Betty Ann Vinton

Betty Ann Vinton (née Britton), a long-time resident of Hockessin, Delaware, died on 15 March 2022, after contracting the highly resistant MRSA bacterial infection. She was 93. Her wishes were clear: she refused more invasive treatment and, as she had insisted in her medical directives, opted to “die quietly in dignity in the presence of family.” Her three children were by her side at the end.

Betty was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and spent her early childhood in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Hers was a family of modest means, and Betty’s childhood memories included eating lard with sugar on bread as a Depression-era treat and collecting scrap metal for the war effort during World War II. Her father, Ted, worked for the New York telephone company for 50 years; her mother, Ethel, was beloved for her irreverent humor and musical talent. As the eldest of three siblings, Betty sometimes chafed at the adult roles she was expected to assume early in life. Her middle sister, Audrey, died of cancer in 1977; her youngest sister, Carol, also succumbed to cancer, in 2016.

The Britton family had roots in Gananoque, Ontario, so Betty spent many teenage summers north of the border in Canada. She remembered taking part in war canoe races on the St. Lawrence River and enjoying carefree times with peers staying at summer cottages across the Thousand Islands region.

Betty graduated from Valley Stream High School on Long Island in 1946. Vivacious and sporty despite her diminutive stature – she was only five feet tall – she studied drama at Syracuse University. Strapped finances cut short her acting dreams, however, and after two years she was forced to drop out to join the workforce. This incomplete chapter was a regret she proudly remedied later in life.

Betty was working for Bell Telephone in New York City when she met Minneapolis native William (Bill) Howells Vinton, a Yale University PhD and up-and-coming chemist at the Dupont Company in Wilmington, Delaware. They married in 1957 and had three children, William Howells (Wells) Vinton, Jr., in 1958, Louisa Reid Vinton in 1959 and Evan Griffith (Griff) Vinton in 1962. Bill died in 2007.

The Vintons were one of 14 families who together founded the idyllic Horseshoe Hill community in a rural corner of Hockessin, in what was then a wooded oasis from urban Wilmington. All of the Horseshoe Hill fathers were Dupont chemists. During the 1960s Betty kept house and raised the children while caring for an array of dogs, cats and other less traditional pets; sewing her own clothes; and baking the trademark brownies and cookies for which she is fondly remembered in the many places she later lived. She also tended to seven acres of yard and gardens; she was the rare person who loved weeding. In summers she and the kids swam daily in the Horseshoe Hill pond.

The 1970s were a time of dramatic change for Betty. She was an early and ardent feminist and also a peace activist during the Vietnam War. As her husband Bill struggled with mental health issues that forced him into early retirement, Betty shouldered the role of family breadwinner. She returned to college and earned a degree in sociology at the University of Delaware in 1976, the same year her daughter graduated from high school. She embarked on a career of increasing seniority that saw her advance from a bookkeeping position at a local restaurant to account management roles at Richard T. Byrnes, Hoover Ball & Bearing, W.L. Gore, Inc., and Dupont, from which she retired in 1997.

During her retirement, Betty travelled widely to lend a hand in raising her six grandchildren. For a time, she lived with her son Griff and his family in Belle Mead, New Jersey. She also stayed with her daughter Louisa and grandson Daniel in Vienna, Austria; Rocky Hill, New Jersey; and Zagreb, Croatia, where she became a fixture in the historic Upper Town, leaning on a cane to lead her faithful Golden Retriever, Trixie, on daily walks along the rustic Dubravkin Put trail. Summers featured regular visits to the family’s vacation cottage at Charleston Lake in southern Canada, located not far from the Britton ancestral home in Ontario, where Betty entertained her grandchildren at lakeside.

Betty was always active and sought to maintain a healthy lifestyle, pursuing swimming, running and aerobics as fitness routines at different periods in her life. Although plagued with atrial fibrillation, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis and sleep apnea as she aged, she stayed active and independent. She suffered from acute scoliosis that, in her 70s, threatened to make it impossible for her to walk or breathe; but rather than surrender to fate, she tracked down a team of surgeons who agreed to implant a titanium rod in her spine that ultimately kept her upright and mobile for another 20 years.

In her twilight years, fiercely determined never to be a burden on anyone, Betty took up residence in succession in three different retirement communities in Delaware: The Lorelton in Wilmington; Ivy Gables in Ardentown; and, finally, The Summit in Hockessin. Though she found some comforts in “assisted living,” her experience exposed her to the many weaknesses of elder care in America, and she struggled with loneliness and isolation, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Betty had a zest for life and an old-school strength of character that won her friends among people of all ages and backgrounds. She expected the best of people and usually found it. She had no patience with self-pity and never complained about the many setbacks that life put in her way. She was a tireless worker who found it all but impossible to relax. She was honest to a fault; she caused hilarity when she presented Canadian customs officials with an exhaustive list of exactly what the family cooler contained. She was capable of enormous tenderness and generosity, yet also wielded a scalpel-sharp sense of humor that she directed as much at herself as at others. This humor did not fail her even at the end, when from her hospital bed she quipped with a wink: “let’s get out of here.”

In addition to her three children, Betty is survived by six grandchildren and one great-grandson. Her eldest son Wells resides in Hockessin; his daughter Chrissy and fiancé Matt and son Will with wife Katie and their son Liam all live nearby in Delaware. Louisa works for the United Nations in Ankara, Turkey, and her son Dan is job-hunting in Europe. Griff and wife Betsy live in Rochester, New York; daughter Bizzy works in finance in New York City; Audrey is headed to Hawaii to research native island plants; and Natalie is studying sociology as a pre-medicine student at SUNY Purchase. Betty never forgot to remind her offspring of how proud they made her.

In keeping with her wishes, Betty was cremated and there will be no funeral or visitation. Instead, the family plans a celebration of Betty’s life at Charleston Lake in Ontario during the summer of 2022. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations reflecting Betty’s lifelong charitable interests to: Faithful Friends Animal Society (faithfulfriends.us); Charleston Lake Association (www.charlestonlakeassociation.ca); or Planned Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org).