Comments:
“I made it in spite of them,” Bet says of the strep throat and rheumatic fever that put her in bed at age nine and kept her there for the next four years. Rheumatic fever rarely strikes in the US today, but until the 1960s or 70s too often it struck children from six to fifteen, usually two to four weeks after a bout of strep throat or scarlet fever. The runaway Streptococcus bacteria in her body swelled her joints and enlarged her heart dangerously. “I had to use a box at the end of the bed to keep my feet straight.”
During those years she seldom saw other kids except her older sister Edith (’55) and her younger sister Joan (’59) and her best friend Linda Malkin. She took up crocheting, knitting, drawing and painting and working with plastic carvings. Featured in a Newsday article saying “”Bets has everything to make her happy—everything that is except her health and a few pen pals.” The article quotes her mother, “Every day she waits for the click of the mailbox and her face drops so when I tell her there’s nothing for her.” After the Newsday article people from all over wrote, sending stamps and coins.
Unknown to the rest of us Bette kept up with her studies through tutoring, first by Miss Ely, then by 6th grade teacher Robert Allen, and next a private tutor. Finally she was allowed to start 7th grade for half of every day, but to her dismay, sports were forbidden. The legacy of her years of seclusion, she says, was a permanent shyness. Art with Miss Strohe and singing became her refuge and she says, “I adored the music teacher Mr. Sterling.” Miss Strohe inspired her with a desire to go into design. Unfortunately, she said, “I was dope and got married.” Nevertheless she says, “It was a wonderful marriage and we had [our son] Bill.”
Her husband was classmate Bob Platt who “was kind of a loner too.” Bob was a buddy of Pete Merkel’s, and Bob and Betty, Pete and Dottie Gerroir often double dated. For the first eight years of marriage Bob was in the Air Force and they lived wherever he was stationed, from Alaska to Florida. Their son Bill was born in 1960.
When her parents moved to Florida she and Bob also made their home there in Port Charlotte. “It was like Sea Cliff, small and nice in those days.” Bette worked in a pharmacy, then as a secretary for an electrician, and finally for Dollar General, working her way to manager of the local store.
She and Bob were divorced in 1979 and she married Douglas Lynch in 1981. He was a native of Canada who had been in the Army and whose parents had also moved to Florida. He died in 2002 and Bette moved to her own villa in a senior living community. She also enjoys having her son Bill, owner of his own surveying company and father of her grandson. Although she enjoys her friends in the community and spends much of her days visiting, she says, “I have never really gotten over the shyness. I have my circle of friends who understand how weird I am. I never feel like I really fit.” Port Charlotte has grown far larger and busier than the Sea Cliff like town it was when she settled there, and she remembers home on Winding Way and says, “I’d give anything in the world to be back home.”
