Betty Jo Beck Ivie
February 26, 1930 – December 30, 2025
Provo — Betty Jo (Beck) Ivie was born February 26, 1930 in Paris, Idaho to Frederick Beck and Ethel Porter Beck, the eighth of ten children (Loal, Worthy, Ardith, Hope, Marva, Garth, Gayle, Berlavee and Helen). She grew up on a farm in Lanark, Idaho, and loved music all her life. Later she attended BYU and served an LDS mission in Germany (1954-56). She married Evan Leon Ivie on March 29, 1957 in the Logan, Utah temple. They had eleven children (Dynette, Mark, Joseph, Robert, Ann, Rebecca, John, James, Mette, Emily and Peter).
Betty Jo and Evan lived in Washington DC, Watertown/Boston, New Jersey, Provo, Utah and Nauvoo, among other places. She was well known in all those places for her baking, her reading, and her genealogy work. In 1992, Evan went to Ukraine for a Fullbright scholarship, along with Betty Jo and Peter. In 2000-01, Betty Jo and Evan served an LDS mission in Germany and Eastern Europe. They went on numerous trips to 23 of the 37 countries they had stewardship over and met many lifelong friends.
In 2002 they moved to Nauvoo where Evan headed the BYU Study Abroad center. They remained in Nauvoo for 15 years. After some health problems, they moved to Cove Point in Provo to be closer to family. Evan passed away March 2 of 2020. Betty Jo stayed at Cove Point, where she hosted a weekly movie night featuring her classic favorites, including Shirley Temple and Cary Grant, among others. She continued doing genealogy indexing for the LDS church, with over one hundred thousand. But in December of 2025, Betty Jo predicted to everyone who visited that it was her last Christmas, and she was right as she often was about such things. She passed away December 30, 2025, from a lung infection at the age of 95.