Betty E. Comey retired to Provincetown 30 years ago, where, her family wrote, she loved “the many talented artists, musicians, performers, storytellers, longtime residents, and members of the Unitarian Church.” She died at 100 at her Seashore Point home on Jan. 12, 2024.
The daughter of Florence Mae Oatess and Clifford Henry Wine, Betty was born on Feb. 26, 1923 in Marion, Ind. She grew up in suburban Detroit, on family farms near Marion, and at her parents’ cabin on Jose Lake in Michigan. Her nickname as a child was “Cricket.”
“Her two names,” her son Bob observed, “mark the two sides of her character. She was very strong-willed.”
Inspired by Amelia Earhart, Betty took flying lessons in the 1930s against her father’s wishes. But she did not pass a physical and was denied a pilot’s license. She had, however, spread her wings figuratively a few years earlier by riding a bike from Detroit to Chicago with a Girl Scout troop in 1935. She was 12.
“Music was a constant in my mother’s life,” said Bob. She learned to play the clarinet, saxophone, and recorder when she was young; in her early 20s, she toured the country in an all-girl band whose summer home was in Saugatuck, Mich. That helped her “get out of town at a young age,” Bob added.
She married Howard William Comey, the brother of her girlhood friend Louise. Howard studied chemistry at MIT, while Betty earned an education degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. After World War II, the couple settled in Massachusetts, where Howard worked as a chemist and Betty raised their three sons.
“She was very capable, enthusiastic, and connected well with people,” Bob said. She volunteered for the League of Women Voters and played in local theater and musical productions.
She and Howard, who played trumpet and trombone, enjoyed playing with friends. Betty also played with a group called Quadrivium, a name that evoked the four parts of classical Greek education: numbers, geometry, music, and cosmology.
With her sons all in school, Betty embarked on a career as a physical education teacher and later was a middle-school principal in Stow. During the summers, the family vacationed at Nickerson State Park in Brewster. She fell in love with the Outer Cape on a camping trip near Head of the Meadow in Truro one summer.
That love led her to retire here. She settled into a condo on Nickerson Street in Provincetown. She played with the Lower Cape Orchestra, and, as she had done for many years, took forest walks, enjoyed birdwatching and gardening, played ping pong, and practiced tai chi. She swam daily in Provincetown Harbor or at Herring Cove and was active in the Unitarian church.
“Anyone who knew her couldn’t help but be uplifted by her wry sense of humor that stayed with her through her final days,” her family wrote. She continued to walk, even though she needed a walker, and in her final days she explored Seashore Point in her wheelchair under the care of staff, to whom the family expressed thanks.
During Betty’s 100th birthday celebration last year, she said she wished that everyone could have a Provincetown in their life.
Betty is survived by her sons, James Malcom Comey of Fairfield, Iowa, Robert Howard Comey of Wilson, Wyo., and David Allen Comey of Harpswell, Maine. Her daughter-in-law Susan Comey of Harpswell managed Betty’s care and supported her desire for independence. She is also survived by her partner, Linton Watts, and by five grandchildren: Darcy, Danika, Megan, Morgan, and Nikita. “They have fond memories of swimming in the moonlight with Grandma Betty,” the family wrote.
She was predeceased by her husband, Howard William Comey.
A celebration of Betty’s life will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown on Sunday, March 3. In lieu of flowers or donations, the family asks that friends honor Betty’s wish for people to be extra nice to friends, strangers, pets, and themselves.
