachelor’s degree in education from Millersville State University in 1959. After studying special education and social work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Millersville University, she received a master’s degree in special education from Millersville in 1978. Following employment as administrator of a group home in Madison, she taught at several Pennsylvania schools: Lititz Elementary School; Garden Spot High School, New Holland, and Pequea Valley High School, Kinzers. In August 1982, she joined the teaching staff of the Carlisle Area School District, serving as a teacher of special needs students at Wilson Middle School until her retirement in July, 1998.
She served as a foster parent for approximately twenty years and during that time parented well over fifty children and young people. She was named Cumberland County’s “Foster Parent of the State” in a recent year. She was an active member and a former clerk of the Friends Meeting in Carlisle.
She is survived by a brother, Frank Bradley, Newark, Delaware, and mourned by many former and foster children who knew her first as a parent and later as a friend.
