Mrs. Elizabeth Bovee

ELIZABETH BOVEE OBITUARY Betty Bovee November 24, 1919 - September 15, 2010 SALEM - Betty Bovee of Salem, Ore., an Oklahoma native, World War II civil servant, retired high-school teacher and great grandmother, died Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010, at the age of 90 of complications from a stroke. Her husband of 62 years, Keith Alan Bovee, died in 2004 at age 83. They were longtime residents of Salem as well as Norman and Shawnee, Okla. She is survived by two children, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She was born Pauline Elizabeth Dunbar on Nov. 24, 1919, in Tulsa, Okla., the eldest daughter of Ralph and Pauline Joyce (Herron) Dunbar. After graduating from Tulsa High School in 1937, she attended business college before landing a job as a secretary with Anchor Petroleum Co. in Tulsa from 1939 to 1942. When World War II began, she took a train to Washington to be with her fiance, who had enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in the capital. They were married Sept. 1, 1942. The military was hungry for civilian clerical workers to keep the massive war effort running. In moving to Washington, Mrs. Bovee was one of a flood of young women who answered the government's call. "If you wanted a job in the District, you just went down to your local Post Office ... and took the test, and then you were guaranteed a job when you got there", she said in a 1996 interview. "And the day after our wedding, I reported to the Civil Service and they assigned me to the Coast Guard." Life in Washington for the young couple was combination of glamor and gloom. There was a chance of spotting celebrities like actress Loretta Young and boxer Jack Dempsey, she said, but the nights were shrouded by the wartime blackout. They moved to Ogden, Utah, in 1944 and she worked at the nearby Clearfield Naval Supply Depot, where her husband was stationed. After the war, the couple moved to Shawnee, Okla., her husband's hometown, where they lived from 1945 to 1959. They moved to Norman, Okla., in 1959. There, she attended the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 1966 with a bachelor's degree in accounting. She taught bookkeeping at Norman High School from 1966 until she retired in 1981. The couple moved to Eugene, Ore. in 1981, and to Salem the next year. She and her husband were members of the First Presbyterian Church in Salem. Mrs. Bovee is survived by two sons, Timothy Bovee of Portland, Ore., and Doug Bovee and his wife, Nancy of Salem; a grandson, Nicholas Bovee and his wife, Aya Sasaki of Fukuoka, Japan, and their newborn daughter, Ange Sasaki Bovee; and two granddaughters, Kirsten Bovee and her husband, Jake Blaufuss of Westwood, Calif., and their daughters, Madeline Blaufuss and Anja Elizabeth Blaufuss; and Katherine Elizabeth Bovee and her partner, Matt Kirkpatrick of Portland. Also, she is survived two brothers, John Dunbar of Kellyville, Okla., and Bill Dunbar of Broken Arrow, Okla., and two sisters, Martha Jo Dunbar of Bristow, Okla., and Mary Helen Costabile of Tulsa, Okla.; two brothers, Ralph Dunbar Jr. and James Dunbar; and two sisters, Rose Dunbar and Ramona Florence Dunbar, died earlier. Her ashes will be interred at Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa.