Betty Jeanne Liske (Brown) passed away peacefully in Santa Cruz, California with her children at her side on the evening of August 4, 2025 after a weekend of visits from all of her grandkids, family and friends. She considered Stockton, CA her chosen hometown, loving the people, culture and community there where she lived until weeks before her passing.

Betty was both a strong, determined woman and a “soft place to land,” as her younger brother Don shared. Growing up in Oakland with her three younger brothers, she enjoyed Sunday drives with the family to explore local open spaces and spent summer vacations in a family friend’s cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She was a caring and kind big sister, playing games and reading for hours with the youngest, Don. The family moved to San Lorenzo in 1964, where Betty started college and not long after she met her future husband, Howard "Hal" Liske.

Betty was the only one in her family to graduate from college, earning a B.A. in Anthropology in 1967, and went on to earn her teaching credential and a Masters of Public Administration from Cal State Stanislaus to advance her career in the education field. Betty showed up to the societal calls to action of her time, attending N.O.W. meetings in Berkeley, advocating for equal rights for women, justice and equity for all peoples and protecting the environment while raising children and pursuing her own career. She was an avid and talented photographer who captured family events and nature photography on slide film, a practice her children and grandchildren continue today. A tennis player herself, she celebrated Billie Jean King’s tennis victories that broke gender barriers and encouraged all her children in sports. An excellent financial manager, Betty owned both her home and a rental home by the time of her retirement and supported her children in pursuing college and their young adult dreams. Her determination allowed her to courageously maintain her independence through her challenges later in life.

Betty strongly valued people and had a quote on her desk: “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley.” Beginning as a social studies teacher in 1981, she moved up through the Lodi Unified School District to become a mentor teacher then Vice Principal at Bear Creek High School, ending her career doing her heart’s work with a position leading the mentor teacher program for the district retiring in 2002. Betty worked inclusively, uplifting ideas and voices of school secretaries alongside administration, addressing racial and economic class barriers, and investing deeply in new teachers. Betty developed deep friendships with her educator communities in both Dublin and Lodi, finding sisterhood in values, work and life. She was genuinely interested in everyone and easefully made friends with people everywhere she went from school custodians to nurses to the gardeners and helpers she brought in later in life.  Betty treasured her brothers and extended family, especially enjoying all-family holiday gatherings at her parents, aunt Edna's  and brothers' homes over the years.

With an eye for beauty, her homes were peaceful and rich. She designed the gardens herself and chose satisfying wall colors, filling the house with plants and art from her travels to Oaxaca, New Mexico, and her trip to India on a Fulbright Scholarship, and from local artists. She transformed her Stockton home’s back yard from bare grass to an oasis of trees and blooming shrubs, a pond, a circular patio and a spa room creatively tucked into what had been a garage, with foldout windows connecting the two spaces. She was in the first class of graduates from the San Joaquin County Master Gardener program in 2007 and was a dedicated and supportive volunteer, including featuring her home in their garden tours, writing newsletter articles and serving on the Advisory Committee all of which earned her Emeritus status. She almost always had two beloved cats keeping everyone’s laps cozy.

Betty was a devoted and creative mom to three children. She provided nutritious food and taught her three kids to cook. There was no television in the house and she encouraged reading and supported success in school, encouraging involvement in band and sports. She sewed clothes for the family and taught macramé, gardening, photography and numerous crafts. She always said her kids could be and do whatever they dreamed of, and she was so very proud of each of them for how they showed up for their families and friends and their entrepreneurial career successes grounded in love and stewardship for the environment. She made holidays fun by hand-sewing great Halloween costumes, and created annual traditions of giving special Christmas ornaments and leaving rhyming poems on each kid’s door from the Easter Bunny for hints about where each one's basket was hidden. The family has many fun memories from summer vacations where she bravely led camping adventures in their VW van and cab-over camper to remote locations like the Anza-Borrego desert for a superbloom and golden meadows, and rushing rivers and deep drizzly forests throughout Oregon and Washington. In her later years she deeply enjoyed the peace of the coast, and gathered the family to enjoy vacation stays in Bodega Bay and Santa Cruz.

Across the years, many have shared what joy Betty’s laugh brought them. When she laughed it was genuine, from the heart, never at anyone’s expense, and full of life, sparkle and delight. Our wish is that her spirit is laughing now, and that you feel it too as this brief remembering of a full life opens your heart and brings your own rememberings to life. We encourage you to share those with all of us and to help color in her story here on her EverLoved website, where we will also share information about a future celebration of life. Please invite others that you know knew her to join us here as well.

Betty is pre-deceased by her parents Charles Thomas Brown and Eleanor Francis (Holloway) Brown and her brother Robert “Bob” Brown. She is survived by her three children and their families: Kirsten Liske and Salvatore Sardina; Jason and Diedra Liske and their children Charles “Charlie” and Benjamin “Ben” Liske; and Zachary and Mara Liske and their son Manulele “Manu” Liske; as well as Bob's wife Patricia Brown,  two of her brothers and their spouses, James “Jim” and Karen Brown, and Donald “Don” and Cindy Brown and their children, their spouses and grandchildren, all of whom she loved deeply.

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