Betty Delane (Girard) Phelps

Betty Delane Phelps, 89, passed away peacefully on February 6, 2026 in her home, surrounded by her loving and devoted family. 

She was born in South Paris, Maine on July 5, 1936 to Joseph Girard and Maybelle (Munroe) Girard. As a young girl she moved to Haverhill, MA and graduated from St. James High School in 1955. 

Betty worked at Western Electric until 1960, when she became a stay-at-home mother. In 1977, she returned to the workforce as a licensed practical nurse (LPN) for Hale Hospital, but resumed her career in electrical testing in 1979, where she worked until 1998. 

In the summer of 1967, she moved her blossoming family into a weathered 1910 Colonial Revival home, complete with overgrown grass that brushed the foreheads of her young children as they raced through the fields surrounding their new residence. Betty proved herself to be a DIY whiz, and transformed her fixer-upper into a family home and a pocket-sized farm. Over the years, she and her children raised pigs, chickens, and rabbits, and planted a garden comprehensive enough to feed her family and neighbors fresh fruit and vegetables for decades to come. As a true steward of her land, Betty insisted on living in her home for the entirety of her life; it was her pride and joy. 

Betty was never an idle woman. Due to her curiosity and restless spirit, she maintained several hobbies over the course of her life, including fishing, landscaping, reading her mystery novels, crocheting hats for newborns at local hospitals, and attending her knitting club meetings. 

Even in retirement, Betty sought new frontiers. She traveled extensively. Some of her favorite destinations included Alaska, Australia, and New Zealand. She also purchased a vacation townhome in Edgewater, Florida in 1999 and enjoyed her time fishing, crabbing, beachcombing, and hosting fish fries with her newfound friends. But her New England roots ran deep: she coaxed life from a new garden through the off-season, set crab traps along the Indian River, and carried with her the steadfast, practical, and thrifty values that had always defined her.

Betty is preceded in death by her ex-husband and the father of her children, Robert Williams, who passed away in 2016, as well as her late husband James Clifton Phelps, who passed away in 1984.  She is survived by her five children, Patricia Neals and her fiancé Edward Austin; Jeanne and her husband Donald Kelly; Laurie and her husband David Holt; Beth Tilden; Robert and his wife Stacy Williams; her son-in-law, Steven Tilden; her nine grandchildren, Christine Neals and her fiancé Keagan Mahoney; Ryan and his wife Allie Neals; Kathryn, Jeremy, and P.K. Kelly; Benjamin and Julia Holt; Jonathan Tilden and his wife Meg Leno; Alex and his wife Hollie Tilden; her two great-grandchildren, Levi and Miles Tilden; her sister, Patricia Saunders; her sister-in-law, Aspacia Girard; and her many nieces and nephews. 

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Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to St. Jude in Betty's memory. For guestbook, visit www.driscollcares.com

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