Elizabeth “Bettie” Sperry Caudill was born to Ora and Margaret Sperry on November 8, 1932 in Las Vegas, New Mexico. She departed this life at her daughter Zyna’s home in Prattville, Alabama, on December 21, 2025. A loving wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, and friend, she was an active member in every life she touched and community. An Air Force wife, she served with her husband, Chuck, through tours in Korea and Vietnam, and moved with him to Spain, Texas, Louisiana, and Nebraska, raising two children, Zyna and Chuck, who went on to serve in the United States Air Force and Navy. As a team, Bettie and Chuck made ends meet by running a beauty shop together in Texas, and she worked as a beautician in every duty station. With retirement from the Air Force looming in 1970, Bettie supported a move to Lee County, Kentucky in 1971, and a return to Chuck’s boyhood home. They owned laundromats in Beattyville and Booneville, a used car lot, and built an appliance repair and carpet installation business together, which operated for 35 years until Chuck passed away in 2002. She opened and ran a beauty shop for ten years, and she managed the West Beattyville apartments for two decades. She was active in Eastern Star, Red Hat Society, as a band, track, and cheerleader mom, and in community economic development. She celebrated the accomplishments of her children, sending one to St. Edward’s University and the other to the University of Kentucky and saw both achieve Master’s Degrees. She welcomed daughter-in-law Pam Stenning Caudill into the clan and was thrilled with the successes of her four grandchildren: Stavros, John, Aristotle, Beth and Mary Kate. All received Bachelors Degrees and are thriving professionals. She treasured sharing the photos and adventures of her four great- grandchildren, Sage, Evelyn, Alexander, and Niko.
Bettie wore her heart and opinion on her sleeve and welcomed extended family and others into her home regularly. She loved without reservation and was fiercely loyal to family and those she befriended. She assumed the role of primary caregiver for her mother and her mother and father-in-law, Joe and Ollie, near the end of their lives. Numerous nieces, nephews, and friends always found a home and bed and were made part of the immediate family over the course of her life, and all benefited from her freely given love and homemade bread. She gladly shared her views on life, love, and choices, sometimes even if not asked. She inspired anyone who knew her to pursue their dreams and was always willing to push herself. She sang, danced, painted, wove baskets, drew, canned, gardened, and wrote poetry. She was a lifelong learner and adventurer who joyfully encouraged that same spirit in others.
A woman of faith, she studied the scriptures daily and carried them in her heart from her early childhood and was a devout student of Christianity until the end. It was the basis for the guidance she gave others and the core of the positive outlook on life that she carried throughout numerous battles with Cancer, the loss of friends and family, and all life’s challenges for nearly a century. She is now without pain and has left a legacy of love and faith. She had a full life and, by any measure, was a good and faithful servant of her faith.
Services are being arranged by Booneville Funeral Home. Visitation will be from 11:00 to 1:00 on Saturday, January 10, 2026 at the Booneville Funeral Home, 3540 Ky Hwy 11 North, Booneville, KY, 41314, with the funeral following immediately after. There will be no graveside service. A brief gathering will be held to celebrate her life at the Community Christian Church, 2174 Hwy 11N, Beattyville, KY, 41311, next to Save-a- Lot. In lieu of flowers, Bettie requested making a donation to the Passionately Pink organization of Beattyville, KY, 41311 to aid in their financial assistance to local cancer sufferers. Donations can be made by making a check out to Passionately Pink and sending it to Lesa Caudill, PO Box 743, Beattyville, KY, 41311.
Please dress casually and in bright colors. Mom would have wanted us to celebrate her life, not mourn her death. She has gone to a better place, because her work on earth was done.
