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Obituary

She took off shoes and won his heart

A down-to-earth whim in 1950 led to a 54-year marriage and a lifetime of service for Betty Lewis Dinnis.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published October 21, 2005

Betty Lewis Dinnis, 1924-2005

BRANDON - It was a scene reminiscent of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park that led Betty and Paul Dinnis into a 54-year marriage.

In November of 1950, Betty Lewis of Arcade, N.Y., was visiting a friend in Greenwich Village. Her friend introduced her to a young man, Paul Dinnis, who was also visiting the city.

Later that evening, they went to listen to some jazz. As they walked down the frigid street, she decided her shoes were uncomfortable and took them off.

Paul Dinnis was smitten.

"I thought, "Boy, this girl is really down-to-earth,' " Dinnis said. "From there it blossomed, and a year later we were married."

Ironically, Dinnis said, he discovered that his initial impression of the young woman wasn't really accurate. Walking barefoot on wintry city sidewalks was out of character.

"She was very conservative, very proper," he said. "But she was open-minded. I could have gone barefoot and that would have been fine."

Mrs. Dinnis, who died of cancer Oct. 16 at age 81, spent the last 50 years of her life in Brandon. She was a wife and mother above all, but she was also an active volunteer and community leader in the days when Brandon was a sleepy town.

She graduated from Lake Erie College for Women in Painesville, Ohio, and then worked in various capacities in the publishing industry in New York City.

In 1954, Mr. and Mrs. Dinnis moved to Florida. He had purchased a weekly newspaper in West Palm Beach, and she was going to work for him.

Their plans soon took a drastic turn.

"We hauled everything in a U-Haul," her husband said. "We moved on Saturday, and on Sunday we had a serious car accident."

Mrs. Dinnis was thrown from the passenger door of the car, and fractured her skull on the pavement. It took her a year to fully recover, and she never worked for the paper.

But Paul Dinnis was successful in the weekly newspaper business. After West Palm Beach, the Dinnises moved to Pahokee, near Lake Okeechobee, to run another paper. Then in 1959, they came here, and Paul Dinnis became the first editor of the Brandon News.

Mrs. Dinnis embraced life in Brandon. Although her real career was as a mother to her two sons, Paul Jr. and Bill, she found time for charitable activities in the community and in her church.

She was a co-founder of the Women's League of Brandon and was also active in Church Women United and in her own church, First United Methodist, where she was named member of the year in the 1970s.

She also had a penchant for providing direct help to individuals, her husband said. If she met someone who was in need, it wasn't unusual for Mrs. Dinnis to offer her time and money until the person could be independent.

Sometimes that took years, but Mrs. Dinnis would always see it through, he said.

"She would help people long after everyone else had given up on them," her husband said. "That was the way she was. She was very compassionate, and that's something everyone who knew her would say about her."

Mrs. Dinnis is survived by her husband and their two sons, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

[Last modified October 20, 2005, 10:29:05]