PORTLAND – Betty Jane Meade, 98, of Portland died peacefully at the Barron Center in Portland on August 20, 2022.

Betty (also known as “B.J.”) was born in Manhattan, N.Y., on July 30, 1924, the daughter of Robert and Della (nee Littlejohn) Davie. A child of the Great Depression, which bankrupted her father’s once successful electronics business, she attended public schools in Long Island, N.Y., and graduated from Hempstead High School in 1942. Her father having decided that a girl did not need higher education, Betty stayed home as her brother was sent off to college. During World War II, she volunteered as a caregiver at a nearby veterans’ hospital, tending to recovering veterans throughout the war, while also working fulltime at Bell Telephone Company.

Following the war she met William A. Smith, who on their first date brought her to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone roller coaster. They were married in 1948 and had three children, Shelley, Bruce, and Stephen. The family moved to New Providence, N.J. in 1958. Betty was a stay-at-home mother, but also worked intermittently part-time in retail and offices, and was active as a hospital volunteer and in other community activities. Throughout her life, she read widely and deeply as she pursued her love of literature.

Betty moved with her family to the Boston area in 1972. She and William divorced in 1978, and Betty began full-time work as an office manager. A graceful and light-footed dancer, Betty later met her second husband, Richard Meade, while ballroom dancing, and they were married in 1987. They lived in Randolph, Mass., and later Yarmouth, Maine, and Portland, and travelled extensively in the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean.

In her late 60s, Betty enrolled at Massasoit Community College and earned an Associate’s degree in English, graduating first in her class in at age 72. She became an avid writer, and took courses and participated in writing groups. She wrote many short pieces about her life, family, and friends that have been collected in a book shared among family members: “Memories and Musings: The Writings of Betty Jane Meade.”

Betty was predeceased by her beloved daughter, Shelley, who died at 16; her second husband, Richard, and her first husband, William. She is survived by her sons, Bruce Smith of Portland, and Stephen Smith of La Paz, Bolivia; her grandchildren, Benjamin, Daniel, Jason, Brandon, Amy, and Katie; her daughter-in-law, Jamila Smith; former daughter-in-law and beloved friend, Virginia Wright; her brother, Richard Davie and sister-in-law, Mary Ellen Davie; and several nephews and nieces.

Her remains will rest at the columbarium at Evergreen Cemetery in Portland.

Inspired by Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Betty wrote this:

Days fade away

like icicles in the sun,

But there is time for

work to be done,

Time to chop wood and

mend broken fences,

To forget old resentments,

let go of pretenses.

When finally self-doubt

is defeated,

And body and soul

together completed,

Comes a struggle at last

which I cannot win.

Then the dark woods

will gather me in.

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