Betty Kulish

Betty Lou Kulish, known to many friends as Timmie Kulish (after her maiden name of Timm), dedicated and loving homemaker for her husband and three children, expert seamstress and teacher, passed away at her Denver home of six decades on Friday, June 25, 2021.  She was 94 years old.

Betty was born in Sheridan, Wyoming on May 14, 1927, one week before Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic.   She was the fourth of six children born to Lewis Timm (d. 1961) and Kathryn (Schneider) Timm (d. 1981).   Betty was the last survivor among her siblings.  Two of her sisters, Edith Marie Timm and Kathleen Timm, died in infancy before Betty was born.  Her brother William (Bill) Timm of Westminster, Colorado, died in 1982.  Her elder sister, Genevieve Chesler of Alameda, California, died in 2003.  Her youngest brother, Henry Timm of Billings, Montana, died in 2018.

Betty graduated from Sheridan High School in 1945, and from Oregon State University in 1950.   She worked for a few years as a teacher in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, and attended summer school at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  Betty decided she liked Colorado and moved there in 1952.  In Denver, she worked for the Public Service Company and lodged with a group of female roommates, a source of cherished friends for decades thereafter.  In Denver, Betty met James W. (Jim) Kulish, a Denver native, and they married in August 1955.  Their first son, Chris, was born in 1957; their daughter, Claudia, in 1958; and their youngest, Mark, in 1960.  In 1961, the family moved from a neighborhood south of Denver University to a house in the Stokes – Green Bowers neighborhood, a home which Betty lovingly adorned with her own hand-crafted work, including stained glass window decorations and a marvelous stained-glass lampshade.  She resided in her beloved home for just over six decades, until the very last moment of her life.

Dedicated to the upbringing and success of her children, Betty saw her son Chris become an electrical engineer and then a patent attorney and a partner in three firms in succession before establishing his own solo patent practice.  A lover of nature and the outdoors and an inveterate mountain climber, Chris summited Mount Everest on Memorial Day, 2019, but passed away after descending to the South Col later that same day.  Betty saw her daughter, Claudia become a teacher of the hearing and learning impaired in Kansas and Texas and then for nearly three decades in Fairfax, Virginia.  Claudia continues that profession still today in the District of Columbia.  Betty saw her son Mark become an Army judge advocate, advance to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and, in his last four years before retiring, serve as a military judge in Korea, Japan, and Hawaii.

As her children began to reach their teenage years, Betty started her own business as a seamstress, which she maintained for a quarter century.  By her own honest estimate, and in breach of her normal modesty, she was “the best.”  In the 1970s, Betty also taught her craft at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School in Denver.  She was active in a women’s club, the Serious Thinkers.  She participated in the Delta Gamma sorority alumnae organization, staging annual flower sales in her garage, and serving as the Denver alumnae treasurer for about 15 years.  In her later years, she was a dedicated member of a monthly book club and an antique study group.

Her husband Jim, a Colorado School of Mines graduate, and in his later years the manager of neighborhood business revitalization districts on South Broadway in Denver and then East Colfax in Aurora, died in 1995.  In the 1990s and 2000s, Betty’s daughter Claudia brought her on numerous yearly summer trips, mostly to Europe, where Betty finally saw for herself places and sights she had read and dreamed about all her life.

Betty is survived by Claudia and Mark, as well as a brother-in-law, F. Michael Ludwig of Englewood; two sisters-in-law, Ann Ludwig of Englewood and Joanne Timm of Billings; and eleven nieces and nephews.  They and Betty’s many friends will always cherish the memory of her innocence, kindness, and faithful endurance.

A funeral mass will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, July 22, 2021, at The Good Shepherd Catholic Church, 2626 East 7th Avenue Parkway, Denver, Colorado.   A reception will follow in the church’s gathering hall.  A private interment ceremony will be held thereafter at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, The All Souls Walk, where Betty will be placed side by side with her husband Jim, and near her mother, Kathryn.  In lieu of flowers, in accordance with Betty’s wishes please consider a memorial gift to the Anchor Center for Blind Children, 2550 Roslyn Street, Denver, Colorado 80238,  https://anchorcenter.org/get-involved/donate/ 

The remains of Betty Kulish, her husband James Kulish, and her mother Kathryn Timm were disinterred from the All Souls’ Walk, St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, in 2023.  In December 2023, Kathryn Timm’s remains were re-interred alongside those of her husband, Lewis Timm, at the Elks Cemetery, Sheridan, Wyoming.  In April 2024, the remains of Betty and James Kulish were re-interred nearby their son Christopher Kulish at Green Mountain Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado.

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