MCKOWNVILLE — Betty Jane (née Hunter) Casatelli of McKownville was a homebody who loved her family and always supported their endeavors, according to her daughter, Lorraine Casatelli-Morse. 

Mrs. Casatelli “entered into eternal peace on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, surrounded by her loving family,” her family wrote in a tribute. She was 89.

She was born in Albany, the daughter of the late William J. Hunter and Veronica J. (née Lochner) Hunter. She was the valedictorian of her 1947 graduating class from Philip Schuyler Academy. 

She was the office manager for Manhattan Tile and Capital District Tile, the family businesses run by her husband, Frank Casatelli, said the couple’s daughter. Mrs. Casatelli did all of the business’s taxes and accounting by hand, said her daughter. 

She attended all of her daughter’s sporting events, and was active in the parent-teacher organization and served as a den mother in the Boy Scouts. 

She was also a member of the altar guild of Christ Lutheran Church. 

Mrs. Casatelli was a life member of the ladies’ auxiliary of the McKownville Volunteer Fire Department, where her husband served for decades as a firefighter and eventually a fire commissioner.

She was always after her two children to stay in school and do well in their studies, her daughter recalled. She would remind them that she had been named Water Commissioner for a Day by the city of Albany because of an award she had won in school; she had been picked up in a limousine and taken to the Alcove Reservoir, her daughter said. 

When her children were older, Mrs. Casatelli went back to work for the state, her daughter said; she had worked briefly for Civil Service after high school. 

“She always got 100s on the state tests,” Ms. Casatelli-Morse said with admiration. “I always thought she’d do well if she had gone to college, but then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Mrs. Casatelli married soon after finishing high school, her daughter said, after getting to know Mr. Casatelli through friends and classmates of hers who were his cousins. 

The couple bought adjoining lots in McKownville for themselves and for her parents, and she took care of her parents over the years, cooking and shopping for them and taking them where they needed to go, Ms. Casatelli-Morse said. 

Mrs. Casatelli loved spending time with her grandchildren. She loved to take them to Buckingham Park in Albany to feed the ducks, to playgrounds, and on shopping expeditions. They preferred McDonald’s hamburgers and Burger King fries, Ms. Casatelli-Morse said, so she would drive from one fast-food chain to the other to get them their favorites. Even on a trip with her children to the neighborhood drugstore, she might spend $100 on goodies for them, her daughter said. 

“She was just our ma,” said Ms. Casatelli-Morse. “She’s done a lot, and now it’s time for her to rest.” 

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Betty Jane (née Hunter) Casatelli is survived by her daughter, Lorraine V. Casatelli-Morse and her husband, Jerry Morse Jr., of Coeymans Hollow; by her granddaughters: Larissa Morse, Rheanne Lambert and her husband, Calvin, and Kallian Morse and her boyfriend, Kyle Rous; by her grandson, Franklin Casatelli; by her great-grandchildren, Adisyn, Trevor, and Cody Wells; by her twin great-grandsons, Harrison and Levi Lambert; and by her great-granddaughter, Kynslee Rous; by her deeply cherished friend who is part of the family, Felicia Ballard, and her husband, Jeff; and by her many nieces, nephews, and an extended family of friends.

Her husband, Frank Casatelli, died before her, as did their son, Billy Casatelli.

Interment was in Graceland Cemetery, Albany. Mrs. Casatelli had suggested that mourners make a memorial contribution to the charity of their choice. 

— Elizabeth Floyd Mair ​