93-year-old is rewarded
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OXFORD, Ohio — In the eyes of Bethea Dale, age is no reason to slow the pace of caring for one another.
At age 93, Sister Dale continues to look after the members of the Oxford Branch, Cincinnati Ohio North Stake, and the missionaries who serve there.
Speaking recently to a group of young children, she emphasized the necessity of setting goals and told how she accomplished her three goals: to serve a mission, marry in the temple and serve as organist in the Church.
In 1935, she served in the Northern States Mission under the leadership of President Bryant S. Hinckley, father of President Gordon B. Hinckley. While serving in this mission that covered Michigan and northern Indiana, she met George Dale. After her mission, they corresponded for 14 months and, in 1938, they were married in the Logan Utah Temple. They later served as a missionary couple in the Washington D.C. Temple from 1979-1983 where she played the organ in the temple and Kensington wards.
During her life she has sewn more than 500 comforters and knitted countless caps for humanitarian service. She sews comforters on a plain-stitch sewing machine given to her in 1962 by her mother.
Missionaries serving in Oxford receive comforters and knitted caps and home-cooked meals. She plays the piano for Relief Society and sends birthday cards to 80 sisters each year on their birthdays. She continues to correspond with 10 sisters through letters.
One moment of reward came recently when she was watching a Church-sponsored humanitarian aid endorsement on television with her grandchildren. The camera panned a group of Bosnian children, then focused on one child wrapped in a blanket she had made.
"I couldn't believe that was the comforter I had made," she said. "I recognized the pattern on the fabric. Wasn't that something?"
