Mary Elizabeth Artero

May 12, 1922 - August 14, 2012 At rest August 14, 2012 in Forestville, CA, Mary Elizabeth McConnell was born on May 12, 1922 in San Francisco, CA, the second child of William Erle McConnell and Ruth Farrand McConnell, whose home was in San Anselmo, CA. "Betty," as she was called, grew up in Marin County, where she first attended St. Anselm's Catholic School, then Red Hill Grammar School and Main Grammar School in San Anselmo. After graduating from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley in 1939, she worked for famed San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli. She then returned to school at Marin Junior College (now College of Marin), followed by earning her Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration at the University of California, Berkeley. Betty then lived and worked in Los Angeles until she joined the American Red Cross during World War II, working in military hospitals and on military hospital trains. This experience was her introduction to social work, and following the end of World War II, Betty went back to UC Berkeley as a graduate student in the School of Social Work, and where she earned a Master's Degree in Social Work. She was subsequently employed as a social worker, first by Contra Costa County, and later by Sacramento County Social Welfare Departments. While at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Social Work, Betty was re-acquainted with Marin Junior College classmate Peter J. Artero, who was earning his Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Economics at UC Berkeley (following his release from a World War II stint as a bomber navigator in the Army Air Corps). They were married in January 1948, while Peter earned a second Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Nevada. During this time, Betty worked in the university's Statewide Development Program and as a secretary in the English Department. As Peter pursued his engineering career, he and Betty together planned and built five houses, two in Contra Costa County, one in Mariposa County, and two in Forestville, CA. Betty is survived by her brothers: William E. McConnell of Rohnert Park, CA, and James F. McConnell of Sebastopol, CA, and her cousins, Jack and Mary Lynn Van Zanten of Pine Grove, CA. Her older brother George R. McConnell passed away in 2008. Betty's ashes will be buried next to those of Peter, her beloved husband of 59 years, in the Artero Plot at the Alamo, CA, Cemetery.