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Obituaries
Friday, November 4, 2005
Betty Lennox
If there was a peace march or an anti-war protest somewhere in the Bay Area, Betty Lennox
of Sebastopol was likely to be among those carrying a picket sign.
Lennox, a retired English teacher at Analy High School, was regularly outside the
Sebastopol post office, protesting the use of tax dollars to fight the war in Iraq.
Lennox, a longtime Sonoma County resident and community activist, died Saturday at her
Sebastopol home. She was 84. Family members said her death followed a short illness
related to complications from cancer.
"She was a courageous woman who stood for her beliefs and was always thinking of
others," said son Andrew Lennox of Sebastopol. "She called herself a liberated
Christian. As she grew older she found less relevance in the church and more relevance in
the direct teachings of Christ."
Lennox also was an adventurous woman who on a whim in 1974 led six Analy High School
students on a six-week bicycle tour of Europe. It was a life-changing experience for a
woman who had devoted the first 50 years of her life to raising her children and securing
a teaching job to provide for herself.
"In 1974 she had never been on a plane, let alone a plane to Europe," said her
son.
The trip sparked an interest in travel that would take Lennox around the world visiting
countries like China, Cuba, Greece, India and Vietnam. Last year she traveled to Iran.
"She was an inquisitive traveler who made friends and became a friend to people she
met," said her son.
Lennox's summers took on a regular pattern - six to eight weeks in a foreign country,
a 10-day backpacking trip in the mountains and two weeks at the Shakespeare Festival in
Ashland. She loved Shakespeare, the English language and classical music. She had season
tickets to the Santa Rosa Symphony and regularly attended the opera and the American
Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
She was born Betty Anne Carlson on July 23, 1921, in Eureka. She graduated from UC
Berkeley in 1944. After marrying John Malcolm Lennox Jr. she lived in Grass Valley and
then Angels Camp while having her four children. In 1955 the Lennox family moved to
Sebastopol.
When her husband died in 1965, Lennox went back to school at Sonoma State University to
earn a teaching credential. The same year she got a job teaching English at Analy High
School, where she taught for 25 years until her retirement in 1990.
In retirement, Lennox devoted her time to her large family, travel, community issues and
volunteer work. For years she would read aloud each day to school children at
Sebastopol's SunRidge School, where she was known as "Grandma Betty."
In addition to her son Andrew Lennox, she is survived by her other sons, John M. Lennox
III of Sebastopol and Robert Lennox of Riverside; her daughter, Susan Lennox Provin of
Oakland; her sister, Wilma Follette of Sausalito; her brothers, Robert Carlson of
Sebastopol and David Carlson of Santa Rosa; and by nine grandchildren and seven
great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. Nov. 26 at the Community Church of
Sebastopol.
The family suggests memorial contributions to Heifer International, P.O. Box 8058, Little
Rock, AR 72203.