Lisabeth Boyce

Lisabeth "Betty" Boyce, née Gierling, 101, passed away on February 16, 2025, at Greenwood House in Ewing, NJ. Betty was born on November 14, 1923, in Cleveland, OH, to George and Sara (née Schieb) Gierling. Her parents emigrated from the Saxon town of Kreisch in Transylvania in July of that year, and settled in Cleveland amongst fellow Transylvanian Saxon emigrés. In school, she quickly distinguished herself as both a remarkable intellect and an accomplished musician. In 1943, she became the first in her family to attend college, when she enrolled in Oberlin Conservatory in Oberlin, OH. Later that year, she transferred to Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve) back in Cleveland, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1947, and a Master's Degree in Musicology in 1950.

While pursuing her graduate degree, she taught piano at the prestigious Cleveland Music School Settlement. During this time, she played in a performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, and in the audience was John Boyce - a handsome, charming pilot attending college on the GI Bill, and the great love of her life. They married in July 1950, and a year later, John became a pilot for Trans World Airlines.

When she and John moved their young family to Bethany, CT, Betty continued to pursue her passions while also raising three children and several generations of cats. She was a lifelong intellectual, hungry for new skills and committed to maintaining mastery of those she already possessed. She was a highly skilled dressmaker, knitter, gardener, painter, and polyglot. She took classes in whatever subject caught her interest - Italian, singing, cello, computers - and read voraciously in fields both familiar and new. She found joy not only in the mastery of a skill but in the pursuit of it.

In 1964, John joined Nutmeg Soaring, a recreational glider flying club based out of Bethany (now based in Freehold, NY). Betty soon joined him as a member (one of the first women to join), and for many years served as membership chair and wrote the newsletter. She was a significant member of the organization for many years, and helped oversee the flying education of both her children and her grandchildren.

Her passion for music was steadfast and infectious. She played in several chamber music groups in the New Haven area, on both piano and harpsichord. She instilled a serious love of music into her entire family, and accompanied her husband, her children, and her grandchildren, when they learned their own instruments. Above all, however, she loved music for herself. She loved the precise delicacy of the Baroque composers and the sweeping mastery of the Romantics. She played the piano nearly every day of her life, for the simple pleasure of hearing it.

One of the other enduring passions of her life was the fight for women's liberation, a cause she first encountered when she read Betty Friedan's feminist masterwork The Feminine Mystique. By 1970, she had joined the women's liberation movement in earnest. At the height of her involvement, she was running a consciousness-raising group out of her home in Bethany, corresponding with radical feminist organizers in New York and Boston, and serving as a seasoned advisor to other women hoping to start groups in their own communities. She also joined national campaigns for wages for housework, legalized abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment. She was an early member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Older Women's League (OWL), and the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL). She was a lifelong supporter of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

Betty was a true Renaissance woman, a lover of beauty and a political radical ahead of her time. She had an extraordinary ability to make a connection with anyone - five minutes in any new place would have her exchanging names and book recommendations with half the people there. She was, above all, kind, and generous with her kindness. She left the world a more beautiful place than she found it.

Betty is preceded in death by her loving husband John, and her parents Sara and George. She is survived by her children (and their spouses): John (and Marlene), Sara (and Michael), and Anne Marie (and Evan), and her grandchildren Katie, Christina, Elisabeth, and Lisabeth. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Planned Parenthood.