Betty Stitt Career Events Betty, known at Glenbard as "Bette," graduated with the class in 1944. She enrolled at Northwestern University that fall, with a major in, of course, Music. She joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority, and was its President in 1948. During her Presidency she resigned from the sorority because of its refusal to pledge a friend whose father was reputed to be a bootlegger. She graduated from NU in 1948. Betty had studied classical music and piano, but she had become more interested in improvising in the jazz style. As a result, after her graduation, she decided to study with jazz innovator Lennie Tristano, who had begun his teaching in Chicago, and had moved to New York City in 1946. In 1948 Betty followed him to NYC, and while studying there she joined an "All-Girl" band, headed by Jeanne LeFeber. In 1949 the band got a "gig" at a nightclub in Fairbanks, Alaska, where they played for some months. Their booking was cancelled, and they became stranded in Seattle, Washington. Through a friend she met there she got a job in an after-hours club, playing piano and singing. At left is the only known photo of her performing. It was provided by bass player Bill Crow, who knew her by her stage name, "Betty Christopher." In early 1950 Betty returned to New York City, and her friends from Seattle joined her later. Her friends introduced her around the City jazz scene, where her musicianship was well-regarded. She joined another all-girl band, this one headed by Flo Dryer, an African-American trumpet player. The band got a lot of work at out-of-town venues, but there are no photos of these engagements. With a bassist and drummer, and Betty on piano and singing, she made one 78 RPM recording as "The Betty Christopher Trio;" sales were not significant. Toward the end of 1950 Betty was introduced to Charlie "The Bird" Parker, who offered her a job as pianist with his group. She did not feel that she was capable of performing with such a famous group, and declined the offer. As her situation in the City and with the road trips was becoming too stressful, she decided to return to Glen Ellyn to consider other options. Making a living in the music business never was easy. At a holiday party Betty and Chuck Staufenberg happened to meet, and got into a long discussion about "Dianetics," which was then a new "theory" that interested Chuck. (It had not yet become the cult of "Scientology.") In subsequent experimentation with the methods of Dianetics, their friendship developed, and in the fall of 1951 they were married. After her marriage Betty's musical activities in Glen Ellyn were limited to playing for her personal enjoyment, especially "jamming" in a trio with friends who were bass and guitar professionals. When she and Chuck attended a concert Charlie Parker gave at an auditorium in Chicago, he invited her to "sit in" for a couple of numbers -- high praise from the top jazzman of the era. When Betty and Chuck moved to Santa Barbara in 1958, she continued to play informally with musicians on the local scene. After her divorce from Chuck, she worked at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a liberal "think tank," transcribing tapes of speeches given by such notables as Robert Maynard Hutchins, ex president/chancellor of the University of Chicago. She wrote music in the "atonal" style for performance by friends. In 1961 Betty went back to Northwestern to get a Master's Degree in music; she graduated in 1962. Returning to Santa Barbara, she taught piano for a while. In 1963 she married a local musician. The birth of their son in 1964 seems to mark the end of her serious music activities, and the beginning of a deepening interest in astrology and Eastern religions. In her later years she wrote many monographs on mystical subjects, and also prepared many horoscopes for clients. She once remarked that she no longer liked the sound of a piano! Next page 2007 Newsletter:   Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 8 Newsletter Home Page