Betty Hemenway

Elizabeth “Betty” Hearn Hemenway died Monday, Jan. 27, 2014, at her Virginia home, surrounded by family and loved ones. A service will be held Saturday, Feb. 8, at 11a.m. in the Historic Sanctuary of Eatonton’s First United Methodist Church. She will be buried next to her parents in Eatonton Memorial Park. Betty was born in Eatonton Dec. 29, 1925, the second of Henry B. Hearn Jr. and Elizabeth Knight Hearn’s five children. Her father worked for the U.S. Post Office and was later Eatonton’s Postmaster; she graduated from Griffin High School at 16 and from Wesleyan College in Macon in 1945 at 19. She worked as a feature writer and photographer on the Anderson, S.C., Daily Mail before joining the United States Information Service (Voice of America) in Washington, D.C. In this position she worked on the Far East desk, serving the USIS offices in the Orient. She later was stationed in the American Embassy in London, England, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Washington. While in London she met John Hemenway, who was attending Oxford as an American Rhodes Scholar. They married in 1954. In this next chapter of her life, she traveled the world as the wife of an American Foreign Service officer, serving in Germany and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. They returned to Washington where they raised their five children. As a stay-at-home mom, she was active in the PTA, becoming its president, and organized a summer program through the Washington, D.C., Public Schools that still exists today. Throughout her life, she was fervently interested in politics, providing people with information, and making the world a better place. When her children were in high school, she started working on Capitol Hill for Georgia Congressman Larry MacDonald. When a special election provided an opportunity to serve in her own home district, she ran for Congress in the 10th District in 1976 and 1978, losing to Doug Bernard. Her campaign literature for this election puts her life work in perspective of her Georgia roots: “As a press officer with the State Department’s overseas information program and later the wife of a U.S. diplomat, I have worked hard to put Georgia’s best foot forward both in this country and abroad.” All who knew her were quick to say, “You can take Betty out of Georgia but you can’t take the Georgia out of Betty.” She was preceded in death by parents and her brother, Dr. Henry B. Hearn III. In addition to her husband, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, she is survived by her sisters, Jane Hearn of Eatonton and Joyce Hearn Gay of Millen, Ga.; and a brother, Carlton Hearn (Barbara) of Washington, Ga.

Betty Hemenway

December 29, 1925 - January 27, 2014