Betty Jean Rowe

Betty Jean Rowe, 91, of West Lafayette, passed away on Thursday, January 27, 2022, at Cumberland Pointe Health Campus.

She was born April 9, 1930, in Dawson, AL, to Mary Lois and LeRoy Barnwell on a small cotton farm owned by her grandparents, the Lackeys. Her mother and father moved up to Detroit to find work during the Depression and Betty shuttled between her parents and her grandparents. She met William Leonard Rowe in Bible school and they married in Detroit in 1952. The couple lived in several Midwest university towns while Bill pursued his PhD in philosophy. The family settled in West Lafayette in 1965, Betty worked at raising their three children: Susan, John, and Norman. When Bill and Betty divorced in 1975, Betty began her career outside the home.

Betty worked tirelessly for this community for decades to help the most vulnerable of all of us—the oldest and the youngest. She got her start at the Tippecanoe County Council on Aging in 1975, while at the same time completing her BA in social work and sociology at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, graduating in 1978. She rose to become the program director of the Tippecanoe Senior Center, touching the lives of many seniors by creating day trips, writing newsletters, and developing programs to keep their minds young.

In the early 1960s Betty had a dream to join the Peace Corps. In 1990, at age 60, she realized that dream and was stationed in Chumphon, a southern province of Thailand, for 2 years and 3 months. While there, Betty learned the Thai language and worked with teachers in 14 childcare centers, conducting training and helping them to establish a children’s library. She also worked with rural women to establish a company that produced artificial silk flowers, helping to pull them and their children out of poverty.

Returning to West Lafayette in 1992, Betty accepted a position at Head Start. In 2008 she was honored with a dedication ceremony for the Betty Rowe Early Head Start Center. In 2013 she was presented with a Women of Distinction award at the YWCA’s Salute to Women.

Betty Rowe would tell anyone who would listen about the incredible impact Head Start has made in our community. She would talk about the women enrolled in Early Head Start who are on the honor roll, the intelligence of the two-year-olds, the parents who finish their GEDs, and the one-year-old who took all the toys out of the cupboards every morning for the younger children. She would talk about the music parade of two-year-olds, who, when their teacher at the head of the line turned around to check on them, would all turn around as well. She would talk about the importance of reading to children every day.

Betty is remembered for her kindness, asking for children’s books as her own Christmas present so she could pass them out when she was out in the community. Up until 2021 she created fleece blankets by sewing a blanket stich around colorful fleece and delivered hundreds of them to the Salvation Army in Lafayette.

Surviving are her three children, Susan Rowe of West Lafayette, John (Carla) Rowe of Carmel and Norman Rowe of Otterbein; three grandchildren, Ellen, Lucas, and Zoey; and a great-grandson, Henry.

A memorial service will be held at 2:00 pm on Saturday, March 26, 2022 with calling from 1:00 until the time of the service at Soller-Baker West Lafayette Chapel, 1184 Sagamore Parkway W. West Lafyette, IN 47909

In lieu of flowers, those who wish to may contribute to the Betty Rowe Fund at the Community Foundation in Lafayette through this link: www.inspiringgreater.org.