Remembering Betsy Folwell

A tribute to a trailblazer in writing and life

By Leigh Hornbeck
Strictly speaking, Betsy Folwell was my parents’ friend, not mine. I was the kid who tagged along. My parents, Ann and Pete Hornbeck, met Betsy and her husband, Tom Warrington, in the mid-1970s when I was a baby. They were all young, scrappy and new to the Adirondacks. It was a perfect place for people skeptical of institutions and suburbia. They bonded over a shared love for wilderness.

My impression of Betsy was shaped by my father’s respect for her. My father was irreverent, more comfortable telling a funny story than expressing the sincere emotions he felt inside. He was not quick to words of admiration, but he adored Betsy. And because I was a kid and rarely heard him lavish this kind of praise on anyone, I accepted it as gospel.

RELATED READING: Betsy Folwell, Adirondack essayist and community pillar, dies at 71

Betsy was the smartest person we knew. There was nothing she didn’t know. He liked to play a game called “Stump Betsy.” She had a photographic memory. On the rare occasions she didn’t know the answer to something, Dad was incredulous.

I wonder if the adulation embarrassed her. She was modest, never showy, never attention-seeking, but she understood my father. Her approval was deeply important to him.

Betsy was part of my family, although we are not related. I am an only child and I didn’t grow up close to the family I am related to by blood. Betsy and Tom were constants. We were frequently guests at each other’s houses for dinner. Betsy and my father shared a birthday, 10 years apart, and they often celebrated it together.

As if it wasn’t cold enough in the North Country in January, Mom, Dad, Betsy and Tom often traveled to Montreal. Sometimes I joined them. I remember a trip to Ottawa when we ice-skated on the canal.

Betsy was one of the women in my orbit who taught me how to be in the world, although her lessons were subtle and indirect. I was intimidated by her as I grew up and took my first shaky steps along the road she traveled as a writer. She was talented and typically soft-spoken, the kind of person who radiates strength and confidence.

I had an internship at Adirondack Life the summer I graduated from college during her time as the editor of the magazine. I can still remember her walking through the hot, old church in Jay where the staff has its offices. Betsy was tiny, not even 5 feet tall. I can’t remember her ever raising her voice. She had small, doll-like hands. But she commanded respect. I could see it on the faces of everyone there. She was exacting in her expectations of writing and taught me to read copy backward when your eyes are too tired to find mistakes.

Going blind would be horrible for anyone, but seemed especially cruel for Betsy, a writer with a photographic memory. Years ago she wrote about just missing seeing a moose before she lost her sight and then missing the chance on the trail later, after the optic nerve failed in one eye and then the other. The disability took away some of her independence, but Betsy was still Betsy. She continued to write, travel, cook and spend time outside with help from friends and Tom, her loving partner.

When she was diagnosed with cancer, she pushed through it with the same resolve. She kept finding things that brought her joy, and doing them, and finding something else. She kept checking on her friends, and nearly to the end of her life, cooked gluten-free meals for my mother, whose own experience with cancer left her allergic to gluten.

I had wonderful conversations with Betsy as an adult, but I left too many words unsaid. I should have told her, “it took me a long time to understand, but I get it now. Your confidence comes from being solidly rooted in yourself, in curiosity about the world and empathy for the people in it.” I should have thanked her. All those years of sitting on the perimeter, listening to the adults talk, shaped me. I was lucky beyond measure to have known Betsy.

Top photo: Pictured is Betsy Folwell kayaking on Blue Mountain Lake. Photo by Nancie Battaglia.