Betty Lazarus, formerly Executive Director of the Champaign County Mental Health Board, passed away on Tuesday, March 10th, at her Urbana home where she has lived with her husband, David, for 50 years. She was an avid reader, dedicated community organizer, and tireless advocate for children, whose passionate, outspoken letters to the editor on national and local politics frequented local newspapers for decades.

Daughter of Ethel and James Ross, Betty Lazarus was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 22, 1923, grew up in Winnetka, Illinois, and graduated from New Trier High School before attending the University of Chicago where she met her husband of 65 years, David, when he was a 17 year old college freshman and she was a 16 year old high school student. Married in 1943, they first lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during World War II where David worked at Harvard on radar jamming and she worked at a local bookstore until they decided she should volunteer at a local hospital instead because she was spending far more money on books than she was earning. As a young child, Betty was so celebrated for her ability to read volumes of material with enormous speed, that she was literally the object of scientific study.

Betty and David moved to Urbana in 1949, where they raised four children, Barbara, William, Mary Ann, and Richard. Their community was not defined by neighborhood streets, politics, or religion, but largely by University Department, and theirs for the past six decades began with the Physics Department at the University of Illinois. In the intermediate aftermath of World War II, the Physics Department at Illinois brought together a spectacular group of young physicists and their families, who combined to create a much larger extended family of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren that neither the inexorable lengthening in time nor space has diminished in their closeness. For Betty, the Physics Department was where it began, but it did not take long before musicians, sociologists, writers, philosophers, filmmakers, mathematicians, and artists, young and old, frequented the Lazarus household. Betty was, for many, an essential part of the glue that held the community together. Always an extraordinary and gracious host, her annual Christmas parties were famous for bringing together each year friends and families for great food and joyful conversation.

While her own four children were her greatest pride, along with her sister Lois's daughter Amanda Broun, Betty's children extended to many young people throughout the twin cities, whom she mentored and loved over many years. As described by her close Urbana friends, Lizie and Ned Goldwasser, "Betty was a wise and wonderful human being who was always generously ready to give of her time, energy and empathy to any child (or adult) who was searching for guidance - or just of an ear - to help cope with life." Betty herself once chose these words to describe her outlook on life: "Families are for building a better community. Families are for belonging to something bigger than just yourself."

Betty did not limit her community, however, to the University, extended family, or close family friends. She was a passionate advocate for social justice issues, immersing herself in the local community starting with Head Start in the early 1960s, and then working in the 1970s with her friend and colleague Shirley Stillinger to create the Suicide Prevention Service and Hotline for Youth. No doubt her single greatest contribution to the community was her promotion of the 708 referendum that, approved by the voters in 1972, imposed a county tax that created the Champaign County Mental Health Board. Known as the "708 Board," Betty served as its first executive director until 1978, providing financial support to essential social services throughout the community. She was also active with the League of Women Voters and served on the Board of Directors of the Voices for Illinois Children until 2006. Betty's commitment to political action extended to state and national issues as well, and she became a regular contributor of letters to the editor on a wide variety of topics for many years, receiving local recognition for her eloquent missives.

Betty also shared a life-long love of music and the arts with her husband and together they were longstanding supporters of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, which they attended regularly. For several years in the 1960s, she worked at The Gallery, a crafts, toys, and clothing store created by her close friend, Debby Fishbein, that brought style from around the world into the twin cities. Betty and David also visited that world, traveling throughout with close Urbana friends, invariably following detailed planning Betty worked out after thoroughly researching the history, culture, and food of their many far-flung destinations. But, outside of Urbana, her second home was Martha's Vineyard, where she and David have spent summers with their children since 1959 and where they built a house and an even broader community of friends that reflects their love for each other, their family, the world of ideas, and nature's beauty. An accomplished gardener and tireless consumer of political discourse, Betty was famous both for her blue ribbon vegetables at the annual county fair and for her impassioned views on national politics.

She was preceded in death by her eldest daughter Barbara, who died in 2003. She is survived by her loving husband David, her children, William, Mary Ann, and Richard, niece Amanda, sons-in-law Marvin Sirbu and Daniel Jay, daughters-in-law Suellen Lazarus and Jeannette Austin, dear friend Karen Frerichs, grandchildren Margaret and Benjamin Sirbu, Eben and Oliver Lazarus, David, Laura, and Michael Jay, and Samuel and Jesse Lazarus, great grandchild Brooklyn Beth Campisi, Amanda's husband Michael Siegel, and grand nieces Johanna and Rosalie Siegel.

There will be a memorial service at the Levis Faculty Center at the University of Illinois on April 26th at 10 am and burial this summer on Martha's Vineyard.