Bettie Miller Purdom

Bettie Miller Purdom of Decatur, Georgia, died February 15, 2016 at the age of 97. She was born Sarah Mahala Miller on December 6, 1918 in Laurel Springs NC, the daughter of the late Dr. Wayne Joseph Miller and Jennie Jones Miller, of Lenoir, NC, but changed her name, herself, to "Bettie" at the age of two.
Bettie started painting at the age of twelve, took art lessons at Davenport College in Lenoir, and had dreams of going to Chicago to pursue an art career. Instead, her parents thought it better to curb her independence and sent her to Georgia State College for Women, in Milledgeville GA, near a maiden aunt, where she graduated in 1939 with a B.S. in institutional management (as a dietician). She was never able to pursue a formal career in art but did not lose her independent streak. On April 12, 1939, she eloped and married Paul Walton Purdom, civil engineer, in Louisville, Ga. In a concession to her mother-in-law, however, she and Walt solemnized their marriage in a traditional church ceremony in Savannah on 23 July 1939 performed by Walt's uncle.
Bettie and Walt's marriage was quite an adventure, taking them from Georgia where Walt got his first job as a junior engineer with the Georgia Power Company, to Arkansas, to Indiana, to Nashville, to Knoxville, to Atlanta, to Philadelphia where Walton wound up as a professor of environmental sciences at Drexel and then back to Decatur, Georgia after Walton retired. Along the way, they renovated houses, built one from scratch in Knoxville, and added additions to existing houses. Bettie always got the jobs that, in the Purdom family circle, are called "women's work" - the roofing, concrete finishing, stone laying, cooking and child raising. Bettie was an avid gardener, and as the children grew older she resumed her creative pursuits as a prolific amateur artist and a developer of extensive landscaping projects. In the process she became skilled at stone work - building stone walls, small stone buildings, and even a stone fireplace. She and Walton were married until his death in 1986 - forty-seven years together.
She outlived her two brothers Wayne Joseph Miller and Daniel Walter Miller and her son-in-law LCDR Lawrence Allan Cross USN but is survived by her son Wayne Miller Purdom, Chief Judge of the State Court of DeKalb County, his wife Susan Ellis Purdom of Decatur GA, and their children Karenina Darmer, Elizabeth Purdom El Karoui and Catherine Purdom Marreiro; by her son Paul Walton Purdom Jr, Professor of Computer Science at Indiana University, his wife Donna Armstrong Purdom of Bloomington IN, and their children Barbara Purdom Phipps, Linda Purdom Bryan and Paul Walton Purdom III; and by her daughter Anne Purdom Cross, retired Executive Director of Global Biometric Sciences at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, of North Kingstown RI and her children Robert Allan Cross and Lucy Caroline Cross Aumann; and 14 great grandchildren!
Funeral services will be held 11:00 AM Friday, February 26th at the Chapel at Decatur First United Methodist Church. The family will receive friends from 6 – 8 PM Thursday, February 25th.
Memorial donations can be made to Nature Conservancy at www.nature.org. OR
Woodlands Garden Box 27, Decatur GA 30031 (online at www.woodlandsgarden.org)




Funeral Home:
A. S. Turner & Sons
2773 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA
30033