Mrs Betty Lee (Hatcher) Pantuso, age 86, passed away peacefully on July 4, 2023, at her home at Weinberg Village Assisted Living in Tampa, Fla.

Born in 1936 in Kingsport, Tenn. as an only child to Irvin and Helen (Pebley) Hatcher (both deceased), Betty graduated from East Nashville High in 1954. After working as a secretary for a few years, she met the love of her life, Anthony J. Pantuso Jr, married in 1957, and eventually settled with her family in Newtown, Conn. Betty was widowed young in 1972, and never remarried, having done it exactly right the first time.

Betty went to a trade school to learn computers and spent two decades running the word processing team for the Legal Department at Union Carbide. The attorneys loved her so much that when UC split into two separate companies, they fought over which team would get to take her. After retirement, she moved to Fountain Hills, Arizona near her oldest daughter to escape the cold (she always said “Snow is a four letter word!”), where she was involved in the Kiwanis, the Fountain Hills Civic & Cultural Council, and any other organization that needed a hand.

Betty is survived by her three children: Helen Pantuso (David Small), LeeAnne Clark (Charles), and Anthony J. Pantuso III (Rachel); her two grandchildren, Julia Clark and Dean Clark, and step-grandson Aaron Accarino; brother-in-law Frank Pantuso, sister-in-law Genevieve Lane, a number of beloved cousins, nieces and nephews, and an extended “family” of dear friends of all ages.

Having been raised on a farm in Tennessee, she’d always dreamed of seeing the world, but the responsibilities of raising three children as a young widow meant that she’d never traveled outside of the US. However, once her children were grown, she reminded her daughters what challenging teenagers they’d been. So to pay her back for all the aggravation they began taking her on trips to exotic, far-flung destinations.

Over the next couple of decades Betty visited England, Italy, Greece, Russia, Bora Bora, and the French Riviera, among others. She rode an elephant in Bali, a camel in Morocco, and a gondola in Venice. She swam with dolphins in Mexico, ate Dim Sum in Hong Kong, soaked in volcanic mud baths in New Zealand, ate haggis in Scotland, took a helicopter to a glacier in Alaska, zip-lined in Costa Rica, and was flung out of a white water raft in Yosemite. Every time Betty was asked if she was done with travel, she would say “No! You were terrible teenagers. When are we going to the pyramids?”

No social gathering was ever as lively as one in which Betty held court. She could, and happily would, converse knowledgeably about nearly any subject with pretty much anyone, from waiters to mailmen to CEOs, caring nothing for anyone’s station in life. She loved to brag about her son the lawyer, and collected bad lawyer jokes. She was a diehard baseball fan (NY Mets and Tampa Bay Rays) and hockey fan (NY Rangers and Tampa Lightning). She adored good food and the occasional glass of fine wine. But more than anything, Betty loved to read, especially mysteries. There was never a time in which she wasn’t in the middle of a book. She passed that love of reading on to all three of her children.

Betty was a true warrior. She survived breast cancer, a hip replacement, two bouts of COVID-19, a broken hip, and several major spinal surgeries. She spent her final years fighting multiple myeloma and being lovingly cared for by her eldest daughter, Helen. Betty will be deeply missed by the many people who loved her. Having lived such an astonishing life, Betty’s family’s only regret is that she never did get to see the pyramids.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, September 9, 2023 at 10 am at Honan Funeral Home in Newtown, Conn. She will be interred next to her beloved husband Tony at St Rose Cemetery in Newtown. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. for the amazing care they gave her.