Meet Betty. A vibrant, loving, funny woman from Omaha. Cried the entire trip to Southern California sixty years ago. 

Betty is a mother of four, Grandmother to seven, Great-Grandmother to three. Betty is also a sister to two brothers. Betty loves her family. To meet Betty is to love Betty. She will love you when you don’t deserve it. She will feed you when you are full. Betty loves you when nobody else does. 

Meet Bill, Betty’s brother. Bill was the youngest diagnosed case of Alzheimer’s in the US when diagnosed, at the age of 48 and succumbed to this disease. 

Meet Frank, Betty’s other brother, after watching his brother succumb to Alzheimer’s, he too fell victim to it.

Betty buried her two brothers from this disease. It wasn’t easy. The process was financially and emotionally painful. Betty doesn’t know she has Alzheimer’s. We don’t tell her. She can’t know. She knows its path and it’s destruction. Betty thinks she’s just getting forgetful. Betty will never hear that word come out of our mouth. She’s seen it enough. She deserves better.

To know Betty is to hear her cackle laugh and to eat her amazing cookies. Betty hasn’t baked in years. Her cupboards are empty and the cookie sheets haven’t seen dough in years. Betty doesn’t remember the cookie jar is empty. Oh the cookie jar, the rite of passage when entering Betty’s home and the closest route to her heart. Betty doesn’t remember how to make cookies. So she colors.  With pencils. With abandon. With her heart. A creative outlet never known to her prior to Alzheimer’s. It soothes her. It’s the only thing that doesn’t frustrate her. It’s not a name or a place. It’s not a memory. So she colors.  

Betty loves her colored pictures and they grace the walls of many homes and she is proud of that. Her granddaughters started having her sign them and she finds it absolutely hilarious (and wonderful) that people want to hang her art in their homes. To support the Alzheimer’s Association we are making Betty’s framed colorings available for purchase. Each framed coloring is $20 (this includes everything, from the frame, to shipping). Let a piece of Betty smile upon you daily. 

We want Betty's Blessings to hang in your home and remind you to spend time with your loved ones. When you look at your piece, we want it to serve as a reminder to call your own grandmother or grandfather, to ask them stories about their childhood, to inquire about where they grew up, and to soak in all they have to teach you. We want you to call your mom or dad up and ask if all the family recipes are recorded, and if they aren't, we want you to start doing that. Our memory is a gift that not all are blessed to maintain, so while it's there, appreciate it. As our mother, our grandmother, our wife, Betty has blessed us for so many years with her love, her cooking, her "happy birthday" messages and her way-to-early-Christmas shopping. If Betty's Blessings can make even a small impact on families outside of our own, we know she will be happy, even in spite of this terrible disease. Plus, she's been begging us to "get a job" every day for a while now, and this will give her one!

To order, please donate through this platform and there will be a place for you to enter your address for shipping purposes. If you donate more than the requested $20, please specify if you want more than one piece.

If you have a request, please send the requested picture to orderbettysblessings@gmail.com before donating so we can make sure we are able to have her color it for legal purposes. No color requests please - we want Betty to use her complete creative freedom in her pieces. General theme requests are welcomed as well (flowers, cities, etc.)

All proceeds go to the Alzheimer’s Association. 

All questions or inquiries: orderbettysblessings@gmail.com