An Extraordinary Life: ‘She did the simple, little things with great love’

Last June Jeff Joutras of Wisconsin drove to Missouri to visit his mother Betty on her 93rd birthday.

Betty Joutras-Brewer’s health was failing, and she slept a lot due to her dementia, Jeff said.

At 6:30 a.m. the day Jeff left to return home, he first whispered a good-bye to his sleeping mother. Betty’s eyes immediately popped open, and she said, “I’ll be praying for you.”

Chris Siegel, Betty’s only daughter, felt Betty epitomized the Proverbs 31 wife. Mark Joutras of Shorewood, Betty’s youngest son, summed up his mother in these words.

“Mom was a gentle and loving soul who loved the Lord and all that He created,” Mark wrote in an email. “She loved to travel and see the world. Through her prayer life she was able to get passed the horror of our dad’s death and move on to live in the present.

“She took each day as its own and was joyful each day. Mom was a wife and mother as this was her vocation which she fulfilled with honors. She also loved being teased by her children as she taught us all that laughter is the best medicine.”

Jeff and Chris said Betty grew up milking cows on her parents’ 160-acre farm in New Lenox Township, Joliet and pumping gas at the family’s gas station.

Betty occasionally rode a horse and buggy to school, the former St. Bernard Catholic School in Joliet. Betty’s children later attended this school and Chris first teaching position was also at St. Bernard, with Jeff as one of her students.

“I know my mom taught catechism to the children who lived in these cabins on their property,” Chris said.

Betty graduated from the former St. Francis Academy in Joliet (now Joliet Catholic Academy). Her older brothers, Leo and Sylvester, paid for her high school education.

After graduation, Betty worked at Texaco Oil Refinery in Lockport until she married Louis A. Joutras on Aug. 5, 1950, at St. Bernard Catholic Church, Joliet and built a house next door to Betty’s parents. Betty and Louis had seven children. Vacations were camping trips – with Betty doing the cooking, Chris said.

Jeff recalled the hours Betty cooked, did the laundry and gardened. Even after Louis was killed in an explosion at Union Oil in Romeoville in the fall of 1975 when Jeff was a freshman at Providence High School in New Lenox, Betty still attended her children’s sporting events.

“‘She did the simple, little things with great love,” Jeff said.

Steve Joutras of New Lenox recalled Betty working the concession stands at our little league and pony league baseball games while cheering her kids on. He said Betty always made their school lunches.

Ron said that Betty, to help save money, insisted they bring their brown paper lunch bags home so she could reuse them. Betty even rinsed and reused aluminum foil. Betty’s idea of a “party” was to make popcorn at home and serve it in plain brown bags with butter and salt while everyone watched TV, Ron said.

“When we were little, she’d put wheat germ on our cereal instead of sugar,” Ron said. “She wanted us to eat healthy.”

But Betty’s frugalness enabled her to pay for Catholic grade school and high schools, her children’s sports programs and Chris’ piano lessons (Chris is a piano teacher today) and 4-H activities.

Steve said Betty took them to swimming lessons in the summer at Braidwood Recreation Club and always made him a devil’s food cake (his favorite) for his birthday and threw a surprise birthday party for him when he was in eighth grade.

“She brought the Joliet Herald newspapers in the car when she picked us up from St. Bernard School in the afternoon and dropped me off on Maple Road to begin delivering them, thereby saving me time and distance,” Steve said.

Chris recalled helping her mother with household chores babysitting her brothers. They took a quilting class together and went shopping together. When Chris learned to sew in 4-H, she made a square dancing dress for Betty, who went square dancing with Louis.

“Of course, things changed when I went into high school,” Chris said. “And then my mom went to work. She started to work part-time when my youngest brother [Mark] was in school.”

Betty worked for 13 years at the Will County Circuit Clerk’s office, her obituary said.

And yet Betty still found time to work fish fries as part of the Cantigny Post VFW Auxiliary #367. She belonged to the St. Bernard Altar and Rosary Society and the Providence High School Mother’s Club.

Betty even made rosaries that she sent to an overseas missionary.

“She made us all a rosary,” Chris said.

Ron recalled in an email. “When I came back to Joliet during college at Christmas time, Mom had me go with her to deliver some groceries to a poor family in Joliet, I remember it was on the east side in a “bad” part of town, so she wanted someone to go with her.”

After Louis died, Betty joined the Joliet Bicycle Club in 1976 “to meet people.” Chris shared a short article her mother wrote for the club’s newsletter.

“Although I had to force myself many times to go on a ride as I was lacking in initiative, it was a step in the right direction,” Betty wrote. “The new friends I have made, and the fun of riding has been very beneficial to me.”

Chris said Betty met her second husband Bill Brewer at St. Bernard Catholic Church. Bill had lost his wife to cancer. One day, Betty and Bill struck up a conversation in the parking lot after Mass. Soon after that, they began dating, she added.

When Betty married Bill Brewer and moved to Missouri, Betty became active in the St. Leo Catholic Church in Ava, Missouri. But Betty did “a fair amount of traveling” so as not to miss holidays, birthdays, baptism, “even though she was eight to 10 hours away” until “her health would not allow it,” Jeff said.

“No matter what, she always wanted us to say close with each other,” Jeff said.

Ron said Betty sent him homemade cookies without nuts each month because she remembered Ron didn’t like nuts. She’d send him prayer cards and chide him for hiking on Sunday mornings in what he called “the four walls of God’s creation,” he said.

He said she “reversed” the commandment of “Honor thy father and thy mother” with the way she honored her children.

“She was so patient, so full of grace,” Ron said.

Steve said Betty always went to weekend mass and always said the rosary and her daily prayers from her prayer book.

She was definitely of woman of faith,” Jeff said. “She lived that simply, but devoutly, every day. And I think she was just a great example to all of us.”

Chris agreed.

“I think she did a god job of bringing us up in the Catholic faith,” Chris said. “After our dad was killed, she told me that if it weren’t for her faith, she didn’t know how she would have been able to cope. And she didn’t know how people did it without having faith.”

Jeff recalled a time in his mother’s later years when they prayed the rosary together. He spent more time watching her than concentrating on the prayers.

“I was in awe of her actually,” Jeff said. “Here she is, saying this rosary with me and she’s just so prayerful and reverent. I’ll never forget that image of her eyes closed and her mouthing the words and following along with the beads.”

Betty died Sept. 28 at the age of 93.

While going through the items that Betty saved of the years, Jeff found a drawer full of the Christmas and birthday cards that he and his siblings had given her over the years.

And with those cards Betty left them a letter that said, “Sorry, kids. I’m so darned sentimental.”

• To feature someone in “An Extraordinary Life,” contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.