Betty L. Dickens, 72, DYFS manager

Betty Lingo Dickens, 72, of Bridgeton, N.J., who retired in 2004 as the North Camden district office manager for the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services, died of lung cancer Sunday, July 5, at home.

In 2004, Mrs. Dickens was inducted into the Cumberland County Black Hall of Fame, said a son, the Rev. Keith D. Dickens, associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Chester.

Mrs. Dickens, whose mother's maiden name was Mazzie Lowe, was a founding member in 1981 of the National Lowe Family Reunion, which has held its annual gatherings in, among other cities, Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Since the late 1980s, she had served as the organization's secretary.

Linda Richardson, who had worked with Mrs. Dickens since the late 1960s, said that "she was always held in high regard" by colleagues in the state agency.

Richardson recalled traveling to Kentucky and Ohio with Mrs. Dickens on a black history tour organized by a local church.

And in 2013, they shared a trip to South Carolina for the Original Gullah Festival, which celebrates the history of African Americans there.

"She was quiet, soft-spoken, very devoted to her relationship with God," Richardson said.

Born in Macon, Ga., Mrs. Dickens graduated in 1961 from Bridgeton High School, where she was a shortstop on the women's softball team and a member of a state all-star team.

As a member of the high school women's field hockey team, she once scored 21 goals in a season and was named by Bridgeton High as its female athlete of the year.

Athletic excellence was in the genes, her son said. A brother of Mrs. Dickens, Felton D. Lingo Sr., was a quarterback at what is now Delaware State University.

After earning a bachelor's degree in business education at Delaware State, Mrs. Dickens taught history and English for a year at the Howard Hill School in Wilmington, her son said.

She worked with the state agency as a caseworker in its Cumberland County office from 1968 to 1978, then in its Salem County office from 1978 to 1984, before finishing her career in the Camden office.

"She was a teacher at heart, and a social justice advocate," her son said, "and with her love of children, it all blended together."

Mrs. Dickens was a member of the Fairfield (N.J.) Board of Education in the early 1980s and for the Cumberland Regional School District Board of Education from the late 1980s to the mid-'90s, he said.

She was also a member of the Parent Teacher Association for the former Fairfield Township Intermediate School.

Mrs. Dickens was a member of the New Jersey Association of Black Educators and Cumberland County branches of the Girl Scouts, the Jack and Jill Association, and the Red Hatters Association.

Since 1955, the year she turned 12, she had been a member of Greater St. Augustine A.M.E. Zion Church in Bridgeton, where she served as a Sunday School superintendent, president of the Mass Choir, director of the junior ushers, and a delegate to her denomination's quarterly and general conferences.

She had been a deaconess there since the mid-1990s.

Besides her son, Mrs. Dickens is survived by son Pahl, daughter Candace Frazier, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, two brothers, two sisters, and her former husband, Edward.

A visitation was set from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, July 18, at Greater St. Augustine A.M.E. Zion Church, 410 N. Pearl St., Bridgeton, before an 11 a.m. funeral service there.

Donations may be sent to Delaware State University Alumni Association, 1200 N. DuPont Highway, Dover, Del. 19901.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.earlfosterfuneralhome.com.

610-313-8134@WNaedele