Betty Lu Anderson

Betty Lu Anderson, who was devoted to family, friends and faith, loved reading, writing and wordplay, pursued several careers, and traveled far and wide with her minister husband, died peacefully at age 99 on October 26, 2022, at her foster care home in Happy Valley.

Born Betty Luella Nixon in Portland, Oregon on June 13, 1923, to Robert and Bessie Nixon, she embraced the name Betty Lu early on and stuck with it (preferring BettyLu in later years). She grew up in the South Tabor neighborhood and graduated from Franklin High School in 1941. Encouraged by teachers to study journalism, she enrolled at Oregon State College in Corvallis, where she majored in home economics and signed on initially as a sports writer for The Barometer, the student newspaper. By her senior year, she had worked her way up to editor. She remained a loyal and enthusiastic booster of Beaver nation, including sports teams, all her life.

After graduating in 1945, Betty Lu launched her journalism career at The Oregonian, where she became a reporter and editor for what was known as the “women’s” section and publications devoted to homemaking. She was especially proud of earning a byline story on the front page. After working at The Oregonian for 15 years, she switched to librarianship, earning her Master’s degree from the University of Portland in 1971 and taking on various roles in the library of Western Baptist Seminary in Portland. She was proud of her work to expand the library’s holdings in poetry, history and the role of women in Christian ministry. She retired there in 1992.

Betty Lu married Robert Johnstone in 1947; their marriage lasted 40 years until he died in 1987. In November 1992, at a religious retreat, she encountered a minister she had known decades earlier, Dr. Herb Anderson, when he had been pastor at Hinson Memorial Baptist Church in Portland; he was widowed in 1990. After a whirlwind romance, they married in March 1993, and she embarked on what she anticipated was an exciting new career, that of a minister’s wife.

And what adventures they had. Herb was not one for retiring, and together they took on a series of interim pastorates at Baptist churches across Oregon, starting in Prineville. He coaxed her into backpacking the wilderness with his kids. He led college students on cross-country bike treks as far as from Salem, Oregon to Washington D.C.; she helped organize the trips and drove the motor home. Betty Lu and Herb journeyed by motor home and train across the U.S. and Canada, visiting old haunts and lifelong friends and attending Christian leadership conferences. She accompanied him at least 10 times on Holy Land tours he led in Israel. While he taught Bible classes at a college in Salem, she wrote poetry, was active in groups including Oregon Christian Writers, and read to students at a local school. After Herb died in 2016, she lived at the Courtyard at Mt. Tabor, just a few blocks from where she was born and raised.

Betty Lu is survived by four nieces: Janell Glouser, Lisa Nixon, Sharon Bacon and Allison Nixon, a grandnephew and four grandnieces and their four offspring. She is also survived by five stepchildren: Mark Anderson (Bambi), Karen Nettler, Stephen Anderson (Tracy Rattelman), Tim Anderson and Peter Anderson, and two stepgrandchildren, David Anderson (Anne Hsu) and Sarah Anderson (Ryan Garaventa) and a stepgreat-grandson. She was preceded in death by her younger brother Gaylord Nixon in 1969, by her stepson-in-law Bob Nettler in 1999, and by her stepson Ted Anderson in 2014.

Betty Lu loved books and reading from her earliest childhood and left behind a formidable library of poetry, history and inspirational writings. Her nieces knew her as the aunt who gifted them books for birthdays. In her own writing and poetry, words were to be played with, compared and juxtaposed, as she probed the mysteries of her Christian faith and linked her spiritual journey to observations of nature. She believed in the power of words. She treasured a personal letter she received from Jim Lehrer, of the PBS NewsHour. She had written to correct his mispronouncing “Oregon,” and he had graciously agreed to heed her advice.

Betty Lu was much loved by friends and family, always ready for fun and a laugh, with an insatiable curiosity about people and nature and compassion for those who struggle. She was generous with her encouragement and with her support for many charitable causes. She loved the garden and flowers and arranging bouquets to give away. She explored her world with a child’s sense of wonder, found joy in small things, and never stopped marveling over the loveliness of cats and the beauty of autumn leaves.

In 2017 Betty Lu participated in an oral history project marking Oregon State University’s sesquicentennial, recounting her campus journalism and other experiences during the fraught years of WWII, and much more about her life. Her videotaped and transcribed interview is available at http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/oh150/anderson/index.html .

Her family wishes to thank Providence Hospice and the Graceful Living Adult Foster Care Home for their loving care in her last months of life. A private service was held at a cemetery outside Monmouth where she is laid to rest. The family suggests memorial gifts to Portland Rescue Mission and Mercy Corps, two of the many charities close to her heart.