Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Barca
June 25, 1942 - May 13, 2022
At home with her family, after a relentless illness, Betsy Barca called it quits on Friday, May 13,2022. Raise your glass, share a laugh, and remember Miss Bets every Friday the Thirteenth. Sharp until the end, Betsy managed and endured her condition with courage and graceful defiance. Betsy is survived by her doting husband Charlie, who was lovingly at her beck and call, her daughter Sarah, son-in-law Sean McGrillen, and their children Libby and Sid, who often visited and provided Betsy with love and entertainment.
Betsy was a thankful, upbeat, and grateful person. She felt lucky to have been born to Alice O’Connor, who lost Betsy’s father, William Luby, on their honeymoon and before Betsy’s birth on June 25, 1942. Betsy spent her first 5 years with her mother back at Nana and Boompa’s house on 14th St. in The City, with a revolving door of cousins coming in and out. Her many cousins were her first close friends. Betsy is predeceased by her mother Alice and stepdad Jim Whearty. She began her schooling across 14th St. at McKinley Elementary, continued on The Peninsula, and eventually took the train to Notre Dame Belmont and enrolled at San Jose State, where she earned a BA in History. Betsy was a family darling and anchor and a keeper of family stories. She spent a lot of time at the O’Connor house on Gellert Dr., SF with her 6 cousins. It was her cousin Terri and boyfriend Fred deFuniak who arranged the blind date with Betsy and Charlie for a Valentine’s Day party in 1960. The St. Ignatius Senior Prom was shortly thereafter and so began their endearing life together. Though predeceased by both Terri and Fred deFuniak and her brother Jim and his wife Kathy Meyer Whearty, the stories of their many laughs and adventures kept flowing. Betsy was not ambitious for material things and focused rather on the well-being of others. Betsy was suddenly predeceased, last year by their foster son, Steven Paul Boyd, age 61, who Charlie and Betsy had raised as their son from the age of 9. She is survived by her sister Barbara Evans (Harlan), sister-in-law Pamela Barca Wittig (Ted) and all the Evans, Bisio, Whearty, Boyd, and Wittig nieces and nephews who fondly remember her as “Auntie Different” and “Monster Mom.” She is additionally survived by many O’Connor, Dowling, Shaughnessy, and Bain cousins.
Betsy collected life-long friends at school and throughout her working life at Standard Oil, and as a credit manager at Levi Strauss, and Koret of California. In retirement, she volunteered with the “Barn Girls” at the Little Sisters of the Poor on Lake St., nurtured friendships in Moss Beach, at yoga class, and her ukulele group. A voracious reader and longtime fan of the written word, she never hesitated or forgot to send letters, cards, or other cut-and-paste antics. She would recommend Masterpiece Theater, Shtisel, solve Sudoku and NYTimes crosswords, keep up with sports happenings, cultivate succulents and play gin rummy.
We will dearly miss the sparkle of love, mischief, and happiness in her eyes, her sharp wit, her Kiss Pies, and the challenge of catapulting her into an uncontrollable and seemingly endless laughing jag.
Betsy has donated her body to the UCSF Willed Body Program. We would like to thank her Kaiser Redwood City Hospice nurse Kathy and team and her caretaker Tutu for their generous love and care. God Bless and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
A Memorial Mass will be celebrated at 11:00 on Saturday, June 25, 2022, her 80th birthday, at St. Stephen Catholic Church, 451 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco.