Betty Koty Walker

Renowned South Carolina watercolor artist Betty Koty Walker passed away peacefully on January 4, 2021 at the age of 93. Devoted wife of Dr. James L. Walker and active mother of four sons, her life ended surrounded by them all at her bedside after many months of separation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She died at the Presbyterian Community in Clinton, SC, where she was cared for by a loving and attentive staff.

Betty was born Elizabeth Marie Koty in Bristol, Virginia, to Ernest and Marie Koty on September 9, 1927. She moved with her family to Columbia, South Carolina at the age of seven. A child of the Depression, Betty loved the movies, where she often spent Saturday afternoons watching three in a row.

For her 12th birthday, Betty received a typewriter. She mastered it lickety-split, her new skill coming in handy at Columbia High, where she first became a student reporter, then editor-in-chief of her school paper. She loved reporting the news and went on to to receive a degree in journalism at the University of South Carolina. While still in college, Betty was hired part-time as a reporter for South Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State.

After graduation, she joined the staff of The State as the paper’s first woman reporter, covering the cultural scene in Columbia. Her biggest scoop came in 1952, while her new husband was stationed overseas serving in the Korean War. After receiving a tip that the newly-elected 32nd President of the United States would be relaxing at Augusta National Golf Club after a bruising campaign, Betty talked her editor into paying to send her there to cover the event. It paid off, with Betty becoming the first female reporter in America granted an interview with its new president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Betty retired from journalism after her husband Jim returned from the Korean War and established a medical practice in Clinton, South Carolina. Jim and Betty’s four sons -- Jimmy, Bill, George and Andy -- were born between 1954 and 1964.

While raising her boys, Betty maintained an active social life with a tight circle of friends in bridge, book and sewing clubs, playing tennis and wallpapering each other’s homes. These ladies, who embraced Betty soon after she moved to Clinton as the wife of its newest doctor in 1953, remained close companions and partners in crime for nearly seven decades.

In the spring of 1974, Betty -- a lifelong doodler while talking on the telephone -- helped Clinton organize its first-ever arts festival. Fearing there wouldn’t be enough entries, Betty dug out her only painting, a 35-year-old watercolor she’d made during her one art class at the University of South Carolina. She was shocked when her painting won first place, was widely praised, and both the judges and her friends encouraged her to do something with her talent.

Soon after, Betty developed malignant breast cancer. After recovering from a radical mastectomy, she quietly became a long-term volunteer with the Reach to Recovery program of the American Cancer Society. For years, she privately served other women recovering from breast surgery, with support, home visits and offering hope for a life beyond cancer.

As for her own life beyond cancer, with her children leaving the nest and no idea how much time she had left, Betty set about pursuing art. In her late forties, with fellow Clinton artist Genie Wilder, Betty began traveling to take watercolor classes and weekend seminars. The two women quickly became fast friends and serious painting buddies, encouraging and critiquing each other’s paintings as they both worked tirelessly to achieve mastery of one of painting’s most difficult mediums and becoming well-known Southern artists in the process.

Betty’s watercolors were known for evoking feelings of wonder, grace and sensitivity while celebrating the mystical relationship between light and color. In hues ranging from muted pastels to vibrant jewel tones to magical darks, her work brought vibrant new life to familiar South Carolina scenes, as well as celebrating the faraway regions she visited in the United States and abroad.

Betty’s paintings can be found in private and corporate collections throughout the United States. She won numerous awards in more than 100 one-person and group shows from the East Coast to California, including National Watercolor Oklahoma, Georgia National Watercolor, and Southern Watercolor. In New York her work has been exhibited at such prestigious venues as the Salmagundi Art Club on Fifth Avenue and the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Exhibition.

At the age of 71, twenty-five years after picking up a brush, Betty achieved a long-dreamed, career-capping goal when she joined the ranks of the most accomplished watercolor artists in the United States. With her invitation to become a lifetime Signature Member of the American Watercolor Society, Betty became one of less than 500 American artists to hold this honor and the organization’s oldest “new” inductee.

Her final exhibition of paintings came just a year ago, in December 2019. Betty brought her work home with a retrospective exhibition of some of her best paintings at the Presbyterian Community in Clinton, SC.

Betty loved Frank Sinatra. She loved to play tennis. She loved reading obituaries. She was happiest at the beach, feeding the birds and listening to the sound of the surf as she took long walks at the water’s edge, collecting seashells.

Betty served for a number of years as head of the altar guild at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Clinton. She was also a Cub Scout den mother, cheered her sons at sports whether they won or lost, was an enthusiastic member of Chi Omega sorority, the National Watercolor Society, and the South Carolina Watercolor Society. She served into her mid-eighties on the board of directors of the Palmetto Bank.

Aging into her nineties, Betty began to suffer significant memory loss, was diagnosed with Alzheimers’s disease, and became a resident in assisted living at the Presbyterian Community in Clinton. During the final ten months of her life, Covid restrictions abruptly ended Betty’s highly anticipated, seven-day-a-week visits by her husband Jim to her residence at Presbyterian Community. An exception was made on December 2, 2020, when Betty and Jim were finally able to reunite for a brief hour to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary at a table for two in the chapel of the Presbyterian Community, face-to-face once again, with cake, champagne, flowers, laughter, and memories of a long and happy life together.

Ironically, according to her devoted nurse Kaylin Wilson, who became a constant companion and great friend during Betty’s final months, her memory loss proved an unexpected blessing during the pandemic. She told one of Betty’s sons, “She knows nothing of the bad that’s going on right now. You and your brothers just visited in her mind and your dad is ‘busy as always.’ She’s not depressed or feeling alone as most would suspect because her mind lives with all the memories that your family have given her over the years! Hold on to that. Let it give you comfort and try not to worry and stress because she’s not! She told me, ‘I did other great things besides being a mom. But the best was being their mother and them being my children and it was number one on my list of things I’ve accomplished in my life.’”

Betty is survived by her husband of 70 years, Dr. James L. Walker, and their four sons -- Jimmy (and his children Graham and Hannah), Bill (and his husband Kelly and their children Elizabeth and James), George (and his wife Tonya and their son Dawson) and Andy (and his wife Elizabeth and their children Ginny, Andrew and Margaret). She is survived as well by her brother Ernest Lee Koty, Jr. and his children, her niece and nephew Marylee and Dow.

Betty would like for you to know that she died with her lipstick on.

Memorials can be made to Presbyterian Homes of South Carolina (Clinton) or Hospice of Laurens County.

Plans for a post-Covid memorial service will be announced at a later date, when a safer world allows for a proper celebration of her astonishing life.