Christian Friendliness loses a leader

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By Thomas Geyer | Saturday, January 6, 2007 1:19 AM CST | () comments

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO “Miss Betty” Mattingly poses in front of this 1948 Christian Friendliness car. Mattingly, who long had been an important part of the Moline faith-based youth organization, died this week.

Lauren Anderson/QUAD-CITY TIMES Lawerence Nagbe, 6, of Moline, left, plays Ninetendo MXSuperfly on Friday at the Christian Friendliness Center in Moline, as Michael Moore-Morelock, 9, of Moline, and his brother, Malik, 7, watch. All three are part of the after-school program.

To all the people who knew her — and there are many — Betty Mattingly will forever be known and lovingly remembered as “Miss Betty.”

She was all of five feet tall on a good day, friends said.

But packed into her small frame was an unwavering faith in God and a steadfast devotion to her missionary commitment that impacted thousands of Quad-City children through her more than 40 years of ministry at Christian Friendliness.

“She was the Quad-Cities Mother Teresa,” said Mark Drake, executive director of Christian Friendliness, a Moline-based Christian organization that reaches out to youth.

“When I started at Christian Friendliness 19 years ago,” he said, “she was director of the children’s ministry. She asked me how long I would be around. I told her two years and she said, ‘O goody, I made that commitment 42 years ago.’

“I was going to finish my doctorate and be a dean at a college, yet here I am today,” Drake added.

Miss Betty, 83, died Wednesday at Good Samaritan Home, Davenport.

“She was a tiny lady with a strong spirit and no fears,” Drake said.

Her work and life never had anything to do with a title or a big salary or big retirement, he said. And she had little when she finally retired. But she was a living testimonial of the Christian faith and had a deep perspective into what really mattered in life.

“She never married and lived in her parents’ house,” he said. She had very little of her own because she neither needed nor wanted much.

When helping Miss Betty get settled into retirement, Drake said he noticed the light fixture in the kitchen was hanging by a knob and two wires. “I asked her about it and she said, ‘I just can’t see spending money on things like that when there are people in need.’ She knew God would take care of her.”

Jim Teske of Moline said he has fond memories of Mattingly and his mother, Agnes, working during the Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving holidays to get food and clothing to the underprivileged.

Agnes Teske was one of the founders of Christian Friendliness in 1937. The organization was founded by a group of women representing 25 protestant churches. It was founded to help Spanish-speaking families immigrating to the Quad-Cities.

According to her obituary co-written by Drake, Mattingly graduated from the former Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis, and was a natural fit for Christian Friendliness because she had worked at the Lutheran Mexican Mission in San Antonio, Texas.

“They were a pair,” Teske said of his mother and Mattingly. “They had goals and ambitions and there was nothing going to stand in their way. They worked days and nights and weekends. It was them who sorted the clothes and made the baskets to take to the shut-ins and poor people.”

And they did, occasionally, get on one another’s nerves, he said.

“There were times when they had differences and Mom would be talking about ‘that Betty,’ and I’m sure Miss Betty was talking about Mom,” he said. “But they were a couple of women that you knew were going to get things done.”

“Miss Betty was a driver,” he added. “Nothing was going to stop her. Telling her she couldn’t do something would only give her more drive.”

Thinking for a moment, Teske added, “I can see Mom and Betty organizing something up in Heaven now.”

Roxie Muskeyvalley of Rock Island said Mattingly came to the door of her family’s home when her mother and four siblings moved to Moline. Roxie was only a couple years old then, but she and her older sister recently reminisced about Miss Betty.

“We really didn’t know a lot of the neighbors and this lady came knocking on our door,” Muskeyvalley said. “She said her name was Betty Mattingly and that everyone called her ‘Miss Betty.’

“She sat down and had Bible study with my mother,” Muskeyvalley said. “She always had a note card with her and she wrote down notes.”

At that time, the family did not have a television, she said. “She always asked if we needed anything and Mother said it would be nice if we had a radio. So Miss Betty brought a little radio shaped like a church.”

Mattingly knew the birthdays of the five children, Muskeyvalley said. And as each child came of age they started attending Christian Friendliness.

She remembered days in the park when Mattingly “with oodles of children around her would tell us stories from the Bible. And she would teach us on our level so we could retain it.”

But it was Mattingly coming to their home that left a lasting impression, she said.

“Just like the Bible says, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges,’” Muskeyvalley said. “She was coming to us.”

Her husband of 30 years, Robert, also had been involved in Christian Friendliness, and remembered Roxie’s older siblings. Both of them work at Arrowhead Ranch, Roxie as the treatment secretary and Robert as a group leader.

John Taylor of Davenport, Roxie Muskeyvalley’s brother, met Mattingly more than 40 years ago. Because of her work, he and many other children from low- to moderate-income families were able to attend summer camp.

“It was on the other side of Port Byron (Ill.), out near Camp Archie Allen that the YWCA ran,” he said. “Miss Betty would work with the local churches and get sponsors and bring all these kids out to this event for a week.

“It gave all the kids a chance to horseback and canoe and do all those things the kids from low- to moderate-income families couldn’t afford to do,” he said.

Her story is a true missionary’s story, of someone of deep faith reaching out to the un-churched, specifically children, said Steven Pressly of Rock Island, who knew Miss Betty through First Lutheran Church, Rock Island.

“She was a woman ahead of her time,” he said. “You look back at the years of Christian Friendliness and the protestant churches at that time. In those days, women weren’t ordained in the ministry.

“We hear of the missionaries that travel the globe, but missionary work needs to be done within our own community, and she embodied that,” he added.

“She was a very loved woman,” Roxie Muskeyvalley said.

Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.

FUNERAL SERVICES

Services for Betty “Miss Betty” Mattingly will be 10 a.m. Monday at First Lutheran Church, Rock Island. Visitation is 2-5 p.m. Sunday at Wheelan Funeral Home, Rock Island. Memorials may be made to the Christian Friendliness Miss Betty Mattingly Endowment Fund or to First Lutheran Church, Rock Island.