Betty Auchard

It took Betty Auchard and me months to schedule a “live” meeting, but after reading her book, I didn’t want to miss out on talking to her in person.

I don’t care what age you are…you would want Betty to be your mother, sister, or best friend! She is the perfect combo of intelligence, wit, and a woman with a fabulous twinkle in her eye. For instance, our first meeting had to be postponed because she was injured. Now, I was not happy that she was injured, but really loved the “how” of the injury… Jitterbugging at a Wisconsin jazz festival!

Betty is the author of Dancing in My Nightgown: The Rhythms of Widowhood, a memoir describing how she navigated through her grief after losing her husband of nearly 50 years. Betty was married at 19, had four children, 11 grandchildren, taught art in public school, and became a writer after becoming a widow. She shared stories with her family, her neighbors, submitted them to newsletters, the Chocolate for a Woman’s Soul series of books, newspapers, and various other publications. Betty says that writing was like “talking to paper.” When she was suddenly alone, she found herself journaling on junk and scribbling on scraps like paper napkins and old envelopes. She lovingly placed them in safe places such as the junk drawer, the underwear drawer or behind the sugar bowl. She says, “When you’re grieving, you need someone to let you babble, and you don’t want input…you just need to talk.” So, talk she did, in her own form, on paper. The scraps of paper were transformed into stories and then into her award winning book: Dancing in My Nighgtown.

As well as writing, Betty loves to speak. Well, truer is the fact that she loves to share her stories, so she boned up at Open Mic Nights at the California Writers Club. She says she “lived” for it. She wrote stories just so that she could get up and read them to an audience. One day, a friend commented, “You must be “channeling your grandmother.” Allie Belle Eastburn had been with the Chattauqua movement’s public speaking circuit in 1918. And it’s a good thing, because along with the publication of Dancing in My Nightgown, came the opportunity to speak all over the nation on TV and radio. Her presentations are not structured like a speech. They are more like connecting with friends in the kitchen. She is candid about her personal makeover, dating, becoming her own person. She talks about her kids, grandkids, the carpet man (hmmm), and the joy of feeling alive.

Dancing in My Nightgown is an inspirational and upbeat book about living and thriving. It was penned through pain. But it transcends that pain, utilizing a lot of humor and zest, and it shows that not only does life go on, but that it can be an exciting, passionate life filled with work and people you love.

In 2005, Betty flew to New York to receive an Independent Publishers Award. The message she would present to other 50+ women is…you can do anything you want to do. And it’s never too late to love a computer! Visit Betty at www.dancinginmynightgown.com