Betty Jean Gulick Short Fitterer

April 11, 1925 - November 14, 2017

Betty Jean Fitterer, daughter of Thomas and Hazel Gulick, died on November 14, 2017 on Cape Cod, MA. Betty was born, lived and was married in Falmouth, KY. She will be remembered for her sweet kindness, her smile, her thoughtfulness, her style, and her appreciation of both hearing and saying “a funny,” as she called the quick quip. She deeply loved her home and garden, her friends, her family, and her cats. There were many truths in Betty’s life: always have a novel and crossword puzzle in progress, salt goes with everything, when feeding the cat, only shrimp will do, cashmere sweaters are to be worn everyday layered on top of one another as necessary, bridge is a game of easy strategy, and rugs are to be hooked with wool dyed in 1700’s colours. Betty married Hazen L. Short on December 11, 1949. They started their family in Cincinnati, OH, where Hazen worked for P&G, then by way of Kansas City, California and Cincinnati, moved to Westfield, NJ, in 1961, where Betty was a long-term volunteer for The Westfield Service League as well as the Children’s Country Home, in addition to other organizations. When Hazen suffered a stroke in 1977, Betty cared for him for ten years with patience and love. After Hazen’s death, Betty realized their plan to live on Cape Cod, and moved to Barnstable,MA, where she made her home an anchor for her family. She later married the kind, retired Wall Street bondsman and golfer, John C. Fitterer, Jr. of Westfield, NJ, in 1996, who died in 2008. In Betty’s advanced stages of Alzheimer’s at her memory care home, she went into her friends’ rooms and folded their clothes or dusted the Nurse’s station with a napkin, helping others to the end. Betty is survived by a daughter, Amy L. Archer, a son, Douglas H. Short, and his wife, Christina R. Short, two grandchildren, Maxandra E. Kramer and Thomas L. Short, and her Kentucky cousins, Bob Gulick and Doris Kemp. A service will be held in memory of Betty at Woodhead Funeral Home, Falmouth, KY on Wednesday, May 16, 2018, at 11:00 a.m., followed by interment in the Riverside Cemetery, Falmouth.