Roy Lightner, Jr. was born in Wyomissing, PA, but spent his first 10 or so years in East Orange, NJ. He returned to graduate from both junior and senior high school in Wyomissing, PA. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1942 and subsequently landed a job in Boston, Massachusetts, and he found living quarters in Brookline, a suburb.

It was in 1948 in Brookline that he met his future wife, Betty Jenkins, at a St. Mark's Methodist Church Wesley Fellowship meeting. When Betty showed up at one of the meetings with a girl friend, Roy was then President of the Fellowship. Betty, who was a Baptist, preferred the Methodist young people's group because it was made up mostly of young singles whereas the Baptist young people's groups seemed to be mostly young married couples. At that time, Betty, who was born and raised in Maine, and was a 1946 graduate of the University of Maine, was living in Brookline not far from Roy in a room in a private home while she was teaching Home Economics in a public grade school there. The summer of 1948 found both Betty and Roy singing in the Methodist church choir and it wasn't long before they discovered that they had many common interests and attitudes and they began dating that fall. Roy said that he knew almost immediately that "Betty was the girl for him" and a short while later he made a promise to become engaged and gave his fraternity pin to her.

In the summer of 1949, Roy took Betty to meet a lot of his family at a family reunion at the George Wicklein Thompson farm near Birdsboro, Berks County, Pennsylvania. The reunion would soon turn out to be one of Betty's most unforgettable experiences. First, Betty, who was an only child, was nearly overwhelmed by the size of Roy's family. Then, at the picnic Roy and Betty had sat on the grass near some lovely shrubbery. Later that evening Betty came down with one of the world's worst cases of poison ivy.

Roy and Betty became officially engaged on October 1, 1949. On the evening of Friday, September 30, 1949, Roy picked up Betty in his automobile. They had their usual Friday night date, then drove over to the Reservoir, the local place for young romantics, where (as it used to be said) "one watched the submarine races". Roy waited until just after midnight that evening to propose and to give Betty an engagement ring. He thought that, in later years, October 1 would be a far easier date to remember than September 30.

Roy and Betty were married on July 22, 1950, at Betty's home in Bangor, Maine.

Karen Jeanne, the first of Betty and Roy's three children, was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, while here dad was still working in Boston. Karen is a Wilmington (OH) College graduate with an MFA degree from SUNY at Buffalo and an MLS degree from Drexel University. She is currently a librarian in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Soon Roy's employment transferred him and the family to Pittsburgh where their son, Kevin Muir Lightner, was born. Kevin attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for 2 years and then was graduated from West Chester University. He currently lives in Montpellier, France, where he had done his "Junior and Senior Years Abroad" and where he is now Associate Director of the American Library and an English teacher.

Betty and Roy's third child, Laura Elizabeth, was born after the family moved back to the Reading area. Laura is a graduate of Radford University, Radford, VA, and is currently living in Rocky Mount, NC with her husband Herbert J. Gorham, III, and their two children, Kathryn Grace and Andrew Merritt.

Betty and Roy had many wonderful years together before she died, on June 1, 1994, of the pernicious effects of diabetes which she had valiantly fought for over 10 years. She had been undergoing dialysis for several months and during her last treatment, she suffered a cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated.

The photograph below was taken on Easter weekend1994 on the occasion of the christening if Betty and Roy's latest grandchild, Andrew Merritt Gorham. The christening took place in the home of Betty and Roy Lightner.

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This page was last updated on 03/07/02
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