In the Jewish Section of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery: 1, Betsy Shulman

There are only a few stones so far in the Jewish section of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. It meant a lot to me to be able to choose this for my husband Dave Kanell's burial location. It seemed to me important to know more and share something about the others there. The following narrative was written with Betsy Shulman's daughter Naomi, who provided this photo.

Betsy Shulman, 1934-2015

 

Elizabeth “Betsy” Emmet Leroy von Stackelberg was born in Munich, Germany, in 1934. Her parents were Curt Ernst Ferdinand Friedrich von Stackelberg (whose family came from the Baltic region) and Ellen Biddle, an American born and raised in New York City. Ellen and Curt divorced in 1941, and Ellen brought Betsy and her three brothers to the United States in 1946. 

 

Betsy attended Barnard College and married David Rothenberg, then Gail Chandler, with those marriages ending in divorce. Meanwhile, her mother Ellen had moved to Albany, Vermont, in 1960. As a young mother with twins to raise (Christopher and Julie Chandler), Betsy also moved to Vermont in the 1960s. 

 

Here Betsy met and married Alvin Shulman of Lyndonville. The two were both musicians: Alvin played violin and taught music at Lyndon State College, and Betsy played and taught piano, along with elementary school music. The couple’s two children, Naomi Shulman and Matthew Shulman, grew up in a strongly Jewish home. Betsy embraced Judaism actively at Beth El Synagogue, with her children. In 1980, Betsy added a formal conversion to her Jewish life, with her two young children accompanying her in the mikveh in Burlington. 

 

Betsy contributed greatly to the thriving community life of Congregation Beth El. When she joined, the group still held services in an upstairs room in downtown St. Johnsbury, over a department store, and then transitioned briefly to space at the local Catholic school. Her daughter Naomi recalls the exciting move of the congregation to its own structure on Hospital Drive, a building that Betsy's family helped bring to reality. In photos at the synagogue, several of them hold spades for the groundbreaking. Betsy also provided artwork made with liquid embroidery for the synagogue; the piece hung for decades at the top of the stairs in the shul.

 

Betsy and Alvin divorced in the mid 1980s. Years later, Betsy moved to western Massachusetts. She regularly attended services at Congregation B'nai Israel in Northampton and enjoyed her role as grandmother. When she died on November 9, 2015, her children agreed that the Northeast Kingdom would be the best location for burial, where her extended family still living in Vermont could visit the marker stone, and the Jewish community where she contributed so much could continue to enfold her.

[To read more local Jewish personal stories and history, browse the whole blog: https://jewsinvermont.blogspot.com]