Betty Grae Fishman passed away peacefully on November 11, surrounded by her loving family, just three weeks before her 101st birthday.
Betty was a celebrated leader, advocate, educator, and champion of the arts in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Throughout a life of achievement, she received numerous honors, including an honorary PhD from Saint Francis College, the Governor’s Award for highest service in 1971, and the declaration of Betty Fishman Day by the mayor of Fort Wayne in 2004. She was an active member of the Achduth Vesholom Congregation, a sustaining member of the Delta Gamma Sorority, Designer Craftstmen, and the Ex Libris Book Club.
Betty was born on December 6, 1923, in Defiance, Ohio, at the home of her grandparents, William and Viola Wagner. Her parents were Marguerite Lunger and Dr. Guernsey Reiner Lunger. She spent her early childhood on her grandparents’ farm, where the natural surroundings sparked a lifelong love of gardens, plants, animals, and woodland forests.
At the age of five, Betty moved to Hicksville, Ohio, to live with her mother and step-father, Arlie Smith, a widower with three daughters, who owned the local lumber yards. She was a spirited child and did well at school, showing talent in both drawing and writing.
Betty graduated as Salutatorian from Hicksville High School and went on to attend Miami University in the fall of 1942. However, with the attack on Pearl Harbor, everything changed. In the midst of wartime upheaval, Betty quickly married her sweetheart, Howard Campbell, a jazz saxophonist she had dated during summer nights spent dancing at the Cold Springs Hotel at Hamilton Lake.
Betty and Howard moved to Arizona, where he trained fighter pilots while Betty worked in canning factories. At just 20 years old and far from home, Betty embraced her new life with a sense of national pride and purpose. She and her friends worked hard, but also played hard — playing rounds of bridge late into the night and sneaking rides in fighter jets on weekends. Betty never forgot her time in Arizona, cherishing her exposure to Native American culture, and taking up interests in weaving and ceramics.
When the war ended, Betty divorced and returned to Ohio, where she completed her studies at Ohio State University. There, she pursued a diverse academic path, studying fine arts, food science, and textiles. Along the way, she was both an honor student and a beauty queen.
In 1949, Betty married Marvin Fishman, a Jewish merchant and prominent member of the Fort Wayne community. As a young mother, she became deeply involved in the cultural life of the city. Betty’s daughters, Katie and Marguerite, fondly recall her sitting by the telephone stand, making calls from lists she had carefully compiled for various fundraising efforts.
During these years, Betty served on the board of the Fine Arts Foundation, where she played a key role in the creation of the Louis Kahn-designed Theatre of Performing Arts, now known as Arts United Center. She often shared stories of the interviewing process for this project, recalling her interactions with world-renowned architects who competed for the commission. Betty also contributed to the development of Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, serving on the committee that helped designate its new location, and facilitated the merger of the Fort Wayne Art School with the university.
Nature was often the wellspring of Betty’s creative inspiration. Her daughters remember accompanying her to the fields of Indiana, where she would set up her easel to create plein air charcoal drawings while they played nearby. Throughout her life, her family and friends grew to depend on her knowledge of the natural world, often asking, “What bird is making that call?” or “What is the name of that tree?”
Throughout her busy life, Betty always made time for her own artistic practice, exploring a variety of mediums including painting, drawing, cyanotype, textiles, printmaking, and bead work. The Fort Wayne Museum of Art is proud to have several examples of her work in their collection.
As her children grew older, Betty pursued further education, taking classes and workshops at the Fort Wayne Art School, Penland School of Craft, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. In the 1960s Betty joined the ranks of women who found the role of homemaker and volunteer confining. After her divorce, she married Russell Oettel, a painter and art professor who deeply admired her and supported her passion for the fine arts. They moved to a charming log cabin nestled in the woods, where they cultivated a large organic garden. Betty grew beautiful flowers and vegetables, made pickles, jams, and jellies, and baked bread every weekend.
In this period, Betty completed her master’s degree in arts education at the University of Saint Francis, setting the stage for a fulfilling 21-year career teaching art to elementary and middle school students in East Noble, Indiana.
When she retired from teaching, Betty embarked on her next career at Artlink, where she served as the Executive Director of the nonprofit art gallery from 1990 to 2006. During her tenure, Betty transformed the small gallery into a vibrant cultural hub and a major force in the Fort Wayne community. She brought artists and community members together by establishing an artist panel to select and curate exhibitions. Betty’s gallery openings became legendary in Fort Wayne, often standing-room-only events where community leaders, artists, and art lovers gathered to support and celebrate the featured work.
Betty is survived by her two daughters, Marguerite Fishman of Pacific Grove, California and Katie Eastridge of Princeton, New Jersey; her two sons-in-law, Patrick George and Nick Eastridge; and her two grandsons, David and John Eastridge. The last big smile of her life was given to her baby great-granddaughter, Eva Rose Eastridge.