NVCC Getting to Know You Series Introduces Betty Gabler
Navidad Valley Community Center will be serving a Thanksgiving meal on Wednesday, Nov. 18 and the St. Rose Singers will join for some singing and fun. Birthdays of the month will be celebrated on this day as well.
Crafty Corner is busy working on the quilt that Kathy Bertsch is taking the lead on, with Debbie Florus helping to coordinate the efforts of the group and working on scheduling a date for the raffle of this wonderful quilt. For more information or to make a donation to our cause, or maybe you need to purchase a soft, hand-made face mask or a lanyard to hold on to your face mask, call (979) 309-9592. The group will also be creating works that involve the use of wine corks, such as picture frames, trivets, ornaments, and other items for an upcoming sale, so save your wine corks for them. If you have any corks that you would like to donate, please call.
Betty Gabler is a regular attendee at the Navidad Valley Community Connections Center in Schulenburg. The center holds a “Getting to Know You” series on the first Monday of each month. The platform is a way for members to get to know each other, how they grew up, the people who influenced them when growing up, tell about their family, and in general, how they ended up in the room talking with NVCC.
Members learned all about Betty Gabler on Monday. She was introduced by Nancy Hay, executive director of the Center. Nancy said Betty is an icon in her community of Flatonia, and in the surrounding area as an example of the grit and vitality of the people who were born and raised here and decided to work and live their lives in this Navidad River Valley area. Her heritage is a proud one. Betty was born and raised in Flatonia. In her growing up years, Betty was an only child. Being an only child on a farm, she had no friends to play with because everyone lived so far apart and only saw other people when they went to church.
Having a farm was hard work back in the 40s, 50s and 60s and it really took a toll on her parents. Betty helped out as much as she could while attending school too. She graduated in 1968 and was married shortly afterwards to her high school sweetheart. She and her husband, Kenneth, were blessed with three lovely children. Betty was impacted by the loss of her mother around this time in her life and she had to be really strong to get on with her life. Betty had various jobs throughout her life and it seems like she has done some of everything. She used to be a secretary and then started working at an egg factory right when automation was beginning to emerge and she told us some great stories about stopping the line and getting chewed out for it but having production to meet and how stressful that job was. She also worked flipping burgers and at a custom screen-printing shop where she loved working with the artwork. Betty says that she has always been a “peopleperson” and loves meeting new people and showing others what she can do.
1985 was a pivotable year in Betty’s life when first, she was dealt a terrible blow. She experienced two deaths in her family and went through a divorce as well. She said, “I was devastated, but I had to go on.” When her father passed away she inherited 100 acres in Flatonia and has remained there tending to the land and to her family. She then met the person who would become her second husband, Milton Gabler, and told us how for their first date he took her to an American Legion conference. It didn’t matter, she was smitten, and after a brief courtship that involved many American Legion events, conferences, and meetings, they were married and Betty became a new wife, a step-mom, and a gramma all at the same time. Gotta love it. Betty had three children and Milton had three children and their union was blessed with the birth of her last child, Louis, better known as L.A., who is DPS Trooper, for a grand total of seven children! Betty and Milton were very active in the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary, which Betty was president of and held every office they had, plus she held some district offices as well. She was active in her community with Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Girl Scouts and is very proud to note that three of her scouts went on to earn Eagle Scout status. She worked at a daycare with children and loved it so much that she ended up buying the center and ran it for four years. She loves seeing the children she helped care for grow up and become stars at their high schools and excel at 4H. Betty loves working with children, as you can see, and is an active participant in the NVCC Grandparents as Teachers program, in which we partner with the community-wide Parents as Teachers. Let me tell you, Betty had us leaning in, listening to her story, but then she really made every one of us sit straight up when she told us she also had a job as a hooker. What?
Yep, you heard that right. She explained that she held a position one time with the title of being a professional meat hooker. She was working at a meat smoking plant and her job was placing thinly sliced marinated beef meat on hooks and spreading them out to become beef jerky.