Betty Marie Swan

Betty Marie (Hallstrand) Swan

Betty Marie Swan passed away peacefully on January 5th, 2023 seven months shy of her 100th birthday. Until early 2022 she lived in Town of Hill east of Ogema in the home her husband Emery and her built. Betty was proceeded in death by Emery who passed away at the age of 89 and her sister Bernice Hallstrand Bergeson who passed away the age of 54. Betty is survived by her 4 sons Monte Morgan in Evergreen, Colorado; Dr. Michael Weston in Green Bay, Wisconsin; Mark Jonathan in Gillett Wyoming; and Marshall Scott in Fennimore, Wisconsin. Betty was born in Ashland, Wisconsin September 10, 1923 to Carl and Ester Hallstrand. Carl, a WWI veteran, worked as a tradesman for a large iron works company that closed for good during the Great Depression. They moved to Ogema where they owned a gas station and blacksmith shop and rented a house which stood where the Ogema Baptist Church now stands. In 1930 her parents owned and operated the Ogema Hotel where Betty grew up and for a time baked 5-7 pies every morning before school in a wood cook stove. She graduated from Prentice High School in 1940 at age 16 and took a one-year nursing course at Bethel Junior College in St. Paul, Minnesota and then worked in home care for a while in Chicago. Betty eloped with Emery Swan in 1947 and they were married in Janesville Wisconsin after they convinced the minister they were not runaways. They built a home on Pearson's Lake in Town of Hill out of one white pine tree, and then owned a grocery store in Cecil, before moving to Franklin, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While raising their four sons with Emery, Betty did portrait negative retouching part time until the advent of digital retouching. She then took up rosemaling gaining national recognition for her pieces. Emery and Betty were members of the Beloit Road Baptist Church in Milwaukee where she was a pianist and a member of the Woman Missionary Guild, PTA and Gardening Organic Club and for a time a Red Cross volunteer. It was not until their sons grew up and graduated from college that Emery and Betty retired to Town of Hill east of Ogema, Wisconsin where they built a home with wood off their land, raised ginseng and grew Christmas trees. During this time they also traveled extensively, visiting all 48 states, Canada and Mexico often with Emery's brother Click and wife Melba. Most of all they enjoyed their 4 sons and families. If you count everyone in their clan, there is now more than 100.