Elizabeth Atwater

Hastings resident, Elizabeth J. "Betty" Atwater, 88, passed away Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at Perkins Pavilion Good Samaritan Society - Hastings Village, Hastings, Nebraska.

Memorial Services will be Saturday, April 1, 2017; 11:00 A.M. at Evangelical Free Church, Hastings with Pastor Tim Bowman officiating. Burial will be held in Sterling Cemetery, Sterling, Kansas at a later date. Memorials may be given to Central Christian Schools or Samaritan's Purse. Visitation will be one hour prior to service at the church.

Betty was born in Cholon, a suburb of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam, on February 12, 1929. Her parents, Herb and Lydia Jackson, were missionaries to Vietnam. An older brother, Merrill, had been born in 1924. Betty attended school in Dalat, a hill station north of Ho Chi Minh City.

In early 1942, Japanese troops occupied Vietnam, and the Jackson family, along with many others, was restricted from free movement without special permission. In 1943, the family was repatriated on the Gripsholm to the United States. They lived in Boston for nine months and then moved to Houghton, New York, where Betty graduated in 1946 from Houghton Academy. During the summers she usually went to New Hampshire to work on the conference grounds of the New England Fellowship. It was there she met Charles Atwater whom she married in 1949. One year later, Betty graduated from Houghton College.

Betty and her husband then moved to Boston where she worked in a large department store while her husband attended graduate school. Beginning in early 1952, Betty and her husband went to India where they both served on the teaching staff at Woodstock School, an international school located in the Himalayan foothills. Meanwhile, a daughter, Ruth, was born in September 1952, and a son, James, was born in April 1954. Betty and her family returned to the Boston area in the summer of 1957, at which time she began teaching while her husband did additional graduate work.

In 1959, the family moved to Sterling, Kansas, where her husband accepted a position on the Sterling College faculty. While the family resided in Sterling, two more children were born. Carol was born in December 1959, and Steve was born in July 1968. The family moved to Hutchinson in July 1972, and three years later, Betty began teaching at Central Christian School.

As of 1990, Betty reduced her teaching to part-time work at the Adult Learning Center. Most of the students at the Adult Learning Center are persons who, for one reason or another, did not graduate from high school and are in process of earning a GED (General Education Development) diploma.

Betty was preceded in death by her parents; husband, Charles Atwater; son, James Atwater; and brother, Merrill Jackson.

SURVIVORS:
Children & Spouses:
Ruth Peterson
Carol & Mark Beal
Steve & Lorraine Atwater
Grandchildren & Spouses:
Danton & Rebecca Zumalt
Shane & Stella (Siying Wu) Peterson
Heather & Ronnie Anderson
Kayla Peterson
Tiffany & Jason Jorgenson
Monique & Matt Reels
Charlie Beal
Great-Grandchildren:
9
Many other family members