Betty Blue Notes

Woman who lived, died a recluse will be mourned.

By Bill McClellan

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Sunday, Jan. 07 2007

"She is wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters, and the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor."

— Leonard Cohen from "Suzanne"

Most of Betty Wynn's bed was covered with trash, but there was a little corner in which she could lie down. That was all she needed. She was not concerned about the things that concern most people.

On the day after Christmas, her brother, Sam Lachterman, got up first. He is 85 years old, six years younger than his sister. He has long white hair, an unkempt white beard. He has a doctorate in mathematics, and he never married. He has lived with his sister most of his life. He was in the kitchen when he heard her call out from the room that had once been a dining room.

She was on the floor, which was, as always, hidden under mounds of trash. He almost stepped on her. Then she rolled over on her side and he saw her. He tried to help her, but after a while, he decided she was dead. He called 911.

The EMS crew must have been shocked when they entered the house. It's not a fancy-looking place, but it's in a nice section of Olivette. How best to describe the mess inside? Betty, who really did wear rags and feathers and had almost no middle-class sensibilities, would not let friends enter the house. She did not want people to see its condition.

The EMS crew put Betty on a stretcher and rushed her to St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where she was declared dead. Sam had ridden along in the ambulance, and a social worker told him he would not be allowed to return to the house. It is being condemned, she said. Was there a friend with whom he could stay? she asked.

He tried to think. He and his sister are widely known, especially around Washington University. For years, they have attended lectures, recitals and other events at which food is served. They were once banned from the university — they had been living in a car on a university parking lot — but sympathetic faculty intervened and pointed out that both Betty and Sam were Wash U. graduates. They were strange, yes, but they were part of the fabric of the university, their sympathizers argued. The administration relented, and the ban was lifted.

Well-known though he was, Sam had a hard time thinking of a name to give the social worker. Sam is not a gregarious sort. He was an instructor at Washington University while working toward his doctorate, and he was a professor at St. Louis University from 1964 to 1974, but he has not worked since. He went to events with his sister, but it was mostly Betty who talked to people.

She was, by the way, a great conversationalist. Maybe it had something to do with the lectures she had attended over the years, but she was able to talk about almost anything, and she did so with great enthusiasm. The breadth of her knowledge seemed almost shocking because of her appearance. She wore old and mismatched clothes, and she carried things in shopping bags.

Sam finally thought of a name. Pat Zollner.

Pat has been an office worker at Washington University for 20 years. When asked how she had met Betty, she shrugged. "She found me." Pat may be the only person Betty had let enter the house, and even then, it was only in emergencies. When the phone quit working — Betty suspected rats had gnawed through the wires — Betty was afraid to let a repairman see the house, and so she called Pat. When Sam fell and hurt himself several weeks ago, Betty called Pat.

On the morning of Betty's death, a social worker called Pat. She went to the hospital. She took Sam to her home.

The house in Olivette was declared unfit for human occupancy. Pat and a friend, Bud Deraps, started a massive cleanup. They filled a trailer with trash. They've gotten a second trailer. When house is cleaned up, Sam intends to hire an electrician and a plumber and get the house habitable.

But how will he get along without Betty? She was the one who more easily related to the outside world. When the city tried to force them to remove a dead tree from the backyard five years ago, it was Betty who went to court and argued that the tree was really art. She won. Now Sam will have to more directly confront the world.

I stopped at his house one evening last week. Pat and a friend were hauling out trash. Sam and I talked. He said he knew things would be difficult without Betty, but he said he was eager to be back in his house. "I think of it as a refuge from the authorities," he said.

Friends will hold a memorial for Betty on Jan. 18 in the lounge at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. Betty graduated from that school in 1936.