The Manhasset Public Library was notified last year that it was to be the recipient of a sizeable legacy as stipulated in the will of Elizabeth "Betsy " Gavin who died in Austin, Texas on Feb. 13, 2003. Delighted with the almost $200,000 gift and curious about their benefactor, a notice appeared in the library's Fall 2004 Newsletter asking anyone who knew her or knew of her or knew anything to please contact the library.

A few neighbors on Rolling Hill Road in North Strathmore, including Mary Masso, Chris Demou, Margaret McQuade, and others, Louise Reiss and the Cogans, responded, sharing their memories of the family, which were somewhat sketchy. That is until Pat Doyle contacted the library, for she and Betsy Gavin were friends. Pat Doyle remembers that when she and her family moved to Manhasset in November of 1963, the day President Kennedy was shot, the Gavins were their neighbors across the street. Fortunately for the town, she is able to provide information about Betsy's life.

Betsy attended St. Mary's and graduated from Manhasset High School in 1958, then went on to St. John's University, School of Education. Betsy (and no one called her Elizabeth) loved sports, Pat said, including basketball, and went to all the St. John games. Betsy was tall and had played basketball herself in high school.

Ms. Doyle continued saying Betsy's father owned the Freeman Shoe Company, and Betsy worked there maybe one summer and did not want to work with him in the business. She took a job with J.C. Penney in the catalogue department where she did layout work with computers, which, at the time, was relatively new. She worked there for several years but her dream had always been to be a nurse, and Pat Doyle said you could not talk to her for half an hour without her mentioning it, but her father was stubborn, set in his ways, and would not give his permission. Her father advised her to go where the money is, to be successful in business. "I have to soften my father's heart," she would say, and finally he relented. Ms. Doyle said father and daughter were similar in their stubbornness, politics and that he respected her. "She was very hard working and if she wanted something would work very hard to get it," Pat said of her friend. Having obtained her father's permission she went to Adelphi University School of Nursing and graduated cum laude. "While she was at Adelphi her father died, and that is one reason I ended up going to her graduation," said Ms. Doyle," I wanted to be supportive." Betsy trained at other hospitals on Long Island then took a job at St. Francis Hospital.

When her mother developed colon cancer and underwent surgery Betsy left her job at St. Francis to care for her. Later, Betsy also succumbed to colon cancer, and she, like her mother before her, opted not to undergo chemotherapy. Ms. Doyle and other neighbors remembered Betsy's mother, Mary, as devoted to her family and her home. They remembered John and Mary Gavin as staying close to home, very dignified and very old-fashioned. When her mother died Betsy soon after went to Texas where she had friends.

Betsy returned from Texas for a visit to Long Island around 1994, and stayed a few days with Pat Doyle. At that time a Polaroid photo was taken of Pat and Betsy, in front of Pat's house. When Betsy died she requested Pat receive her Hummel, a statue of Mary, because Pat always teased Betsy that she should pay more attention to Mary because Mary was Betsy's middle name. Pat Doyle said that "beneath the statue it was written in Betsy's own handwriting that the statue be delivered to me."

That statue was delivered to her by two people, one being Fr. Peter LeJacq, a Maryknoll priest. In his youth, Peter LeJacq was a gardener and handyman for the Gavins when they were neighbors in North Strathmore, and he maintained the relationship after his parents moved to Munsey Park. He remained a friend of Betsy's over the years and explained how after her mother died the house on Rolling Hill Road was too large for her and she wanted to both downsize and move to a warmer climate.

He was also able to shed some light on her generous gift. "She lived two blocks from the library and enjoyed going there; the library gave her a great deal of joy." He said that while Betsy Gavin lived in Texas she knew the Manhasset Library was expanding and she wanted to give back some of the joy she had received.