Betty Lou (Williams) Alzamora, age 86, passed away Wednesday, January 2, 2019, at St. Thomas Hospital West in Nashville.
She was born in Nashville on November 29, 1932, to Rosa Lee (Lane) and Louie Cass Williams, and was raised on the family farm in Nolensville. Preceded in death by her beloved husband Armand Alzamora with whom she shared fifty years of marriage, she is survived by first cousin Marjorie Hernandez, and many loving members of the Williams, Lane, Couch, and Alzamora families, especially Constance Couch. Betty had a gift for building strong relationships over the course of her life that resulted in her large family of friends. All of us – those who were born into her life and those whom she gathered around her – were lucky to have had her and will miss her deeply.
Betty lived a remarkable life that touched and benefitted more children and adults than we can ever know. She graduated from Ward Belmont Preparatory School in 1950, attended George Peabody College for Teachers, received the Bachelor of Arts degree (1954) from the University of Miami where she was in the Radio, Television and Film Department, and received her Master’s in Early Childhood Education and her teaching certificate from California State University, Los Angeles. She served first as a teacher and then director of the Fountain Nursery School in Hollywood, California. She spent three decades with Head Start, first in California where she was supervisor for ten Head Start classroom programs and a Mental Health program for the agency’s Pre-School Program, and later coordinator for the Children’s Programs, supervising 150 staff working with Child Care Programs, Head Start Programs, Family Day Care, and a Health Clinic. She left Head Start to found two non-profit service organizations in Los Angeles, the Southland Community Program and the Family Assistance Program where she worked for ten years with homeless families. After returning to Tennessee, she continued to serve as a supervisor for Mid-Cumberland Head Start serving the counties surrounding Metro Nashville.
Betty’s faith and her faith community were a very important part of her life. Growing up, she attended Nolensville Methodist Church. During the many years she and Armand spent in California, she was an active member of the Hollywood United Methodist Church. She served as Director of Christian Education there and taught Sunday School to 3rd and 4th grade for 37 years. She was a longtime member of the Wesley Service Guild and served as president. On her return to Tennessee, she joined the Franklin First United Methodist Church and there functioned in numerous capacities including as president of the United Methodist Women, as adult class leader teaching Sunday School classes for more than twenty years, as a member on the church and adult ministry councils, and as a server for the Wednesday Night Live community meals. Her interests and activities extended to the Nolensville and Franklin communities where she was a member of the Nolensville Historical Society, the Allied Arts Club of Franklin, and Church Women of Franklin. A direct descendant of John and William Nolen for whom Nolensville is named, Betty was a member of the John Nolen Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Betty loved to travel which she did with friends through the United States and to foreign countries, an enthusiasm that started with a teenage trip to New York City to visit her cousin Ellen Couch Kuhn.
Interment will be at Nolensville Cemetery at 9 a.m., Saturday, January 5. A Celebration of Life will follow at 11:30 a.m., Franklin First United Methodist Church, 120 Aldersgate Way, Franklin, TN.
Donations may be made in Betty’s memory to the Franklin First United Methodist Women, 120 Aldersgate Way, Franklin, TN 37069.
