“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
On June 12, 2022, we said goodbye to our brilliant, beautiful Bett Yates Adams. She passed away, surrounded by her loved ones, at the age of 79 due to complications from a massive stroke. Her sudden loss has broken our hearts, yet the memory of her remarkable life will always be a blessing to all who knew her.
Bett was born Nov. 22, 1942 in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the oldest of five children of Lawden Henry Yates, Sr. and Bessie Louise (Cooper) Yates. The family settled in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida in 1954. They attended
the First Baptist Church, where Bett, in one of her first teaching jobs, taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. All worked in the Yates Grocery Store, a well-known landmark on Eglin Parkway. Bett attended Choctawhatchee High School (class of 1960) and completed an English degree with honors at Florida State University in 1967. Her major studies were in the fields of English, French, and American literature with minors in philosophy, psychology, and education.
On Aug. 26, 1972, after ten years of research, she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree at
the University of Florida. Her dissertation was entitled The Collaborative Roles of John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts in the Narrative Section of Sea of Cortez. She walked in the commencement while pregnant with her son Christian—testimony to her unstoppable drive and balancing of roles. She was the first person from her high school to earn a PhD.
“Dr. Bett,” as she was invariably known to her students, taught at the elementary, secondary, and college levels in Montana, Texas, Florida, and Washington. Wherever she lived, she continued to lead, multitask,
excel, inspire, achieve and thrive throughout an adventurous life. She went on to teach at Florida Southern College and Auburndale High School in Lakeland, FL before transitioning to the newspaper industry to
join the New York Times company’s Newspaper in Education program.
She rose through the ranks, becoming the first woman publisher of a NY Times newspaper, taking the helm at the Fernandina Beach News-Leader, a weekly on Amelia Island, FL.
After marrying Dixon Adams in 1985, Bett “retired” to San Miguel de Allende; Guanajuato México in 1990 and reinvented herself yet again, working at the local English newspaper, Atención San Miguel, running
the San Miguel Educational Foundation now San Miguel Community Foundation and engaging in two decades of volunteer work and fundraising. Her interests, aside from lost pets and her own dogs, were gardening, croquet, fashion, decorating, reading, traveling, and entertaining. She returned to Pensacola for her second retirement in 2010, reconnecting with old friends and family and making many new ones, hosting countless parties and events at her home in East Hill.
After Dixon’s passing, Bett met Captain A.M. “Mike” Lewis, was swept off her feet, and a new chapter began. They traveled the world, including trips to Spain, the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, and San Miguel de Allende; Guanajuato, Mexico. In 2020, they acquired “Yonder,” a home nested on the brow of Lookout Mountain in Alabama near her mother’s ancestral home, a place of great natural beauty that brought Bett an immense feeling of contentment and peace in her final years.
Bett did it all with style and grace. Always the life of the party, a kind friend, a helping hand, a born leader, a gracious and welcoming host of legendary parties, a patron of the arts, an animal lover, a woman with
a hat for every occasion and a flair for the dramatic. She was deeply loved, cherished, and doted on by both of her husbands, Dixon Adams and Mike Lewis.
Bett Yates Adams was predeceased by her husband Dixon David Adams, dear mother Bessie Louise (Cooper) Yates and father Lawden Henry Yates, Sr., brothers, Cooper Leland Yates and Lawden Henry Yates, Jr., sister Mary Nell Yates, and stepdaughter Robin Marie Adams Scott (Keith)—and her dog family, her striking pack of Rottweilers: Brubeck, Winker, Chance, Tatonka, Cante, Deuce, Ocho, and, very recently, Blue. Survived by her husband, Captain A.M. “Mike” Lewis, U.S. Navy (ret) of Pensacola; brother, Donald Neal Yates (Teresa) of Longmont, Colorado and half-sisters Keller Anne Knight (James) of Asheville, North Carolina, Robin LaBounty (David) of Plano, Texas and Tracy Sodergren (Karl) of
Ooltewah, Tennessee; her only son Christian Marcos Pérez (Megan Cytron) and grandson, Óscar Marcos Pérez-Cytron of Madrid, Spain; stepson John Dixon Adams (Melissa), and finally her pups, Wonka, Wink,
and Tintin. Beloved aunt, friend, second mother, confidant, teacher, coworker, mentor, neighbor, classmate, and community member to so many. Always in our hearts. Siempre en nuestros corazones.
