Betty Rineheart

Betty “Granny” Jean Rineheart spent her life caring for others, working hard, and loving unconditionally. Audacious, erudite, sassy, classy, curious, and relentless in her giving, she lived her life with purpose and intention.

Betty was born on August 8, 1931 in the middle of the Great Depression, which was a devastating time for many Black people across the nation. The youngest of three children, born to Matthew “Bud” Redding, a parking attendant at Carew Tower, and Bessie Chenault-Redding, a domestic house worker of Cincinnati, Ohio, Betty was determined to succeed.

Betty attended High School at Old Woodward, where she met a young and charming Willie James Rineheart. Soon thereafter, they became friends and eventually High School sweethearts. The two graduated from Old Woodward High School in June of 1949. After graduation, she attended Central Vocational School briefly to train as a Practical Nurse. On January 1, 1955, Betty and Willie James Rineheart joined in holy matrimony. To this union, they were blessed with their only child, Kathy Lynn Rineheart. Betty and Willie were married for forty-one years until he died at their residence on Friday, November 1, 1996.

Betty accepted Jesus Christ and was baptized in a pool under the leadership of The Reverend George W. Sangster, the sixth pastor of Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Pastor Sangster died in 1960, the same year Betty’s husband, Willie James Rineheart, received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army on February 7, 1960. Following Pastor Sangster’s death, the Reverend Frederick Lee “Fred” Shuttlesworth, U.S. civil rights activist and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., became the seventh pastor. In 1966, Betty, along with The Reverend Shuttlesworth and other members, founded Greater New Light Baptist Church. There, she sung in the choir and often led the solo, “Mary, Don’t You Weep.” On January 24, 1982, Betty joined New Mission Missionary Baptist Church under the leadership of The Reverend Robert Smith, Jr., with her letter in hand from Greater New Light Baptist Church. She remained a faithful member of New Mission through the end of her life, under the current pastoral leadership of The Reverend Tracy Eugene Ventus.

Betty was a faithful and dependable worker who believed this proverb, “Nothing easy is ever worthwhile, and nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” She worked for the Cincinnati Health Department as a Clerk Typist 3 and Secretary to Michael Richey, the Clinic Manager. When she was not busy typing letters or preparing correspondences, she was assisting with patients or hanging charts for the dental and STD departments. After twenty-seven and a half years of dedicated service, she retired in November of 1997. Even after retirement, Betty took an additional job for almost a year working at Fifth-Third Bank to assist her grandson while in college.

Betty enjoyed life to the fullest. She traveled the world on many seven-day cruises, enjoyed line dancing, exercising at the community recreational center, and playing cards as a member of a card club. Club members gathered bi-weekly to listen to old school jams while playing Bid Whist. Betty loved being in the company of her card club friends until she received a diagnosis of Dementia.

Betty slept peacefully into eternity on Monday, January 6, 2020, at 12:14 p.m. She was preceded in death by her parents, Bessie and Matthew Redding; her two sisters, Barbara Smothers and Dorothy Hurd-Weir; and husband, Willie James Rineheart.

Betty leaves to cherish her memory: one loving daughter, Ms. Kathy Lynn Rineheart; two caring grandchildren, Reverend Quincy James Rineheart and Myra Dena Rineheart; one beautiful great-granddaughter, My’Laysia Ross; her best friend of forty plus years, Mrs. Betty Lee, and a host of loving and caring nieces, nephews, other relatives, and friends.