Elizabeth Marie "Betty" Rice

The legend and legacy of Elizabeth (Betty) Marie Rice. Please let me tell you about my wonderful best friend Betty. I had the honor of meeting Betty Rice in the early 1970s at the then-VA hospital in Phoenix, AZ. Betty was volunteering in a psychiatric program called the day treatment center and outpatient clinic for veterans with no risk conditions.

I myself, after just getting back from the Russian front during the end of the Cold War in the middle of the 1960s. I was ordered to begin treatment at the DCC at the Phoenix VA hospital for a nervous condition that I acquired while in the hospital. This is when I became acquainted with a wonderful woman named Betty Marie Rice.

When Betty retired from her volunteering, the disabled veterans invited her to a meeting at their lodge and presented Betty with a monument that said "To Betty Ann Rice $25,000 for volunteering at the psychiatric hospital for 20 years," as she devoted her life to disabled veterans and her husband. I was sitting on the floor in the day treatment center watching TV. Guess who walked into the room carrying numerous bags and sat across the room, and turned to leave, but not before she glanced at me and said "Hello". Then she exited the room. That was my first encounter with the wonderful Betty Rice. At the time, my first impression of Betty was that she was either an employee of the VA or a counselor, or a physician's assistant. At the time, I was around 20 years old, and to be honest with you, I was a bit confused that all Betty wanted to say to me before leaving the room was "Hello".

And that being said, I was in communications and learned that Betty Rice* was going to become the most enduring kind and empathetic best friend I've ever had in my life.

Today I am writing this obituary with a broken heart because yesterday my best and only friend, Betty Marie Rice for over 50 years of faithful love and kindness and devotion, passed away because her heart could not pump enough blood into her body and brain to sustain life.

When I met Betty M Rice 50 years ago, I did not know in those years to come that Betty would not only become the most important person in my life, she would become my counselor, my caretaker, my friend, my lover, my housekeeper. Betty is the sole reason I am alive today, writing her obituary. What Betty and I had is what you'd call a love story.

In ending this obituary, I would like to take all of you back to the early days of my life. In the early days of my life, I viewed a Walt Disney movie called Peter Pan. Peter Pan was an ordinary person who wanted to learn to fly. Peter had a fairy friend named Jiminy Cricket. Peter Pan asked his friend if he would help him learn to fly. Jiminy told Peter if he would go out at night, look at the star, and make a wish for that star, his dream might come true. In this story, I am Peter Pan and Betty is my friend Jiminy Cricket. So you see, Betty told me to find a star in the heavens, make a wish on that star and see what happens. So you see, Jiminy Cricket was right to tell Peter Pan what to do because he did learn how to fly in the end. He wished upon a star and his dream came true. You may be asking the moral of this story, Here is the moral to this story: I went into the night and found that star and made a wish on that star. My wish was that I wish I would be able to stay the rest of my life with the only woman I've ever loved, Betty Rice*. And you see, my wish came true. I got to spend 50 wonderful years with Betty Rice*.

That being said, my advice to you is when you wish on a star, your dreams just may come true. Jiminy Cricket was right.

-Sincerely, Private E-2 US Army: William Charles Morris, and I've had the honor and privilege to live with one of the most wonderful women I've ever met. Betty, if your soul and spirit are reunited with your husband in heaven, let me just say this to you, Betty, your husband was a good man, and you're a good woman, and you and your husband deserve each other.

-Your friend Bill. Thanks for being my friends, Betty and Jim. PS: I hope to join you someday, but not too soon, because the two of you on Earth saved my life. Thank you for all your wonderful help, I really appreciate it, and I'll be okay.