N. Fort Myers, FL - Betty Jean Crabtree, 87, of N. Fort Myers, Florida, died peacefully on May 13, 2026, after health complications, a fall, and hospice care at Lee Memorial Hospital. The last remaining child of Omar and Marie Swartz Bergdall, Betty was born Jan 30, 1939, in Enid, Oklahoma, the youngest of five children.

She grew up on the family farm in Meno, Oklahoma, and attended school in nearby Ames, where she made life-long friends and played basketball. After graduating from high school she met and married Franklin Dee Crabtree in Enid, Oklahoma, on July 27, 1957.

While living in Enid, Betty helped her husband get a job in the shoe business, which began his life-long career in retail, shoe imports, and travel to far places. Betty was wife, mother, and fellow breadwinner from Enid to Tulsa, Oklahoma City to Houston, Texas, to St. Louis, Missouri, to Nashville, Tennessee. Betty and Dee raised two children, Steven Dee and Brenda Lea, and saw them through all the joys and challenges of their lives. One couldn't ask for better parents.

They shared their lives with grandchildren, filling their years with food and card games, life lessons, fond memories and good laughs. A person of practical faith, she said you have to play the cards you're dealt with. When there was a problem she couldn't help solve, she learned to "put it in her God box," a way of letting go and letting God, the advice she followed to her final days with us. She kept close tabs on her grandchildren, Ally (and Courtney), Jefferson, and Sarah.

Betty was an avid football fan her whole life — the Oklahoma Sooners, the Tennessee Titans and then all things Oklahoma and Tennessee, including girls' softball, basketball, and Elvis Presley. If she said anything critical, it was usually about this or that coach who managed to lose a game that should have been won. Betty and Dee retired twenty-five years ago and lived in Murfreesboro, TN, until moving to N. Fort Myers in 2014. Betty played cards with the Gloxinia gang each week in Sabal Springs and enjoyed being apprised to "all the goings-on" with the Clubhouse.

Betty is predeceased by husband Dee, her parents and siblings, daughter Brenda Lea, and grandson Keith Dawson. She is survived by Steven (and his new wife Nancy), grandchildren, nieces and nephews, (including Karen and Sue), and kind neighbors and friends.

Private arrangements and services will be held in Murfreesboro, TN, and Meno, Oklahoma, at a later date.