Jane Elizabeth “Betsy” Peckham passed away peacefully in hospice care on Friday, December 19, 2025. Betsy was born on November 13, 1937, in New London, Connecticut, and she attended Groton schools: Groton Heights Grammar School, Robert Fitch High, graduating in 1955, and Connecticut State Teachers College (Willimantic) graduating in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in Education. She worked as a special education teacher at The Seaside Regional Center in Waterford, CT and later moved to Los Angeles and worked a long career at the California League of Savings Institutions. Her last position was as Insurance Advisor, a position she held until the League disbanded. During her retirement, she tutored homeschooled children.

Betsy chose Los Angeles as her permanent home in the 1970s while on vacation and went on to live in the same condominium in Mar Vista for nearly 50 years. Her neighbors became her extended family, including the ones she was close with as well as the ones with whom she feuded. While she never married or had children of her own, the relationships she had with friends and lovers defied categorization. She did not care about titles and classifications. Her chosen family was extensive and included babies and children whom she supported throughout adolescence and beyond. Even neighbors who moved away continued to be family to her, and many people who first met Betsy in a professional capacity became her personal friends.

Betsy was known as strongly independent and never hesitated to speak her mind about her politics and her preferences. But underneath her tough and sometimes ornery exterior was a funny and generous woman who loved to laugh and who looked out for other people. She enjoyed her thoroughly independent lifestyle, which included time for reading, going to the movies, attending concerts, and simply enjoying meals and parties with friends. Outings to the Hollywood Bowl and the Walt Disney Concert Hall anchored her social life; she loved jazz and classical alike. She traveled all over the world, to Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and throughout western Canada with friends and family, but in her later years she was content to be at home with her cats, the most recent being a shy calico called “Shadow” who survives her.

Betsy is predeceased by her parents, James and Nancy Peckham [nee Pinel] of Mystic, CT and her sister Judith P. Holden of Fairfield, OH. She is survived by her younger brothers David Peckham of Manlius, NY, and Donald Peckham of Cottage Grove, WI, and several nieces and nephews: James Peckham of Tenafly, NJ, Emily Peckham of Rockland, ME, Alexandra Peckham of Amherst, MA, Leslie Peckham of Milwaukee, WI, and Rachel Gray-Russell of Cottage Grove, WI.

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