Elizabeth "Betty" Emma Ferrell Tilden

Elizabeth Emma Ferrell Tilden, age 95, known to family and friends as “Betty,” passed away at home with her daughter, Kerry, and son-in-law, Alan, on Hilton Head Island, SC on April 1, 2025 after suffering a pelvic break a month prior.

Betty was born on July 8, 1929, in Spring Lake, NJ near where her parents lived in Eatontown, NJ until 1931. They moved to nearby Oakhurst until 1939. Betty’s family then moved to Chatham, NJ. Betty was a Girl Scout, a pianist, an All-State Orchestra cellist, played saxophone in the marching band, and several other instruments. She graduated from Chatham High School in 1946 at age 16. Betty graduated from Syracuse University in 1950 with a BA in Math, even though she was initially accepted as a Cello major, was the treasurer of the Sigma Chi Chapter of Kappa Delta and a member of Pi Mu Epsilon (national math honorary). Betty was working on her Masters in Applied Statistics and Quality Control at Rutgers University, where she met Don Tilden in a Statistics class. After dating eight months they were married on August 20, 1953, at Chatham Methodist Church, where she was a member. The couple lived in an apartment in Chatham until they purchased their home in Berkeley Heights in 1955, where Betty lived until 2019. In 2019, she moved in with her daughters Leigh and Nancy, and grandson Robbie in St Marys, GA. After Leigh and Nancy’s deaths she moved in with her daughter, Kerry, and son-in-law, Alan, on Hilton Head Island, SC in 2023.

Betty worked for General Electric Co, Schenectady, NY; John Wiley and Sons publishers, New York City; and as a lab technician at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ until she left 6 months pregnant in September 1955. When asked why she never returned to her career she said, “I was replaced by the handheld calculator.”

As an adult, Betty was: New York City Chapter Publicity Chairman for the American Society of Quality Control; treasurer of the Women’s Club of Berkeley Heights Evening Department; volunteer at Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ; family genealogist who self-published five books; and was very active in Girl Scouts—as a Troop Leader, Service Unit Director in Berkeley Heights, Director of Camp Blue Heron, Council Trainer, and Council Program Services Committee member. She was an accomplished seamstress, needleworker and crafter. Betty made most of her daughters’ clothes until they were 12 and her granddaughter’s until she was 7. Betty also set the example for her family by moving into their Berkeley Heights home, her parents and Don’s mother at the end of their lives when they got sick, and until they died.

Betty is survived by her daughter KarenBeth “Kerry” Tilden (Richard Alan Prochazka) of Hilton Head Island, SC, granddaughter and namesake Elizabeth “Lizzie” Carolyn Burns (Deanna Beth Kennett) of South Orange, NJ, grandsons LT Raymond Eugene Bilter, JAG Corps, US Navy (Katherine Mary Beye, Esq) of Washington, DC, Robert John Wencek of Buffalo, NY and Edward “Teddy” Forbes Burns II of Somerville, MA, and one great-grandson, Asher Phoenix Burns. She is predeceased by her parents, Enoch Brewer Ferrell and Grace Buren Coker Ferrell, her husband, Donald Addison Tilden, and her daughters, Leigh Susan Tilden and Nancy Jane Tilden Wencek.

A graveside service and interment of cremains will be at Oakdale Cemetery, where four generations are buried, on Route 115, north of Mountain View, OK, at a later date.