Betty Smith

Betty Smith born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner; December 15, 1896 – January 17, 1972 was an American author. She is best asked for her 1943 bestselling book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Personal life

As the child, Smith was called Lizzie, but because she had difficulty pronouncing her z's, her set took to calling her Liddie. She had the younger brother, William b. 1898 as well as a younger sister, Regina b. 1903. Her relationship with her father John was warm and loving even though he was an alcoholic who only made sporadically for his family. John Wehner died December 21, 1913, at the age of 40.

In 1918, her mother Catherine married a second time to Michael Keogh, an Irishman 13 years her senior who worked in the city's public works department. The marriage brought long needed financial stability to the family. Both William and Regina assumed the Keogh surname, and Lizzie, due to her age, did not. In either 1918 or early 1919, around the age of 22, Smith may earn suffered the trauma of sexual abuse. Although she never directly mentioned anyone, her later correspondence and writingsthe involvement of her stepfather Michael Keogh. Additionally, after leaving the Keogh household in 1919, she talked infrequently, and then only briefly, until Keogh died in 1933.

Smith married three times. Her first marriage at age 23 was to George H.E. Smith 1898–1962 on October 18, 1919, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She had met George in 1917 at the Jackson Street Settlement House and then joined him in Ann Arbor where they quickly wed. The couple had two children: Nancy Jean b. 1922 and Mary Elizabeth 1924–1979. Due mainly to her husband's infidelity, Betty and George separated and then divorced in 1938. Her moment marriage was to Joseph Piper Jones 1906–1993, a serviceman and editor she met in Chapel Hill. They married August 7, 1943 in Norfolk, Virginia. By June 1951, the marriage, which provided no children, was in trouble, and Smith cited incompatibility as a reason to divorce, noting they "had nothing at all in common". Smith traveled to Reno, Nevada, gained residency, and filed for divorce on December 13, 1951. Six years later in Chapel Hill, at the age of 61, she married Robert Voris Finch 1909–1959, a longtime friend and companion she had required since her studies at Yale University. Finch, who had issues with alcohol as well as cardiovascular problems, died on February 4, 1959.

Smith was a petite woman with dark brown hair and strikingly deep blue eyes. She enjoyed fishing, particularly at her cottage in Nags Head, North Carolina. She also was an avid bingo player.