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 The Beach Lady
MaVynee Betsch known as "The Beach Lady", was
born on January 13, 1935, in Jacksonville, Florida. The daughter of
John Thomas Betsch, Sr. and Mary Frances Lewis Betsch, Ms. Betsch was
strongly influenced by her great-grandfather A.L. Lewis whose legacy
she protected and advanced for 30 years. A.L. Lewis, one of seven
founders of the Afro-American Life Insurance Co., was a major
businessman, civic leader and philanthropist. The insurance company
that he founded, the Afro-American, was the first insurance company in
the state of Florida, and he became Jacksonville, Florida's first black
millionaire.
MaVynee attended public schools in Jacksonville
and Washington, D. C., and a private Methodist, all girls middle and
high school, Boylan Haven School in Jacksonville. She graduated in 1955
with a double major in voice and piano from the Conservatory at Oberlin
College. Ms. Betsch went to Europe following her graduation where she
studied voice and sang lead roles in German State Opera. In 1962, she
returned to Jacksonville and began to both study and promote
conservation and protection of the environment. She moved to American
Beach, a place that her great-grand father A.L. Lewis in 1935 took
leadership in purchasing for the "recreation and relaxation without
humiliation" of African Americans during the era of segregation.
MaVynee Betsch, known as the unofficial
historian of American Beach, directed much of her passionate advocacy
of the environment to the preservation of her beloved beach. She
enthusiastically carried out Black history tours with "The Beach
Lady". As a founder of the A.L. Lewis Historical Society, she and her
allies lobbied to place American Beach on the national register of
historical places; to make Nana, the 60 foot sand dune on the beach,
the property of the national park service; to protect an old bridge as
a fishing pier; and to provide a buffer of intact land between American
Beach and development to the north. She was also a force behind
countless other environmentalist causes. One of the endangered right
whales, "whale 1151" named MaVynee by biologist who came to Amelia
Island in the 1990's, is a whale known as a particularly rambunctious
female. MaVynne Betsch, "the Beach Lady", is an icon among
environmentalists and a hero to all who know and love American Beach.
The story of her life and work, is the centerpiece of a book by Russ
Rymer, "American Beach: a saga of race and memory". Articles
chronicaling her deep convictions, extraordinary courage, razor sharp
intelligence and impish wit are in numerous publications including New
York Times; USA Today; Essence; Preservation, the magazine of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation; and Sierra, (the magazine of
the Sierra Club); Coastal Living; Southern Living. The Beach Lady has
also been featured on CBS and CNN.
Even after being diagnosed with cancer in the 2002,
which caused the removal of her stomach, 'Beach Lady' was still working
hard for causes that would benefit others. She planned to open a museum
that would contain the history of American Beach, the town where she
lived many of the years of her life. Betsch never married and never had
children. She was the older sister of Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, the first
female African American president of Spelman College, and president of Bennett College.
MaVynne Betsch died of cancer on September 5, 2005.
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