Elizabeth Helen Schuster

Elizabeth Helen (Zastrow) Schuster, or “Betty” as she preferred, died on March 17, 2024, after a 12-week battle with pancreatic cancer. Betty (81) fought her illness with characteristic toughness and determination before passing at Providence Portland Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.

Betty was born on September 13, 1942, in Madison, Wisconsin to Raymond and Berthilla Zastrow, where she grew up with her brother Eugene “Gene” (83) and attended Edgewood High School. During her junior year of high school, a “new kid” transferred in from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin that she described as “always goofing around.” Betty was not completely innocent, having herself taken part in an infamous incident involving shaving cream, the athletic director’s house, and a subsequent disciplinary action leaving her without a homeroom when school started. Nevertheless, she must have had a deep-down affinity for this “new kid” because by the end of senior year she was dating him. Betty attended Edgewood College in Madison, graduated in 1964 with a degree in Education, and began teaching kindergarten in Waunakee, Wisconsin. During those years she became an aunt to Gene’s three children Kathy (1961), David (1962), and Kristi (1964), all the while maintaining a long-distance relationship with that “new kid,” Robert “Bob” Schuster. They married on August 7, 1965, in Saint Raphael’s Cathedral in Madison. Bob and Betty packed up and hit the road, westbound to Corvallis, Oregon, for what they believed would be a temporary stay while Bob attended graduate school at Oregon State University.

In fall 1965, Betty began part two of her incredible teaching career at Inavale School, near Corvallis, as they settled into their new life out west. She would go on to teach there until 1968 when she took a long hiatus to have and raise two children, Scott (1969) and Ryan (1976). Betty and Bob moved to Milwaukie, Oregon in 1969 with Scott in tow and never left.

Meanwhile, Betty found her second passion in life when she and Bob began spending summers in Glacier National Park in Montana in 1967, where he continues to work as a seasonal Park Ranger. Betty spent 57 consecutive summers with Bob in Glacier, hiking tens of thousands of miles over the years in every corner of the park. She was an incredible hiker, proudly and regularly completing 10-15 mile hikes throughout both of her pregnancies right on through to this past summer. The list of amazing things Betty saw while hiking all those miles in Glacier is endless, but the one we are all most jealous of was when Betty saw a golden eagle pluck a baby mountain goat from a cliffside above Iceberg Lake. Bob was dutifully cleaning a pit toilet at the time and came out to find Betty giddy with excitement at her incredibly rare sighting. Her love of Glacier, hiking, and national parks was evident the moment anyone met Betty, as she was rarely seen without clothing that featured one of those things. The community of lifelong friends she had from Glacier is immense and it truly was where Betty, and all her family, felt most at home.

Betty resumed teaching at Saint Clare School in Portland, Oregon in 1984. Over the next 19 school years she touched the lives of countless kindergarten children before retiring in 2003. Her classroom was a meticulously kept treasure trove of cubbies, seasonal decorations, a well-worn reading rug, and her children’s repurposed Care Bears. Her Teddy Bear Picnics were the stuff of legend.

Betty’s final passion in life began in 2001 with the birth of her first grandchild, Sierra (Scott). Sierra was followed by Mikala (Scott) in 2003 and Wyatt (Ryan) in 2014. Betty’s background as a kindergarten teacher gave her a professional level skillset to utilize as a grandma making her unbeatable in her grandchildren’s eyes.Bob would often watch helplessly as the cries of “grandma” rang out while they ran past him on their way to hug her. She poured her heart and soul into her three grandchildren and was at their every beck and call anytime day or night.

A funeral service will be 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church, 10955 SE 25th Ave, Milwaukie, Oregon 97222, with a reception following in the Parish Hall of the Church.
In lieu of flowers, the Schusters would prefer contributions be made in Betty’s name to one of these charities:
https://glacier.org/donate-to-glacier
https://give.cancerresearch.org/site/Donation2?df_id=2560&mfc_pref=T&2560.donation=form1
Both are set up with options for memorial donations.