Betty Irene Elizabeth (Peak) White

December 01, 1933 - January 18, 2012

Betty Irene Elizabeth (Peak) White Obituary Jesus has called our Mom and she has left this life to enter into eternal Communion with her Lord God. Members of Mom's immediate family, preceding her in death are her father William Peak (1975), her mother Goldie Dilly Peak (1936), her brother Thomas Peak (2011), her infant twin son Robert Stephen White (1956), her step-mom Goldie Harvey Bruce Peak (1992). Surviving her in Kansas are Tom's wife Eva, her brother James Bruce, wife Mary K; their children and grandchildren; numerous cousins and their families. Mom is survived by us five children and seven grandchildren all living in the local area: Richard J. White Jr.,James Fowler, Rachel Randall, her husband Clay, her sons Steven Horwath, and Jarrod Jensen and family; Roberta Iliff, her two daughters Kimberly Downey Rollins, her husband Frank and son Gabe, and Caitlyn Iliff; Francis White and his wife Joanna, their children Heavynne and Bobby; Teresa Ackerman and spouse Darren and their children Lauren and Derrick Hayes. She was married to our dad Richard J. White, May 1955, divorced March 1978. There are five surviving foster-children whom she loved as her own and held in her heart all her life. Jose and Ileana Lopez, brother and sister, who immigrated as teenagers to the U.S. during the Cuban exile in 1962. Chris, Chuck and Tim Provinsal, brothers from St. Aloysius Parish. Chris and Chuck were first and third graders when they moved in with Mom and Dad, but later Dad's military career took us to California. When we returned home, Chuck and Tim lived with us part of their high school years. Mom has often recalled in family gatherings the great happiness and fun times she knew loving and caring for them. Dalynna, even though she had a great family, might as well have been Mom's too, so many smiles she brought to our family. Mom graduated from Paola High School in Kansas (1951), began work for Southwestern Bell in Kansas City then Topeka. In 1953 she began her Civil Service Career working for the Army Dept. of Transportation at Topeka AFB, then transferred to the Dept of Air Force at Forbes AFB, KS in 1955, resigned 1956 for her twin's birth and returned in 1957. In 1958 a military transfer took her with Dad and Rick to Plattsburg AFB, NY. While in Plattsburg, she worked as office manager in a moving and storage firm. She returned to Paola when dad went to Alaska (1959); there she was employed as secretary to the manager of Taylor Forge and Pipe Works. In 1960, another military transfer brought them to Fairchild AFB. She returned to civil service work at Fairchild, secretary in the Atlas Missile Program. She resigned in 1963, with a new baby on the way, to be a full-time homemaker and worked at babysitting those years. Dad had a tour in Vietnam; when he returned in 1967, he was assigned to George AFB in Calif.; then re-assigned in 1972 to Fairchild. Two children were added to our family during the five years in Calif. and the last "little delight to mom's heart" was born in 1974. Mom returned to work at Fairchild in the fall of 1979, working the rest of her civil service years in the Accounting and Finance office, the Base Hospital and the Contracting office from which she retired in 2000. Mom was a member of St. Aloysius Parish, active in the Altar Society (1961-66 and 1972-81), the Good Shepherd Parish at George AFB (1967-72) where she taught CCD (freshman class), The Holy Family Parish at Fairchild AFB (1981-86) where she taught CCD (third and fourth grade), St. Anne's Parish of Medical Lake (1986-92) and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish after she retired and moved to the Cathedral Plaza. Her greatest love in this life, after her God and Holy Mother Church, were children; first her own children, her grandchildren and her foster children, the many little ones she had occasion to love dearly either babysitting, CCD classes, or just any child's life she could touch along the way. Visitation will be wednesday and Thursday, 10AM-5PM at Heritage and a Mass of Christian Burial, 10AM Friday January 27, 2012 at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, 1115 W. Riverside Ave. with interment following at Spokane Memorial Gardens, 5909 S. Cheney-Spokane Rd.