An Interesting Obituary
Submitted by Joan Fry
Elizabeth “Betty” Tilford Willis Reid, 72, a member of one of the oldest families in the Blue Ridge Summit area, died April 10, 1997, in her summer home in Armonk, New York, of lung cancer brought about by smoking. She was a winter resident of Delray Beach, Florida.
Born October 22, 1924, in Harrisburg, she was the daughter of the late William H. and Elizabeth Tilford Keferstein Willis.
Mrs. Reid grew up in Blue Ridge Summit, lived in Waynesboro, and worked at Fairchild Aircraft Corporation during World War II. She was also active in the American Red Cross in the Miami area during the war.
Mrs. Reid’s grandfather, Carl Bismarck Keferstein, a Washington architect, and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor Tilford Keferstein, bought what is now the golf course at the Monterey Country Club in 1903 for $500 and donated it to the club. At that time, Mr. Keferstein was the club president and clubhouse architect. He donated the clubhouse to the club as well, and, in part, bankrolled the upkeep of the golf course and club.
In 1906, Mrs. Reid’s grandfather served as architect for the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration at Blue Ridge Summit. He was a founder of the Blue Ridge Mountain Volunteer Fire Department, built roads, founded a newspaper in Blue Ridge Summit, and donated the marble altar and pews for St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Waynesboro.
In 1900, he also bought and extensively renovated what is now (was) the Summit Professional Center on Monterey Lane, which was the Keferstein and Willis family home until 1945.
Mrs. Reid’s great-grandfather, John Boyle Tilford, Jr., was co-founder of the original Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller and six other families.
Monterey’s nine-hole golf course is believed to be one of the ten oldest in the country because it operated for more than ten years before Keferstein bought it in 1903.
The “Monterey Skirmishes” were fought partly on what is now the golf course when Robert E. Lee’s defeated army was retreating from the three-day Battle of Gettysburg.
Mrs. Reid met her husband, Charles Nash Reid, at the Rolando Woods Swimming Pool in Blue Ridge Summit, where she was a lifeguard. Both she and her husband learned to play golf on The Monterey Golf Club Course.
At 1:30 a.m. on July 2, 1942, she and her family watched in horror as the Monterey Inn burned down and badly damaged Square Cottage, where Wallace Warfield Simpson was born in 1896.
In addition to her husband, who also summered in Blue Ridge Summit, Mrs. Reid is survived by three daughters, Mrs. J. J. Romanowicz and Mrs. Cameron Hatton, both of Armonk, New York, and Mrs. Augustine De Lago of Menands, New York; seven grandchildren; and two brothers, William H. Willis of Greenwich, Connecticut, and L. Clayton Willis of Washington, D.C.
She was preceded in death by a son, William Hammond Perrault Reid, who died April 8, 1961.
Services were held in St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Armonk, New York.
