Betty Jo Baskerville, 1917 – 2020

Betty Jo Baskerville was born on a homestead in Sioux Pass, Montana, on September 15, 1917. She died nearly 103 years later on June 21, 2020, in her home at Ida Culver House, Seattle, surrounded by her close family. Jo was the third child of Arthur Garfield Horsley and Clara Leaverton Horsley. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Eastern Montana. In 1939, she traveled to Seattle to attend summer school at the University of Washington, where she fell in love with the Pacific Northwest, and with a fellow U.W. student named Barnet Baskerville. In 1940, Jo made a permanent move to Washington State. Seattle was to be her home for the rest of her life. She and Barney were married in 1942, and shared a rich life together until his death December 31, 2000. Jo and Barney raised two children: Robert, born in 1943, and Laura, born in 1950.

Jo had a lifelong love of music. She made her vocal debut at the age of six, with a solo at a community event, and honed her sight-reading skills playing piano duets with a childhood friend. Later, at the University of Washington, she studied music, and received her Bachelor’s degree in 1942. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, when Jo’s focus was on raising her family, she continued to study voice, and to be involved in community vocal music. In 1944, she led the choir at the Fauntleroy Church. She served as contralto soloist at Temple de Hirsch, and later at the University Presbyterian Church. In 1963, with Laura off to junior high school, Jo returned to the University of Washington, and received her M.A. in Music Education in 1966. Throughout her life, she played the piano for pleasure. When, after Barney’s death, she moved to a small studio apartment, she slept on the couch to give her Grotrian-Steinveg grand piano pride of place in the bedroom area. She learned new repertoire into her nineties, and was playing Bach French Suites a few weeks before her death.

Jo was a gifted teacher. In her early twenties, she taught grade school: one year in Mildred, Montana, where the principal declared her the finest classroom teacher he had seen, one year in Grass Range, Montana, and one year in Silverdale, Washington. At 21, she was teaching piano lessons from her home to 42 neighborhood children. During the 1950’s, she gave music lessons to Laura and her friends and schoolmates. After earning her Master’s degree, she taught class voice for ten years at Seattle Community College. She continued to teach and coach singers and to develop her approach to vocal production for the rest of her life, retiring her last student after her 100th birthday. In 1985, Jo and Barney moved to Cristwood, a retirement community in Shoreline, Washington, where Jo attended a watercolor class and discovered a new passion. Soon she was teaching her own watercolor classes at Cristwood. Although she gave up painting at 90, when it became too athletic for her, she continued to coach friends in brush technique until shortly before her death.

Jo approached everything she did with a sense of artistry, whether it was musical interpretation, painting, getting dressed, or arranging a room. She delighted in program planning. Under her creative hand, what might have been ordinary occurrences became Events. Her piano lessons integrated music history, theory, dance and song. One year’s recital involved each child dressing up as a composer and presenting a short oral biography before playing a few simple pieces. In 1961, Jo put together a production for the University of Washington Faculty Wives’ Association, called “The Secret Life of a Faculty Wife”. Loosely inspired by James Thurber’s “Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, it strung together songs from Broadway musicals to evoke the fantasy life of a young mother bearing the vicissitudes of her husband’s graduate school career. Performed by faculty wives to an audience of faculty families, it was received with hilarity and approval. When, in her 101st year, Jo received a visit from a handful of her great-grandchildren, she staged an ice cream party with tiny spoons and cups for the stuffed animals, and prepared a “rabbit-hole” under her desk with books and cushions, and a dress-up station with her fancy hats spread on the bed.

Jo was an appreciator and encourager of the people in her life. She was a good friend, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Although she outlived most of her contemporaries, residents and staff at Cristwood and Ida Culver House will remember her warmth and kindness. Jo cherished her eight grandchildren. She took an interest in their interests, and egged them on in their endeavors. She also kept track of all nine of her great-grandchildren, although they lived far away and she didn’t see them often. She wrote appreciative notes about the pictures and handmade gifts they sent her, and relished accounts of their doings and sayings. Many of them shed tears to learn that they wouldn’t visit “GG” again.

Jo set a challenging example by welcoming—sometimes after a brief period of adjustment—each new chapter in her long life, and finding creative ways to deal with new circumstances. The last chapter was the hardest. Mercifully, it was very short: she didn’t seem to age significantly until after her 100th birthday. On that occasion, the family threw a wonderful party for extended family and longtime friends. There were flowers everywhere, good music, good food, and good company. Jo the matriarch gave an oral presentation to teach the younger generations about their legacy from her own. It was a joyfully appropriate celebration of her life, and she pulled out all the stops to celebrate with us. The memory of that happy event will have to suffice until we are able to gather again to remember a remarkable and greatly beloved woman.

– Laura Adjemian

Those of us from the Horsley part of the Baskerville family were fortunate to have Aunt Betty Jo as our matriarch for the many years after our father Don passed away in 2006. We appreciated being especially close to the Baskervilles as our mother Elaine Baskerville’s cousin Barney Baskerville married our father’s younger sister Betty Jo Horsley. Because Bob and Laura’s family lived in nearby Seattle and our family across Puget Sound in Silverdale, we grew up together. Aunt Betty Jo was amazingly talented, from her professional singing career, to being an accomplished watercolor artist in her 80’s, to playing her grand piano at age 100 plus. What also astounded us as well was her amazing memory and sharp wit. We remember her fondly as being a loving and gracious aunt. We will miss her.

– John, Dee, and Jennifer Horsley