By Rebecca Billman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

KENWOOD - Betty DeWert, past president of the Cincinnati Council of the Parent Teacher Association and a volunteer for many other organizations, died of complications of Alzheimer's Nov. 6 at Sunrise Assisted Living in Kenwood. She was 86.

"She was organized and energetic," said her daughter, Jacquelyn DeWert of Indian Hill. "She was always volunteering to help organizations and was then typically elected to run them.

"The volunteer work that she did was enough to be a full-time job," she added.

"In fact they converted one of the bedrooms in our home into an office when she was with the PTA because it really was a full-time job."

As president of the Cincinnati PTA, Mrs. DeWert hosted the 61st Ohio Congress of Parents and Teachers in Cincinnati in 1966.

"She was a consummate mother and homemaker," her daughter said.

In addition to sewing every one of her daughter's dance costumes, Mrs. DeWert upholstered furniture, sewed drapes and set an elegant table for the holidays.

She also applied her organizational talents to memberships on the boards of the Youth Employment Service, the Citizen's Committee on Youth and the Public Dental Health Society.

She was president of Cincinnati Ballet Company Parent's Group, the Delta Dames at the University of Cincinnati, the Pleasant Ridge PTA, the American Medical Association Women's Auxiliary Group and the Clear Lake Yacht Club Women's Group in Fremont, Ind.

She was also a troop leader for Brownies and Girl Scouts, served as a nurse at Camp Ross Trails in Butler County, and was a member of the Queen City Unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians.

Elizabeth Louise Dunman was born in Kyle, W.Va., in 1915. She came to Cincinnati in 1933 to attend the Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing.

After graduating in 1937 she became head surgical nurse at the former Dunham Hospital in Cincinnati, where she met her future husband, assistant medical director Dr. Charles A. DeWert.

They married in 1944 and Mrs. DeWert retired from nursing after giving birth to a son and daughter. She was a 45-year resident of Pleasant Ridge.

Dr. DeWert died in 1993.

In addition to her daughter, survivors include a son, Charles William DeWert of Knoxville, Tenn.; three sisters, Agnes Dorton of Mack, Cecilia Smith of Greensboro, N.C., and Jean Fletcher of Kingswood, Texas; and a grandson.

Services have been held. Burial was in Spring Grove Cemetery.

Memorials: Good Samaritan Hospital College of Nursing, 375 Dixmyth, Cincinnati 45220-2489; or Alzheimer's Association, Greater Cincinnati Chapter, 644 Linn St., Suite 1026, Cincinnati 45203.

E-mail rbillman@enquirer.com