1929 - 2023
Betty Sue Howard, 94, passed away peacefully at her home in Chesterfield, MO on September 2, 2023.
Betty Sue was born on June 30, 1929 in Carmi, IL, the daughter of Preston and Verla Coale. She graduated from Carmi High School. She started playing tennis as a teenager and played on a dirt court at her church with a pastor, her sister Mary Lou, and others. It was not uncommon for her to play for many hours each day.
She married Walter K. Howard on August 18, 1951. Soon thereafter, they moved to Olney, IL, and raised three children there, daughter Kim, and sons Lynn and Mark. They attended the First United Methodist Church.
Betty Sue divorced in the early 1980s and moved initially to Creve Coeur, MO, before settling in Chesterfield, MO, where she resided until her passing. At Mark’s urging, she got back into tennis soon after moving to Missouri and played multiple times each week at a tennis club. She was very competitive even with some of the women who were thirty years younger. At age 76, a spinal stroke stopped her tennis playing days but she remained physically active.
Betty Sue was a lifelong sports fan. She loved watching tennis, St. Louis Cardinals baseball, Chicago Bears and St. Louis Rams football, and Chicago Bulls basketball. She loved feeding and identifying birds and other wildlife in her yard after Kim encouraged her. She loved refinishing and collecting antiques, music, flowers, and reading. She enjoyed the sights and sounds of Chicago, especially visiting the Art Institute to view Impressionist masters. Betty Sue was a great cook and especially loved making homemade vanilla ice cream per her mother’s recipe. She and Mark made it at least fifty times through the years.
Betty Sue is survived by daughter Kim Collins of Chantilly, VA, and sons Lynn of Olney, IL, and Mark of Edmond, OK, and brothers Steve Coale of Marion, IL, and Michael Coale of Atlanta, GA.
Betty Sue was preceded in death by her parents Preston and Verla Coale, sisters Beverly Robinson and Mary Lou Hopson and brother Martin Coale.
Funeral at the Ortmann Stipanovich Funeral Home, 12444 Olive Blvd., Creve Coeur, MO 63141 on Friday, September 8 at 11 a.m. with visitation from 9 a.m. until time of service. Graveside service to follow at Maple Ridge Cemetery in Carmi, IL at 3:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
