Betty Lee Hallin

Betty Lee Hallin, 95, passed away in the arms of her loving grandson Patrick Kienberger, on July 19, 2023, at Edgewood Vista, Missoula, MT. During her final weeks she was compassionately cared for by the amazing team of Big Sky Hospice and Edgewood staff. The family would also like to thank the Pearl Garden Memory Care staff at the Village Senior Residence for providing love to “Miss Betty” during her 8-year stay. Cremation has taken place by Just Cremation Montana. A celebration of life will be held in Livingston at a later date. Betty was born April 19, 1928 in Los Angeles, CA, the only child of Joseph “Joe” and Hallie (Durham) Proznick. She inherited her sense of adventure from her parents. Her mother Hallie was born in Kankakee, IL, and traveled throughout the “Wild West” as a “Harvey Girl”, a group of waitresses employed by the Fred Harvey Company that provided meal service at train stops for the Santa Fe Railway. Betty’s mother and father met in West Yellowstone, MT where Hallie worked at the Union Pacific Railroad depot restaurant. Betty’s father Joe was all brains, working as the head mechanic for the Yellowstone Park Transportation Company, the concessionaire for the iconic yellow and black-trimmed touring buses in the Park. His family had earlier emigrated from Slovenia to work in the mining camp of Aldridge near Gardiner, MT where Joe was born and raised. After Betty’s parents married, they traveled to California for the winters and it was there that she was born in 1928. They returned to Yellowstone where they split their time between West Yellowstone in the summers and Gardiner in the off-season. Betty attended grade school in Gardiner. When she reached high school age, they moved to Livingston, MT, where her dad worked as a mechanic for the Northern Pacific railroad. During Betty’s sophomore year, her father was seriously injured on the job and transferred to Missoula where the NP Railroad Hospital was located. Betty finished high school in Missoula and graduated from Missoula County High School in 1946. They moved back to Livingston, but she returned that fall to attend the University of Montana for one year. Betty returned to Yellowstone in 1947 to work for the Naturalist Department in Mammoth Hot Springs, as a clerk-stenographer for Chief Park Naturalist David Condon. Those days in YNP were filled with lots of adventure and fun, but she was stopped in her tracks when her path crossed with Thomas “Tommy” James Hallin, one of Yellowstone’s most dashing bachelors. They fell madly in love and were married on November 29, 1953, in the Mammoth Chapel. Tom’s family was long involved in Yellowstone Park, where like Betty, he was also raised. After earning his mining engineering degree from MT Tech and serving in WWII, he became vice president of the Yellowstone Park Company in 1947, a position he held until 1961. He and Betty had four children: Rosalie (1955), Barney (1957), Kerry (1958), and Patrick (1959), all born in Livingston, but raised during their early years in Gardiner and Mammoth. With a growing family, Tom and Betty moved to Livingston in 1962 where he started his own surveying business and Betty kept the books. In addition, Betty worked for Inverness Land and Cattle Company, then as executive secretary for the First Bank System, retiring from the bank after 20 years. During these years, Betty and Tom also became guardians and provided unconditional love to Tijen and Tanju Sion, children of her closest childhood friend Bonnie (Larkin) and husband Jocko Sion. After she retired, Betty and Tom traveled the world. They explored places like China, Africa, Antarctica, Alaska, South America, New Zealand, Bali and Fiji. To top it off, Betty and Tom would take their own vacations with friends. From all of these travels, Betty collected masks from all over the world which adorned the walls of her home. Betty hiked, biked and skied into her 70’s, and bowled and golfed into her early 80s. She loved to dance and enjoyed any music with a good beat, particularly 60’s rock-n-roll and world music. Always a social person, she enjoyed the company of many friends from all walks of life and volunteered with several organizations, including the Livingston Depot Museum and Red Cross. She held positions with the Livingston Depot Foundation Board of Trustees and the Livingston Memorial Hospital League Board of Directors. She was also a longtime member of P. E. O. Chapter BW of Livingston. Betty was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Tom (2005), and by her beloved son Patrick, who died in Alaska in 1988 in a wind surfing accident. She is survived by children Rosalie (Michael) Dunne, Barney Hallin, and Kerry Hallin (Andre Stadnyk); grandchildren Cavan, Christina and Victoria Dunne, Brooks and Spencer Hallin, and Patrick Kienberger; extended family Tijen (Clay) Hotchkiss, Tanju (Kristy) Sion and their children Tsion and Murphy Hotchkiss, and Isabelle Sion.