|
At a dedication held at the UCI Main Library, Betty Annis brought the audience to tears while telling of a young girl whose life changed course because of the town library. “Books gave me a window to the world,” she concluded. It was her story.
Betty died at age 96, having lived so fully that her experiences could have been lifted from the pages she devoured as a child.
Intent on seeing the world, Betty earned a master’s degree at the University of Southern California before moving to Peru to study for her doctorate at the University of San Marcos.
Later, while teaching Spanish at Los Angeles City College, Betty met Verle, a respected professor of architecture at USC who lived nearby. Both loved intellectual stimulation, art and adventure. After marrying, they joined forces and explored the world together.
Betty used her mastery of Spanish to collaborate with Verle on his definitive book, The Architecture of Antigua, Guatemala 1543-1773. They spent summers at a colonial home in Guatemala that they had lovingly restored.
When Verle retired, the couple moved to Laguna Beach and began promoting the UCI Library – even before it was completed. Once the library opened, Betty became a regular volunteer and Verle was featured as a guest author. The couple made several lifetime gifts including charitable gift annuities, and one-half of their estate was bequeathed to UCI.
After Verle died, Betty continued her financial support to the library and donated rare books from her vast personal collection. When not traveling the world, she raised prize-winning orchids and augmented her extraordinary doll collection.
Education remained a constant in Betty’s life, and over the years, she supported a number of promising students – helping them find their own windows to the world.
|
