Elizabeth Jane Bennett Stewart, 95 years old, passed away on Thursday afternoon, August 14, 2025 on Lookout Mountain, GA. Betty Jane was surrounded by her daughters and beloved caregivers at Thrive at Brow Wood where she happily lived the last years of her life. She was known by all to be gracious, Godly, compassionate and kind.
Elizabeth Jane was born on March 15, 1930 in Wilmington, DE to George Fletcher Bennett and Elizabeth Mae Jones Bennett. She grew up in Wilmington near her mother’s Jones family recently arrived from Snowdonia, North Wales. Elizabeth Jane attended The Tower Hill School and was accepted at William and Mary College in VA where her father, a well-known architect was employed in the restoration project that became the Williamsburg we now know.
Betty Jane, sometimes known as “BJ”, was completing a biology degree and had been accepted into an Occupational Therapy program, when as a star softball player she slid into third base with the entire William and Mary baseball team watching. The pitcher of the team turned to his best friend and said, “I’m going to marry that girl.”
Betty Jane did, in fact, marry that pitcher, James Ramsay Stewart, on September 12, 1953. They were happily married for 65 years when her beloved “Jimmy” died in 2018. Those 65 years were momentous. While her husband worked in banking, education and began a successful antique business, they lived in New York, Long Island, Greenville DE, Llandudno and Llanrwst North Wales and, finally, Lookout Mountain, TN/GA. They had a very happy family life.
Betty Jane was known for her beautifully warm and welcoming homes, her lovely gardens, her exceptional hospitality, her truly well done paintings and needlepoint pictures. She loved birds and dogs and rolling countryside. She was a sought after florist and could make flowers into a perfect bouquet picture like no one else. She was on the flower guild of many churches both here and in North Wales, Great Britain. She particularly loved her time in Women’s Ministry at Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church.
In so many ways, Elizabeth Jane Stewart was the heart of her family. She genuinely loved her parents, her husband, her four children and their spouses, her seventeen grandchildren and her forty-three great grandchildren. And they all adored her. Her generosity of spirit came from her deep and abiding love for the Lord Jesus. Betty Jane was a devout, unwavering Christian and was responsible for bringing her many children and grandchildren to join her in faith.
She leaves four children: Rebecca Elizabeth Stewart Chapman (Geoffrey) of Sewickley, PA; Deborah Jane Stewart Phillips (Charles) of Lookout Mountain, GA; James Bennett Stewart (Susan) of Blowing Rock, NC; and Robert Ramsay Stewart (Danielle) of Blowing Rock, NC and their families. She will have a private graveside service in Chattanooga, TN on Friday, August 22.
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