When life gets you down, Betsy Miller always suggests spending time in your happy place.
For Betsy, that’s her favorite room with windows letting in all the sunlight in her 100-year-old bungalow, which she calls her retirement home in Avondale.
“When we bought this house, it was about to cave in,” she said. “But my husband knew how to get things done.”
Betsy and her husband, Gunner – “the sweetest man on the planet” – purchased the home shortly after they were married more than 60 years ago and began extensive renovations, starting with a new foundation, raised ceilings and converting the attic to a bedroom with a bathroom.
“I love the neighborhood,” Miller said. “Everybody knows everybody. People who live here tend to stay for a long time. Not much changes.”
Betsy takes her dog, Maddie, out for walks and visits her daughter, Alison, who lives across the street. Her other daughter, Daisy, also lives in town with her husband, Michael Davidson, and their two children, Gunnar and Elinor, who are both in college. Betsy’s son, Clifford, lives in Bali and comes home to visit for a couple of months every so often.
Betsy is a lifelong Jaxson, growing up in Venetia before it was a part of Jacksonville. However, she left for college, graduating from Florida State University’s School of Home Economics with a focus on interior design.
“It sounded so elegant,” she said.
She worked for an interior decorator after college, and while she loved it, she didn’t have an artist’s eye for design – though she decorated every inch of her cherished bungalow.
Betsy stopped working once her children were born. However, she found an unexpected employment opportunity arose when her children started preschool at St. John’s Presbyterian: She became increasingly interested in what they were learning. So much so, the preschool asked if she wanted a job.
She worked in the three-year-old, four-year-old and kindergarten classes and this unexpected career path became her passion, leading her to pursue a master’s degree in early childhood development from Jacksonville University.
After graduating, Betsy worked as an early childhood professional for Episcopal Children’s Services, visiting local schools and teaching teachers how to read to children effectively to help develop their language skills.
“I like to say I got paid to play,” she said. “Children learn by having real objects and playing with them.”
She absolutely loved that job and stayed until she retired.
One of her and Gunnar’s favorite things to do was travel. Some of their frequent trips were to his home state, West Virginia. They also traveled frequently with a friend, Larry Lynch, and a large group of friends. One of Betsy’s favorite trips involved two weeks of ski school in Canada.
“It was wonderful, and it was the perfect way to get over the harshness of the snow,” Betsy recalled.
They went back for several years, and eventually skiing became a yearly family vacation.
“Being from Florida, I never dreamed of doing anything like that,” she added.
As season ticket holders during the Bobby Brown era, Betsy and Gunnar also traveled to Tallahassee often for football games.
“We went every weekend to see the Seminoles,” she said. “That was so exciting.”
Over the years, Betsy became interested in Florida history, and her bookcase overflowed with books she found during trips to used bookstores throughout the state.
“My fascination with Florida started because it was the first part of the United States to be discovered, but it was really one of the last states to be developed,” Betsy said.
Betsy spoke of architect Addison Mizner, who designed large Spanish-style buildings in South Florida. Locally, he was the architect for the Riverside Church at Park and King.
One feature that stands out to Miller is the three pecky-cypress doors at the church’s entrance. These trees have unique markings because worms eat them, Miller explained. She knows this because her friend, Dr. Frank Scott, used to travel along the St. Johns River with his father, gathering these trees for his business. Many years later, he took her and Gunnar up and down the river.
“There are not very many people who can say they’ve been on all 310 miles of the St. Johns River,” she said. “And Gunner and I did that with Dr. Scott.”
Today, she remains active at her church, Riverside Presbyterian, and enjoys spending time with her children and grandchildren, all of whom she is proud.
Alison followed in her father’s footsteps and became an attorney with the City of Jacksonville’s Parks Department, while Daisy followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a preschool teacher. Meanwhile, Cliff made his own path, filled with travel, as he pursued his certification to teach English as a second language.
Even though her grandchildren are now off at college, being a grandmother – or “Gran” – has been wonderful, she said.
“I was really involved with them when they were young,” she said. “They would come over and spend the night a lot.”
Now they are grown, but still just as sweet as can be, she added.
