Frances Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, known as Betsy to her family and Fran to her many friends, died on January 27, 2021 after a long struggle with a demyelinating disease akin to multiple sclerosis.  She was 65 years old. The fourth child of the late Robert and Mary Fitzpatrick, Betsy was born in Northampton on May 14, 1955.

            Betsy grew up in Amherst and graduated from Amherst Regional High School in 1973. She went on to earn an Associate of Science degree in Floriculture from the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts where she would later receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Horticultural Science.  She had an active career for nearly twenty years as a horticulturalist, working first as a research assistant at the University’s Cold Spring Orchard caring for the tree stock and researching fruit viability. She became expert in rose growing and the complexities of commercial flower growing in her next job, where she oversaw the large greenhouses at Butler and Ullman, Inc., in Hadley. There she met and later married manager Robert Foley, embracing a new role she thoroughly enjoyed as stepmother to his three young children – Chris, Liz and Jen.

            In 1988, when the couple moved to Northern California, Betsy became Director of Research for an open-air flower growing company situated on a farm of 600 acres, 150 of which were focused on cut flower production. With over sixty crops, she once described the farm as “a sea of colors including the green fields, and the blooming blue, red, pink, yellow, white, peach and purple flowers.”  She traveled widely in that position, especially to Holland, in search of new floral varieties, meeting a breeder of delphiniums in England, and developing thirteen new colors of Japanese thistle on her own. She later served as a consultant to a horticultural company in Louisiana and to growers and buyers in the United States and from around the world who came to the farm in search of new plant material. She loved the diversity of the people she met. She took Spanish language courses at a local community college in the evening so that she could get to know better the many non-English speaking Mexican employees with whom she worked on the farm.

            While in California, Betsy began to develop symptoms of the illness that would define the latter half of her life. She returned to her family in Amherst and with resolute determination completed her education. Though her career was now behind her, she never lost her interest in others, her optimism and her affection for family. She was a great enthusiast of animals, birds, and the natural world, generously sharing her expertise, while she could, with those seeking advice about plants, flowers and gardens. For her sister Jean’s fall wedding, she single handedly gathered the flowers and arranged gorgeous bouquets of orange tiger lilies and for the bride, white orchids and trumpet vine, providing a memorable splash of color and beauty for all to enjoy.

            Betsy distinguished herself among her five siblings for her kindness to all, her unfailingly sweet disposition no matter what chaos roiled around her, and her quick sense of humor. As her world grew smaller, her ties to the people, pets and things she loved only deepened to the reward of those whose lives she touched. She was the epitome of grace and courage in the face of a long and devastating disease.

            She leaves a grieving family who will remember her for all she was at every stage of her heroic life, including her sister Maureen of Amherst, her brother Robert and his wife Evie of Holyoke, her sisters Ellen of Newtonville, and Mary, her “Irish twin” of South Boston as well as her nieces Ryan Taft of Billerica and Brigid Wright of Boston, her nephew Robert Wright of Boston, and her brother-in-law Jeffrey J. Wright of Newton, husband to her late sister Jean. Her family wishes to thank Erica Matusko and Carol Senecal for their devotion to Betsy and Drs Marianna Marguglio and Victoria Noble for their generous and skillful care.  Donations in Betsy’s memory may be made to the Cold Spring Orchard Endowment at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture: https://coldspringorchard.com. A memorial service will be deferred until the summer.