Senior isolated from kin has relied on faith
Shortly after World War II, 20-year-old Betty Beck wasn’t old enough to drink or vote, but she was of age to serve her country.
Young and intrepid, she left behind her home in San Saba and joined the Army as one of its first physical therapists in the Army Medical Specialist Corps. As the Korean War ended, she was stationed in Korea, where she met medical supply officer 1st Lt. William Beck.
They married, raised two sons and lived at several stateside bases after he transferred to the Air Force. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 28 years of service.
For the past five years, she’s lived at the Kaulbach Assisted Living senior community, where family members would visit her each week.
But since the beginning of March, there’s been a void in her life — that’s the last time a relative was able to be in the same room with her.
“It bothers me a lot,” Beck, 95, said via a video call from her apartment decorated with family photos and miniature American flags. “I’m not used to being without them around.”
Beck is one of hundreds of residents at the Morningside at the Meadows campus who are isolated from loved ones to reduce the risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Her son Bruce Beck, 69, and his wife, Patricia, 68, have kept in contact with her via FaceTime on her iPad twice a week or more. Morningside Ministries staff are planning to install a new in-room television channel to help residents stay connected with each other, family members and friends.
Beck last saw her family in person at the beginning of March for their monthly Duck Night, where the family gathers for a Peking duck dinner at Kim Wah Chinese BBQ on Bandera.
While he misses his mother, Bruce Beck said he appreciates the strenuous efforts in place to keep her and all the residents safe.
“Considering how isolated she is, she’s in good spirits,” he said. “She understands how dangerous it is. All we can do is live day by day, until it’s over. We are at the whims of a lot of others’ decisions.”
A retired lawyer, he recalled stories his parents told him about serving in the military.
After physical therapy training in Utah and military boot camp in Georgia, his mother boarded a ship in Seattle, bound for Korea.
She learned that the war had ended while she was en route to the embattled country. While stationed at the Korean base, she cared for patients who were amputees, helping them learn to walk again.
Among the framed memories in her apartment is a photo, yellowed with age, of herself in a white nurse uniform and black shoes, standing beside a uniformed William Beck holding a puppy in a desolate yard.
After a yearlong courtship, they were wed in her family’s San Saba home, after a slight hitch.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” she whispered as the couple walked toward the living room crowded with family and guests.
“That’s OK,” he replied, willing to call it off if that’s what she wanted, then added: “But that’s your family that you’ll have to explain it to.”
Taking the biggest step of her young life, she breathed in and recited her wedding vows.
After she separated from the military, she volunteered to help children and patients with cerebral palsy at her husband’s duty assignments that included Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston and Columbus, Miss.
Bruce Beck said that after his father died in 1989, his mother was quite wise about planning finances for the future. She set up a long-term care insurance policy that’s allowed her to have her current health care plan.
Recently, when home health caregiver Adriana Hernandez and Meadows executive director Wes Wells visited Beck, she was upbeat and happy that there are people in the community who visit her.
Being stationed in Korea after the war was much harder, Beck said.
“That’s the military part of you,” Wells said. “I’m proud of you being so strong.”