Betty Jean Huntsinger

Before Betty Jean Moffat Huntsinger died Thursday, a hospice caretaker told her family, “Seriously stubborn people die stubbornly.” The statement could not have been more fitting. In the end, she raged, much like Dylan Thomas suggested, against death and anything else that wasn’t in her complete control. It was that strength her family depended on for 82 years. A lifelong resident of Buncombe County, Betty was born on Druid Drive to the late Joel Kirby and Margaret Spain Moffat in November 1936. She was the second of four children. Much like her sisters - Mary Frances Hess and the late Barbara Costello - Betty was often reminded of how much she favored her mother. Soon after the end of World War II, Betty was working to support her family while earning an associate degree from Blanton’s Business College. Whether it was beside her father in his downtown Asheville store or at the former Ice Service Station on the 1000 block of Patton Avenue, work defined her. By the end of her career in 2004, she had retired as a bookkeeper from The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and Ingles Markets. In 1957, Betty met her future husband, the late Donald “Don” Thomas Huntsinger. “She was very trim and neat and very polite,” Don said in a 2016 interview. Despite that brief encounter at a party in West Asheville, Don’s procrastination nearly changed the course of Betty’s life. “It was almost a year to the day that I met her before I ever called her,” Don said. “Then, one Saturday, it just hit my mind. I said, ‘I want to call that Moffat girl.’” To the benefit of subsequent generations, Don made the call. Betty was, of course, at work. But he called again, and this time she was home. “We talked for a good while, and then I asked her for a date,” he said. For the next few months, they could often be found together watching drive-in movies off Tunnel Road, grabbing a coke at Brad-Lee’s Drive-in and Restaurant, or having a ham sandwich at Babe Malloy’s. On one of those nights, Don asked Betty to be his wife. In less than three months, they were married on Nov. 26, 1958. Their union lasted for 58 years. They bought a house in West Asheville and planned to have two children. Their firstborn, Pamela “Pam” Jean Huntsinger McCurry, who shared her mother’s middle name, arrived in 1960. Four years later, they welcomed a son, Donald Richard “Rick” Huntsinger. Despite Betty’s association with numerous employers, being a mother was the most important job she ever held. In the early years, Don said he learned a lot about Betty’s strength. He watched as she dealt with the deaths of her father - whom she had saved from suffocating more than a decade earlier - and her mother by 1972. Like Don, Betty worked long hours, but she also managed the family’s finances to ensure her children didn’t want for anything. Mixed in with the challenges were moments of pure joy. By the early 1980s, Pam married Timothy Eric McCurry and made Betty a grandmother. Betty excelled at her new role and was genuinely a friend to each of her grandchildren - Kyle and Evan McCurry and Amber McCurry Foy. She also beamed with pride as Rick married Doreen Gervasi. As Betty got older, the years of work began to wear on her, and she retired to the home she purchased with Don in 1960. For the next decade, the couple sort of returned to their pre-marriage routine. This time, instead of drive-ins and movies, they were attending church at West Asheville Presbyterian, grabbing a hotdog at Celebrity’s or eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel. In 2017, Don lost his battle with cancer, and a large part of Betty died with him. For the next two years, she mourned his passing and grew closer to her two children. Pam and Rick saw to their mother’s every need and fulfilled Don’s wishes that Betty would live out her life in her own home on her own terms. Betty was witty, sarcastic, sometimes inappropriate, caring, compassionate and tough as nails. Underneath it all, as Don said, “She was a big softie.” She never took a drink or a smoke. She loved God, Elvis, Rush Limbaugh, RC Cola, hummingbirds and anything sweet. No one, including doctors, could ever tell her what to do. She gave of herself constantly and tried to do the best she could with what she had. In addition to the aforementioned family members, Betty leaves behind Mary Frances’ husband, Charles Hess; nephews, Robby (and wife, Stephanie) and Chris Hess; brother-in-law, Bill Costello; Amber’s husband, Cale Foy; Amber’s son, Killian Foy; Evan’s wife, Emily McCurry; and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her brother, Richard Moffat. Groce Funeral Home on Patton Avenue is handling all arrangements. The funeral is slated for 5 p.m. Sunday, March 3. The family will receive friends following the service, and graveside rights are scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday, March 4, at Green Hills Cemetery in Asheville. Flowers are appreciated. Memorials can also be made to the West Asheville Presbyterian Church Building Fund, 690 Haywood Road, Asheville, North Carolina 28806.