Betty Jean Ertel Dillon

BETTY JEAN ERTEL DILLON Funeral services for Betty Dillon, a lifelong resident of this area, will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, December 27 at the Ertel Memorial Chapel. Betty will be laid to rest next to her husband, Dick Dillon, following the services at Cedar Grove Cemetery. Betty Jean Ertel was born September 11, 1919, the second of five children, to J. Walter and Ida Ertel. She was born north of Cortez, in Ackman, Colo., a town that no longer exists. Her parents, Walter and Ida, would spend summer months in Ackman and then return with Betty and her older sister Virginia to Denver in the winter where their grandfather was an apprentice at a funeral home. In 1920, Walter (fondly known as Papa) became a licensed mortician and moved Betty and the family to Mancos. The young family spent five years in Mancos, purchasing a funeral home from a Mr. Ames and welcoming two more children, twins Jack and Jane. The family and business then moved to Cortez, where they purchased a ranch and property south of town that became the Ertel homestead. Betty's younger brother Walt was born, but when he was just two years old, and Betty was nine, their mother Ida died at the early age of 36. This left Betty's father widowed with five children, all under the age of 12. Over the next several years, various people helped care for the kids, including their aunt and grandparents. And then Edna Lindsay came into their lives. A widow herself, with two children, Edna was just 28 when she assumed the daunting task of nanny and housekeeper for a combined family of nine. Edna's daughter Helen was the same age as the twins, and her son Richard was the same age as Walt. Much to the delight of everyone, Edna and Walter fell in love and she became Mrs. Walter Ertel after a few months of caring for the children. A final son, Donnie, was born to this union. Betty and her siblings attended school in Cortez and that is where she met her future husband, Richard Dillon (also known as Dick) in her junior year of high school. After two years of courtship, they were married in Aztec, New Mexico in 1937. They moved to the Ertel ranch and in March of 1938, their first daughter Dixie was born. Dick worked for Montezuma Lumber Company as a logger and a scaler and later moved the family to McPhee, a company-owned logging town where their second daughter, Roma, was born in June of 1939. In July 1940, a third daughter Sharon was born and by the next summer Betty was cooking in a logging camp up at the Glade above Dolores with three girls aged one, two and three. Soon after Christmas of that year the young family left for Vail, Washington in an old 1936 Chevy named "Sheasta" (sheasta have oil, sheasta have gas and sheasta have tires). It took three days at 45 miles per hour to get there, but they made it and they even returned in the same car four years later. Dick went to work in Vail for Weyhauser Timber as a logger. They later moved to Olympia where he worked as a longshoreman where Michael Sue was born in 1944. After three and a half years in Washington the family returned to Colorado and settled in Lewis where Diane was born in September of 1947. In 1950, they moved to Mancos where Dick worked for various logging operations and Betty continued the challenging but rewarding task of raising five girls under the age of nine. All five girls were attending school in Mancos when their sixth daughter, Pat was born in January of 1953. Betty made time to join the local chapter of PEO and was very active in the Methodist Church. She was also a 4-H leader, president of the PTA and belonged to Study Club. Betty was also a wonderful seamstress, making all of her girls' clothes and even some for their friends. She also made doll clothes and costumes. Her cooking was admired as well and her recipes have been passed down through several generations. In November of 1960, Preston Scott, their one and only boy, was added to Dick and Betty's list of accomplishments. By this time they also had several grandchildren to their credit, via Dixie and Roma and the Dillon family tree really began to blossom. In 1962 Betty, Dick and their three youngest children moved to Whiteriver, Arizona where Dick worked in Ramsay's logging company. Betty made a new home in an old Forest Service cabin without running water or electricity. In 1965 the family moved back to Colorado where Dick became Postmaster of Mesa Verde National Park and Betty was busy running Orchard Trailer Park. Dick's failing health finally forced him to remain home and the family settled in Mancos in 1971 where Betty cared for him until Dick's death in 1973. Betty then stayed in her Mancos home, tending to her beautiful flowers, raising a garden and enjoying nearly daily visits with her daughters and numerous grandchildren. Betty spent nearly 30 years in Mancos, immersed in the beautiful valley and surrounded by her family and friends. And in that thirty plus years, Betty's family tree continued to grow to include twenty-two grandchildren, thirty great grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren. Sixty three total children, all as a result of Betty Ertel and Richard Dillon falling in love. Betty Dillon passed away at the age of ninety-four on December 21, 2013 at the Valley Inn Nursing Home. Surviving Betty are her children, Roma Lynn Ewing of Mancos, Michael Sue Kern of Tucson, Ariz., Diane Muller of Mancos, Pat Morgan of Mancos and Preston Scott Dillon also of Mancos; 22 grandchildren, 30 great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren; and three brothers, Walter Ertel of Cortez, Richard Lindsay of Cortez, and Donnie Ertel of California. Betty was preceded in death by her parents, J. Walter and Ida Ertel; her husband, Richard Dillon; and two daughters, Dixie Robbins and Sharon Bott; and by her siblings, Virginia Mosher, Jack Ertel, Jane Fields, and Helen Lindsay. Memorial contributions can be made in memory of Betty Dillon with the Mancos First United Methodist Church or Habitat for Humanity.