Subheen’s Eulogy

Subheen Razzaqui, Betsey’s Colleague at Newton North High School

It is an honor to tell you about Betsey’s life at Newton North high School. Simply put, we were lucky to have her as our friend and colleague. As many of you know, she was a passionate and intelligent woman with so many diverse interests and talents. The department was thrilled to have hired a very intelligent teacher who was an Art Historian- emphasis on the word Historian! For those of you who don’t know the History department at North, I should tell you we can get a little full of ourselves. We pride ourselves on our intellectualism and our passion for the subject of history.  The fact that Betsey knew her Art as well as her history and could teach us a lot in this area made her an instant asset. Add to that her genuinely animated and affectionate nature and she quickly became someone people befriended.

Becoming friends with Betsey was so easy because she was so generous with her knowledge, wisdom and compassion. We bonded because we were both the oldest children in our family and felt that THAT made us the ones to take charge when a situation warranted it and well…it also made us a little bossy in the eyes of our siblings. We joked about this privately and said that if the world had more opinionated women in power it would be a lot better off.

We also shared a love for our boys. Which included having husbands who both went to MIT and were in the Computer Industry. One could tell that Betsey found comfort and joy in her marriage just by the way she said Ronnie’s name As for her sons and nephews…well Betsey beamed whenever she talked about them. She was so proud of their accomplishments and more importantly their strong characters. At one point, she asked me to find nice Jewish girls for her sons so they would get married. I pointed out to her the irony-   that she was asking me- the Muslim. Which led to a discussion on how there wasn’t really much difference between our two religions.

I looked up to Betsey in so many ways. I can’t adequately express what she meant to me and all of us in the history dept, it’s easier to tell you about the light-hearted stuff. She was an excellent gardener. When I asked her for advice on where to buy rare plants she cautioned me before she gave me the website. “Be very careful. If I share this information with you, it will become an expensive habit!” Sure enough, she was right. We’d come back from each school vacation with confessions about which new plants we had bought and justifications for how THIS one was really worth it.

Conversations with Betsey could be so varied. One minute she could be talking about Economics and East Asian culture and another minute we could be laughing about something mundane. It was this combination of intelligence and heart that made her so beloved by all her colleagues and students.

As Betsey’s friend Albert Cho said it best “She was really special because she always stopped to check in and find out how one was really doing.” Jen Morrill commented “When you combine real intelligence with warmth and kindness, it is powerful. I always felt good after I talked with her.” And another colleague, Brian Goeselt, said she influenced him to use art as a medium to teach students to think critically. As he so eloquently put it “Betsey taught her students to not accept things at face value. She taught them to dig deeper and discover the structures needed to help understand the complexities of the world.” Many of us use the art powerpoints she developed.

A former student( Sadiya Ervin) said “She was a great teacher but more importantly she was a mentor. She gave me a shoulder to cry on when I had personal problems.” Another student ( Helen Gao) remembers enjoying homeroom in high school because of Betsey’s calm presence, great sense of humor and happy smile. Many other students remember her enthusiasm for cultures and world history remember her as being their favorite teacher at nnhs. There are countless more memories and stories about how Betsy touched our lives at NNHS. We will always feel this loss. So on behalf of all of her colleagues and students, I end with a simple thank you to her family. (Former student Jared Stein conveyed this sentiment over Facebook). Thank you for sharing her with us- we were blessed to have known her.