Betty Jo Brown, age 77, died at Howard Community Hospital in Columbia, MD, Jan 3, 1998 after an extended illness. Her oldest son, Hampton, was with her at the time of her passing.

Betty Jo is a descendant of the Mayflower pilgrims, who settled in the New England colonies and served loyally in the Revolutionary War before moving west. Two of her great-grandfathers, Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow, were the first pioneers to arrive in the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 21, 1847.She was born on December 1, 1920, in Seattle, Washington, to Sterling Jared Snow and Leda May Wallace. Her mother died when Betty Jo was three years of age. She was raised by her aunt, Dora Snow, a professor of the University of Utah. Betty Jo attended schools in Salt Lake City and graduated from East High School. She graduated in 1941 with a BA degree, major in education from the University of Utah. She was affiliated with Pi Beta Phi sorority, president of the Mortar Board, associate editor of the Utonian and Humbug campus publication, secretary of the senior class, and a member of the Beehive and Phi Kappa Phi honorary organizations.

After graduation she worked in the Mapping and Drafting Section of the 6th Army Headquarters for the US Corps of Engineers in Salt Lake City. She met her future husband, Hampton Emory Brown Jr. who was stationed nearby with the Army Air Corp at Gowen Field, Boise, ID. They were married in 1944 at St. Pauls Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City. After the war, Hampton worked briefly for the Veterans Administration and then went to Germany as civilian employee assigned to the High Commissioner's Office. In 1950, he transferred to the State Dept and served as an Attach in Germany, and then Libya during the Suez Crisis. In 1960 the family returned to the states and settled in Washington, DC.

Suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, she was instrumental in convincing John Hopkins University, School of Medicine to launch a peer counseling program for the handicapped. As her proposal stated, she was speaking "as one person, having adapted physically, emotionally, and socially to a particular handicap, reaching out to help someone else with a similar handicap who is having difficulty in making the adjustment." She lobbied numerous associations in the Washington area representing the ills of society to establish peer counseling for the handicapped. Her tireless efforts eventually helped in the establishment of the Presidents Commission for the Handicap which in turn enacted legislation for the disabled.

For a number of years Betty Jo helped her husband develop a thriving consultant firm, Hampton Associates & Son, Inc., specializing in international marketing and management. Her contribution as the secretary and treasurer led to the sale of Dixi Cola to Philip Morris, the launching of Jazz Cola and Nexus Communications, Inc.

She is survived by her children, Tina Edsall, of Ashton, Maryland; Turbitt Wallace Brown, of Ellicott City, Maryland; Hampton E. Brown III, of Herndon, Virginia; four grandchildren; and half-brothers, Gordon Snow and his family, of Odgen, Utah; and Sterling Snow, of Des Moines, Washington. She was preceded in death by her husband, who passed away in 1985 and her parents.

Inurnment will be in the Wallace Section at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, where she will be buried with her mother.
Published: March 8, 1998 - Deseret News