Pauline Dalton Beatty

Pauline Dalton Beatty, 96, Topeka, died Saturday, March 20, 2010 at her residence.

She was born September 11, 1913 in Independence, Missouri, the daughter of Roy and Claudia MacFarland Dalton. She moved with her parents to Linn County, Kansas where she attended elementary and high school in Parker and graduated from Mound City High School in 1931. She then attended Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburg for 2 years. Pauline taught one year in a rural school.

She came to Topeka in 1935 to work for Elsie Bronson, who had been name Commissioner for the Poor. Later she and Elsie worked together in the Women's Division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). She became the first state supervisor of the federally funded school lunch program in Kansas and traveled widely throughout the state. When Winter General Hospital was opened, she became the Assistant Registrar at a time when the first litter patients from WW2 were flown in from Africa.

She married Marion Beatty, a state legislator, on October 25, 1939 in Independence, MO. He died October 25, 1965.
In 1942 she moved to Washington DC to join her husband, who was on assignment in the Judge
Advocate Branch of the US Army. In 1943 she became the office manager of the Petroleum
Industry War Council, a quasi-government agency, established by the American Petroleum
Institute whose function it was to facilitate the movement of oil to the fighting front. Eighty-seven
heads of the leading oil companies met in Washington for a monthly meeting.

In March, 1945, she moved to Augsburg, Germany to join her husband in a residence where he
served as a Judge of a Military Government Court. She worked with German children's groups
through the Army Red Cross liaison. While there, she traveled throughout Europe. She attended
the Nuremberg Military Trials for a week. She was a member of a group of military wives who
were the first non-military women to tour Prague and the western part of Czechoslovakia. Following the trials, they returned to Topeka in October, 1947.

Pauline became active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for her husband when he was elected as Shawnee County District Judge. From 1958-1960, she helped ghost write a newspaper column for Virginia Docking, wife of Governor George Docking.

In 1949 and 1950, she took training courses in St. Louis and Kansas and later trained census
takers for taking and training employees in Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas for the 1960 census.
She was a member of First United Methodist Church since 1947. She served as President of the
Women's Kansas Day Club; Vice-President of the Kansas Democratic Club; was the first female
President of the Topeka Knife & Fork Club in 1974; was the first female President of the Shawnee County Historical Society in 1975; served as President of the Kansas Press Women in 1965 and Topeka Press Women; was a 50-year member of Chapter DN of the PEO Sisterhood, and served as President of the Topeka PEO Co-Operative Board; was a board member of Topeka Community Concert Association; was a founding member of the Topeka Pancake Club and the Georgia Neese Gray Committee. She was a member of numerous organizations including the Topeka Welfare Planning Council and the American Red Cross. She organized the Friends of Kansas committee which commissioned and funded the Pauline Shirer paintings of the Kansas Executive mansion on Buchanan and the current mansion at Cedar Crest.

Survivors include a great-niece, Brenda Ann Wieseler of Kansas City, MO and a great-nephew, Tim Lewis of San Francisco.
A private memorial service will be held at a later date. Inurnment will be in Woodlawn Cemetery, Independence, MO.
Memorial contributions may be made to Kansas Advocates for Better Care, 913 Tennessee, Suite 2, Lawrence, KS 66044 or First United Methodist Church, 600 SW Topeka Blvd., Topeka 66603.
Penwell-Gabel Midtown Chapel is in charge of arrangements.