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Angel in the Outfield

The neutral palate of philanthropist Betty Puskar's Morgantown home serves as a blank canvas for her colorful personality and storied life.

Written by Nikki Bowman / Photography by Rebecca Devono

Family and friends are what matter most to Betty Puskar, and her Morgantown home serves as a gathering place for all those she holds dear. “That’s what life is all about. You can have everything in the world, but if you are sitting in a wine cellar by yourself with no one to enjoy it with, that’s no life,” Betty says. In that spirit, her home is always filled with the laughter of her friends—and two of the most important people in her life—her daughter, Johanna, and grandson, Kyle.

Everyone who is acquainted with Betty, who founded the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center in Morgantown after battling breast cancer, is instantly taken with her vibrant personality, sense of humor, and gracious demeanor. Her trademark red hair and sparkling eyes are always accompanied by a bright smile. “She’s an angel—an absolute angel,” says long-time friend Barbara Alexander McKinney. “She is so much fun to be around, and she always looks at the world through rose-colored glasses. She genuinely has a heart of gold.”

Befitting an angel, her home has an ethereal quality. It is a calming retreat from a chaotic world. The soft scheme of neutral whites and creams is carried throughout, seamlessly connecting a 1920s farmhouse with a new contemporary addition. “I bought the property eight years ago—and that’s a story-and-a-half,” she laughs. “My grandson, Kyle, had spent the night, and the next morning I took him to his baseball game, but the game was rained out. Kyle said, ‘I don’t want to go home, let’s go to that auction we just passed.’”

So on a whim they stopped at a small, dilapidated farmhouse that overlooked 104 acres. Eleven-year-old Kyle, who was concerned that his middle school was going to lose its baseball fields, said, “Look at all that land! Think of how many ball fields we could have here!” Betty agreed, asked for an auction number, and handed it to Kyle.

“Around 20 people were bidding. Jeff Hostetler wanted it for a horse farm. The Chico family wanted it, as well as several developers,” Betty recalls. “It came down to the very end and there was $25,000 difference between our bids, and the auctioneer looked at me and said, ‘Don’t let this land go.’ And before I knew it, he said, ‘SOLD!’ Kyle smiled ear-to-ear and said, ‘Congratulations, Grandma. I’m so happy for you.’ I immediately broke out into a cold sweat.”

Betty had to leave a 10% down payment before she left, and her hand shook as she wrote the check. She says, “When I handed the lady the check, she said, ‘Ms. Puskar, you don’t have enough zeros.’”

Word traveled fast. No one could believe that Betty Puskar had just purchased this run-down farmhouse. When Barbara heard, she immediately called her friend. She innocently asked Betty, “So, what did you do today?” To which Betty sheepishly replied, “I went shopping.” So, Barbara said, “Well, I went to Elder-Beerman and bought two pairs of shoes, what did you buy?” Betty said, “A farmhouse.”

Betty and Barbara laugh as they tell the story. “When I told Barbara, she said ‘You go girl. Best move you’ve ever made!’ She was the only person, though, that didn’t think I was off my rocker,” laughs Betty.

Betty intended only to live there while she built another house on a piece of property in Lakeview. “I renovated the little farmhouse, but I never intended to live there very long. I just didn’t want to tear it down. But I fell in love with it and decided to build an addition around it,” she says.

The home has timeless appeal and a genre-defying style that is much like her personality. Everything in her home tells a story—from the Mackenzie Thorpe artwork she purchased in London to the bronze sculpture she purchased in celebration of her reconstructive surgery. Whether an item comes from TJ Maxx or Pier One or is a one-of-a-kind piece like the Bill Mack that took seven men to hang, she loves them all equally. “I love to shop, and I shop everywhere,” she says. “One of my favorite places is TJ Maxx when a new shipment comes in.”

Betty’s current lifestyle is a far cry from her childhood. She grew up in Snakes Run, Virginia, and credits her upbringing for her positive outlook on life and for her passion to give back. “There were eight of us kids, and we lived way back in the woods. You couldn’t even get a car to our house, and we didn’t have electricity. My mother taught me to always be kind, to always tell the truth, and to never look at anything negatively—that there was always someway to make every situation a positive one.”

Betty recalls that her family was often the recipients of charity. At the beginning of every school year, each child got one new outfit and a new pair of shoes. “All of our clothes were given to us, and at Christmas we always received a basket for the needy,” she says. “I was a junior in high school, and I didn’t have shoes. I told my mother that I was embarrassed, but my mother said, ‘Don’t think of the shoes, think of how pretty your feet are.’ But my feet were really ugly—My teacher ended up buying me a pair of shoes.”

Betty admits that she was a daring and adventurous child. “I knew that I would leave Snake Run. When I graduated I worked in a factory, and then my girlfriend and I, with $15 to our name, picked up and moved to Richmond, Virginia, on our own. We wanted to live in a big city. I left with a pair of high heel shoes and blue suit I’d bought for Easter. I lasted two weeks and then returned home to attend Covington Business College”. She was working as a soda jerk at Downer Hardware in Covington, Virginia, when she met her future husband, Milan “Mike” Puskar.

“I’ve had a great life,” Betty says. “I’ve had very few bad days.” One of those few bad days—the day she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer—changed the direction and focus of her life. “I didn’t even know what cancer was,” she recalls. “I didn’t take birth control pills. I was petrified about chemicals in my body. I jogged everyday. I was blindsided.” She was only 45 years old, and her doctor gave her one to three years to live. “I knew that I wasn’t going to die. It never, ever, ever, ever entered my mind that I would not live,” she says. “I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to waste my energy on crying when I needed it to get well. I was determined that I would beat it.”

There were no breast cancer treatment centers in West Virginia, so Betty received treatment at the M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas. During the strenuous months of chemotherapy, her marriage came to an end. But Betty survived—and returned home with a mission: to create a breast cancer center for West Virginia women. Today, the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center at West Virginia University’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center—the first of its kind in West Virginia—provides state-of-the-art comprehensive breast care. She also continues to raise money for the center by sponsoring the Betty Puskar Futures Golf Classic LPGA Golf Tournament and the annual Betty Puskar Breast Care Center Fashion Show, held each October. Patrick Stanislawczyk, chair of the fashion show, says that he’d do anything for Betty. “As I’ve worked with Betty, I have learned so much about her. She is beautiful inside and out—and she is funny, funny, funny! I’ve never known her to have a bad day, no matter what is going on in her life.”

Despite battling cancer and surviving divorce, Betty says the she is truly blessed. Her friends are her biggest champions. “What people know about Betty are things that have her name on it—like the Futures Golf Tournament and the Breast Cancer Center—but what they don’t know are all the other things that she does behind the scenes,” says long-time friend John Fahey. “From playing secret Santa for disadvantaged children to hosting and preparing all the food at a Christmas-eve brunch at her home for friends who have no family nearby, she’s always giving. But she never asks for anything in return. She’s priceless.” Betty nods her head and laughs, “I’m priceless, all right!”

For more information about the diagnostic, educational and surgical services provided by the Betty Puskar Breast Care Center at West Virginia University’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center in Morgantown, call 304.293-8012 or visit www.hsc.wvu.edu/mbrcc/bpbcc.

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