Elizabeth “Betty” Sargent Green Anger Skulstad

Elizabeth “Betty” Sargent Green Anger Skulstad, 93, of Beaufort, passed away at home on November 1, 2019 with her family by her side.

On March 31, 1926, she was born as Elizabeth Sargent Green to William Herbert Green and Constance Sargent Green in Leominster, Massachusetts. As a child, Betty and her beloved sister, Patricia, and cherished cousins Nancy and Madge Green were founding members of the Catacoonamug Club. The four girls loved to snow ski and go blueberry picking in the surrounding hills of Central Massachusetts. The four of them often summered with their families in a rustic cottage in Rockport, Massachusetts. Betty’s father, Herb Green owned and managed the Whitney Reed Corporation, which manufactured elegant wicker furniture and wooden rocking horses. So, the four cousins also enjoyed a childhood of hobby horse adventure.

As a third-generation Unitarian Universalist, Betty served as president of the American Unitarian Youth. At the age of 17, she was a member of a goodwill youth group that toured war-torn Soviet Union/Russia in 1945, the year World War II ended. Upon her return, Betty attended college at Tufts University where she received her Bachelor of Science in Social Work.

In 1950, Betty married Douglas George Anger, originally from Sheldon, Connecticut. The newlyweds lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts while Douglas was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University pursuing a PhD in Behavioral Psychology with B.F. Skinner as his mentor. Previously, Douglas studied chemistry at MIT and joined the Manhattan Project during WWII. While living in Cambridge, Betty attended the Boston University School of Social Work, where she earned a Masters. Betty’s career as a clinical social worker scanned fifty years. Her most challenging and rewarding work was with children who had suffered sexual assault.

Over the course of her lifetime, Betty lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan where her three children were born, and moved to Beaufort, North Carolina in 1971. She loved Carteret’s pristine seascape and the unique culture of Beaufort and Down East. So many folks in Craven and Carteret Counties know her as a caring social worker who touched so many people’s lives. A life-long environmental and civil rights activist, Betty never wavered from protecting this sacred earth and the people living on it. Her family will remember her as the best mama and Nee Nee in the world.

She is survived by her three children, Peter Anger of Cedar City, Utah, Susan Anger Barnett and husband Keith of Raleigh, and Sally Anger of Beaufort and by her grandchildren, Kaitlin and Daniel Barnett. She also loved her nieces, Ann Kindell Simpson and husband Bland, Carolyn Kindell and husbandGreg Wilson; her nephew, John “Tad” Kindell and wife Linda; grandnieces, Cary Simpson and wife Rachel Zucker, Susannah Simpson, Elizabeth Pegg and husband John; and grandnephew, Hunter Simpson and wife Emilie Lundstrom.

Ms. Skulstad is preceded in death by her loving parents, William Herbert Green and Constance Sargent Green; sister, Patricia Cary Kindell; son-in-law, Jim Stephenson; and husbands, Douglas Anger and Otto Skulstad.

In lieu of flowers, Betty asked that those who wish to remember her, please plant a native tree. You may find a list of these trees on your state’s Native Plant Society website (NC:https://www.ncwildflower.org/).

Please feel free to leave your remembrances and stories of Betty on the Munden Funeral Guestbook at www.mundenfuneralhome.net or send cards or emails to her daughter, Sue Barnett, 8627 Carileph Court, Raleigh, NC 27615. Email: saltywind2000@gmail.com.

Arrangements by Munden Funeral Home and Crematory in Morehead City, NC.