LITTLE ROCK — According to her birth certificate, Bettie House was born Feb. 22, 1925, before a fire raged through Newport in March and destroyed several homes and businesses. Her birth records were destroyed and reprinted, but it wasn’t until years later that she realized the glaring error.
“Years later, my mother found out the fire was actually in 1926,” said her son, David House. “Her whole life she was playing on this bit, one year younger.”
Bettie Lee Gortney House died Saturday at Heritage Living Center in Conway from complications stemming from a series of strokes.
She was 87 ... or 86, if you believe the “family folklore,” her son said.
In third grade,House contracted polio.
“I just began to run a high fever and I had severe headaches and my left leg just wouldn’t hold me up,” House said in a recording from 1995.
Doctors tried everything from a body cast to leg weights to try to cure a largely unknown illness in that era, David House said. Doctors also wanted to remove Bettie House’s hips, but her father refused, turning it over to God, her son said.
House was bedridden for two years. She then walked on crutches for a year or so before she completely healed.
“My grandfather had promised God that if she lived, he would commit his life to God,” David House said. “And of course, she lived and then they were baptized at the same time.”
For about 50 years, House and her husband, Aniel House Sr., lived in the same North Little Rock house until his death in 2003.
“They were quite a pair,” said her daughter, Beth Vint. “They’d dance at home for us kids and we’d laugh and get tickled about it.”
Devoted to their Baptist faith, House loved “ sharing Jesus” and abstained from drinking alcohol, her daughter said.
“She liked to make rum cakes for her friends,” her son said. “We always had to tell the [liquor store attendant] that this is for rum cake, this is the only reason we are buying this.”
House was primarily a stay-at-home mother to her three children, who enjoyed “treat day” on Sundays, which included soda fountain drinks at a local drug store and popping popcorn, David House said.
“I lived in one of those Leave It to Beaver homes,the ones you think are just on TV,” her son said. “She was a disciplinarian, but she was a lot of fun. She liked to tease a lot, she was a real practical joker.”
When David House was young, he said he once watched a frightening episode of The Twilight Zone with his siblings before heading off to bed, justifiably skittish.
“The covers were pulled up [on my bed] and I walked in the room and turned on the light and it looked like there was someone in the bed,” David House said. “I got right up to the bed and .... and she popped up and yelled, ‘Woo woo woo.’ I just about had a heart attack and I went running out of the room.”
House added with a laugh, “She didn’t mean to scare me that bad.”
Standing only 5-foot-2, House always wore a pair of her beloved high-heels.
“The higher the heel the better,” her daughter said. After her mother’s strokes, doctor’s told her she shouldn’t wear them, but “she fought them tooth and nail and she wouldn’t go back to [those doctors],” Vint said.
House relented in recent years, but, for her burial, her family made sure to buy a pair of “gray snakeskin-looking” high heels for her to wear, her son said.
“She’s got her high heeled shoes back,” her daughter said.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 01/22/2013