Betty Chapple

Betty Jane Chapple, 84, died Friday, June 30, 2006, at a nursing home in Whitefish after a battle with cancer.

She was born Betty Jane Mitchell on Nov. 3, 1921, in Mooresville, Ind., the daughter of Walter and Camille (Fennell) Mitchell.

Betty began a long career as a nurse in the Navy during World War II. Later she spent decades working as a nurse for Ford Motor Co. in the Detroit area.

She relocated to Whitefish after she retired in 1989 to live near her daughter, Jean.

Betty was a wonderfully unconventional, forgiving and kind person. Raised a Quaker, she was a lifelong liberal pacifist with an aversion to violence in any form.

Caring for animals was one of the great loves of her life, and she will be remembered in this area for the animal rescue work she did. She was active in placing homeless animals for the Animal Relief Center and donated generously to the Spay and Neuter Task Force. She partnered with her friend, Susan Mohlenoff, to save more than 150 feral cats in the area. Betty was devoted to her many pets and loved wild animals of all kinds. If anyone had true "animal magnetism," she did.

She was also a crossword puzzle enthusiast, a great reader of mysteries, and an artist who enjoyed many arts and crafts.

Her daughters remember her as a devoted mother — unfailingly encouraging and supportive. They remember her as one of the most profoundly loving people they've ever known, generous to a fault, completely unselfish, deeply spiritual, and determinedly optimistic. She had a gift for discovering the best in every person she knew.

Betty is survived by her two daughters, Jean Arcel, of Whitefish, and Anne Chapple, of Ann Arbor, Mich.; a sister, Priscilla Sherrick, in Wisconsin; and a brother, Walter Mitchell, in Florida.

Betty will be buried back in Detroit, next to her husband, Philip K. Chapple, who died in 1969. No services are planned locally.