Massive turnout for Clagg funeral
Massive turnout for Clagg funeral
By: Jon Hammond
Description: "And the cowboys and their kin, Like the sea came pouring in..."
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 793 times
1 response 0 comments A crowd of approximately 500 people gathered at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Bakersfield on Thursday, March 30, to pay their respects to well-loved Tehachapi matriarch Betty Jo Clagg, who died unexpectedly at her home on March 25.
Betty was married for 51 years to local contractor and rancher Randall Clagg and she passed away from heart failure in his arms.
The funeral chapel at Hillcrest was filled to overflowing, with neither seats nor standing room available by the time the service began. A power point slide show prepared by daughter-in-law, Yvonne Williams Clagg, with assistance from other family members was shown initially, featuring many photos from throughout Betty’s eventful, family-filled life. Appropriate country music and favorite songs played during the slide show.
After the sermon by V. R. Bispo and a final private family viewing, the white casket was carried by family pallbearers and placed into the back of a beautiful horse-drawn hearse provided by Jerry and Barbara Wood of Wood Family Funeral Service.
When the clip-clop of horses’ hooves announced that the hearse had begun the last gentle ride to the nearby gravesite, hundreds of Tehachapi residents walked up behind the elegant black carriage. Three and even four generations of local families followed slowly and quietly.
The brief gravesite service included a violin solo by Ross Clagg, one of Betty’s grandsons, who played “Tennessee Waltz” (one of his grandmother’s favorites) and a verse of “Amazing Grace.”
A reception was held afterward at the West Park Activity Center and it was virtually a Tehachapi Oldtimer’s Picnic. Not only individuals but Tehachapi clans were represented — there were Cummings and Eatons, Cowans and Martins, Johnsons and Manns and many other long-established families.
There was a reason that there were so many women and girls with red eyes, blinking back tears: because Betty was a mentor, a vocal supporter, a role model for the younger women who knew her.
You often hear the descriptive phrase “A leader among men.” Well, Betty was surely a leader among women, for she was both fearlessly strong and totally feminine. She always told the daughters and granddaughters and friends that surrounded her that they were strong, that they could do whatever they had to do in life and that they could still look glamorous while doing it.
A homemaker her entire life, she was devoted to her husband and her family and friends. She showered the people around her with love and encouragement and that generosity of spirit was what brought so many Tehachapi people out of their homes to honor Betty and console the Clagg family.
I learned of the the death of Kern County country music legend Buck Owens the same day I heard the sad news about Betty Clagg and I thought that Betty’s passing was more significant. She was like Tehachapi’s own Dolly Parton or Tammy Wynette, a country lady who loved make-up, big hair, dressing up and partying, but who could also work on a ranch, bowl strike after strike, dominate at volleyball or fistfight a man if she had to. And win.
She was a champion and an inspiration to many women, and she was obviously dearly-loved by many. Betty will be remembered in Tehachapi for decades to come.
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