On Saturday, June 4 ^th , Elizabeth "Betty" Hallford of Tulsa, Oklahoma passed away at the Norman Regional Hospital following a major stroke. According to some state records, however, Betty's been considered dead since 1935. Born to George and Faye Swanson in the living room of their rural farmhouse on February 16 ^th , 1935, Betty did not appear to be breathing when she was delivered, and so the attending physician left the Swanson farmstead and filed a death certificate for her. Her parents would later register her birth certificate in a different county, rendering her legally both alive and dead. This unrectified clerical error would not be discovered until many decades later, and repeatedly caused frustrating problems with the state.

Growing up during the Great Depression, her family moved many times, and she and her brothers sometimes had to live with other relatives as her parents attempted to make ends meet. By the time she was in her teens, she was living on a family farm south of Haskell, Oklahoma and caring for her grandmother, Rettie Swanson. She graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class and moved on to Northeastern University at Tahlequah to pursue a master's degree in Education. Although her preferred subject was math, teaching positions in mathematics were practically non-existent for female instructors, so she focused on subjects for which she was more likely to get a job. She was a leader on the university debate team, and it was through this program that she would meet Marybelle Hallford, a woman who not only would become her college apartment mate and lifelong best friend, but also was the sister of Henry Gene Hallford, the man Betty would later marry.

Shortly after becoming engaged to Henry, he would be called up to serve with the 3 ^rd Armored Division of the Army, and was transferred to Fort Knox, Kentucky for training before shipping overseas. Not wishing to leave the country before marrying Betty, he risked going AWOL to rejoin her in Oklahoma, and the two were wed in a much quieter ceremony than originally planned over the Thanksgiving weekend of 1955. Shortly thereafter, Henry was deployed to Germany, and Betty would write him letters daily until she was able at last to join him in 1956. The time they spent together in Germany would be a transformative experience for both of them.

After the completion of Henry's Army service, they would return to Stilwell, Oklahoma to be near Henry's family, and where they would start their family with the birth of their first son, Henry Gene Jr. for a few years, both Henry and Betty would teach at the nearby Cave Springs schools until they decided that they should look for new opportunities in a bigger city.

For a short time, Betty's family would live in Prattville, in what today is known as south Sand Springs. Not long after the move, they would discover that Betty was pregnant with a second son, and so they would move once again into a house in the Bruner Hill neighborhood of west Tulsa, the residence in which she would live for the rest of her life. William Neal Hallford joined the family in October of 1966.

Following a several year absence from teaching to attend to infant Neal, she decided to return to her career as an educator. First she worked for Tulsa Public Schools teaching adult education, and then would do the same for Sand Springs Schools. When a job opened at the Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers, which was supervised by the Sand Springs School District, Betty was happy to take the position because it allowed her to help disadvantaged girls while also serving as a teacher. It was a highly challenging job which in many ways resembled teaching in turn of the century one-room schoolhouses, simultaneously instructing girls between 9 to 18 years old while covering multiple subjects. She would continue in that position until the program was eventually phased out many years later. Subsequently, for the rest of her career, she would work wherever the school system needed her, serving home bound students, filling in as a substitute for multiple teachers, and doing whatever she could to provide for the educational needs of the community of Sand Springs.

Throughout her life Betty struggled with a series of health challenges related to her heart, but she never let this stop her from what she wanted to do. She was devoted above everything else to her husband, her children, her family, and to her faith. For many years, both she and her husband served as Sunday school teachers for Osage Hills Christian Church, and attended regularly until physical infirmity rendered this impossible.

Betty was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Don, Jim, and Bob, and her husband Henry Gene Hallford Sr. She is survived by her brother George William, her two sons Henry Gene Hallford Jr. (Terrye) and William Neal Hallford (Jana); two grandchildren, Jennifer Bolinger, and Jordy Rossol; and several great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held for Betty on June 17 ^th at 2 p.m. at Osage Hills Christian Church in Tulsa. She will be interred with her husband Henry at the Ft. Gibson National Cemetery. Arrangements are being handled by Mobley-Groesbeck in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Sand Springs Educational Foundation, http://sandspringseducationfoundation.com/give-a-gift.asp