Frances Elizabeth "Betty" Powell Lackey, 90, formerly of Chattanooga, died Wednesday evening, Feb. 8, 2006, at Azalealand Nursing Home.
Born in Chattanooga, she was a daughter of the late Francis Edmund Hopkins Powell and Lena Chaudoin Powell. Mrs. Lackey was a retired college anatomy and physiology professor. She was a descendent of William Powell, one of the original Jamestown, VA, settlers, who arrived in 1603.
Mrs. Lackey was a second lieutenant in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Her education was received at the Misses deVal School and Miss Wert’s School in Chattanooga, St. Mary’s (Episcopal) School in Peekskill, N.Y., and Washington Seminary in Atlanta. Mrs. Lackey holds a graduate degree in French literature from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) and a graduate degree in anatomy and physiology form Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
At 55 years of age, she decided to teach full-time at the college level and taught anatomy and physiology at the University of Tennessee at Nashville.
She resided in Savannah, GA, for a short while to be with her family; however, most of her life was spent in Chattanooga. Mrs. Lackey was in the first Cotton Ball, Chattanooga’s oldest debutant assembly. From time to time she taught or volunteered her services with young people.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her son-in-law, Frederick Brockway Gleason III; and her sister, Ann Logan Trimble.
She is survived by her daughter, Sarah Ann Powell Lackey Gleason, of Savannah, GA; and her granddaughter, Ann Powell Dewart Gleason, of Savannah and New York, N.Y.
A graveside service will be held at 1:30 p.m. Monday at Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga, conducted by the Rev. George E. Schmidt Jr.