My Name

I was named after both of my grandmothers. Betty for grandma Betty (Elizabeth Grace Hawke Bionaz) and Lu for grandma Baker (Lucy Mary Huyck Baker). My mother did not have a good relationship with her mother at the time, something about a hard preganacy on my mom's part and bad health on my grandmother's part. Apprently when my mom was pregant with one of my older brother, my grandma Betty had her breast removed because of breast cancer. Some one got their feelings hurt, because the other one could not visit because of their health. I found this out later from my grandmother Betty shortly before she died. Then to make matters worse, when my mother was pregant with me, her sister was pregant also and my mother had problems and her sister did not. it's interesting how people can get their feelings hurt, because they do not understand the other person situtation.

So my mother put a hyphen in my name, because she could not figure out any other way to put Lucy in my first name. Then to make my name harder, she did not give me a middle name. I spent a lot of my youth explaining how to spell my name and what a hyphen is (a hyphen is the line in my name, Betty-Lu), and no I did not have a middle name. At least I was not asked if my name was short for anything. That happened to my brother Tony. Every one insisted that Tony was short for something else. At least he had a middle name.