Monday, July 22, 2002 | 11:11 a.m.
The Widowed Support Group, a division of the Divorced-Separated-Widowed Adjustment Support Group Inc., meets 7 p.m. Wednesdays at the First Christian Church, 101 S. Rancho Drive. For information, call 225-1785 or visit the organization on their website at www.info4nv.org
Alone in the Ida Avenue apartment they had shared for a quarter of a century in the shadows of the major Strip resorts where they had worked and played, Betty lay down in their bed for a nap. There she died. The retired Flamingo Hotel bookkeeper was 83.
Two days later the nursing home staff told 90-year-old Jerry his wife had died. "Damn, and I'm still here," the longtime Flamingo bartender said. Five days later, on June 28, he died.
Last Friday four mourners, two Palm Mortuary officials and a Sun reporter and photographer attended a brief graveside service at Palm Mortuary to watch the side-by-side interment of the couple's ashes.
Such deaths just days apart are rare. Palm Funeral Director Terry Lamon says in his 40 years in the business, he has seen couples die naturally within a week of each other just a handful of times.
Experts say that while such deaths are poetically attributed to the myth that one person simply could not go on without the other, it's more likely that the stress of grief, not eating properly, the loss of sleep and other health-deteriorating factors hastened the other's demise.
"My mother died in 1977 and seven months later, my father died," said the Rev. Mary Bredlau, a local Episcopalian minister who officiates several funerals a week and provides counseling to the bereaved. "We found out later that Dad stopped taking his heart medicine after Mother died.
"Grief hits people quite hard. For the couple that did everything together, the one who survives feels there is no reason to go on. Though facing reality is not what some people can do easily, the key to preparing for the eventuality of death is good communication. Talk about it."
Bredlau, the chaplain for Palm Mortuaries and the former chaplain for Nathan Adelson Hospice, said people should establish what they want done for everything from life support issues to cremation to writing a will -- anything that will make it easier for the surviving spouse and family members to deal with the grief without having to make difficult decisions.
The Lynches did not find it easy to talk to each other about their mortality. Several years ago they did go individually to the funeral home to make their final arrangements, Palm officials said.
Dennis McCarthy, a friend of the couple, said when he went through the Lynches' personal possessions, he found notes from Jerry that started: "If you are reading this, then the inevitable has happened," followed by instructions of what Betty needed to do on a range of issues.
Betty refused to discuss with her husband the subject of death even on his deathbed, McCarthy said.
"I took Betty to the care center for what would be her final visit, and I felt like I was intruding on a couple of teenagers on a date," McCarthy said. "They held hands, joked and talked about things that seemed so unimportant but made them happy, things like what they might do when he came home.
"It became clear as I watched them that they thrived as a couple for so long, because they really needed each other. I was convinced that neither one could survive very long without the other."
Park Baker, who 25 years ago co-founded the Widowed Support Group, which helps people, young and old, come to terms with the loss of a mate, says people often find it easier to deal with grief when they can share it with others who have similar issues.
"It is a very devastating time to go through," Baker said. "We encourage discussion -- the sharing of feelings about the loss. We show people there is a reason to go on."
He suggests that, on average, people who have been married a long time need about two years to go through the grief process.
"It's a roller coaster ride," Baker said. "Some days you feel things are going great, then you hear a song you shared or you find a special photograph and you feel great hurt. You need help coping."
Jerry and Betty knew early on in their relationship it would be just the two of them forever, as she could not have children. No survivors were listed on the couple's death notices from Palm.
Jerry L. Lynch was born Sept. 25, 1911, in West Cork, Ireland, the third of 10 children of farmer Jerry Lynch and the former Bridgette Welsh. He quit school as a teenager and, to escape poverty, joined the Merchant Marine and saw the world. He settled in New York in the late 1930s.
She was born Elizabeth Horst on March 8, 1919, in Germany to Ambross Horst and the former Greta Lorenscheit. Betty declined to discuss her family with friends. What is known is that she left Germany when Hitler's Nazi war machine was coming to power. Trained as a bookkeeper, she arrived in New York in the late 1930s and met Jerry, a bartender.
He served as an airplane mechanic in the Army Air Corps during World War II and became a U.S. citizen in 1944. After the war he returned to New York to rekindle his romance with Betty. It would be a long courtship; they did not marry until Aug. 26, 1950. She became U.S. citizen in 1996.
They came to Las Vegas in 1967 and got jobs at the Flamingo. She was at his bedside in the 1970s, when he lost a lung and kidney to cancer. He was protective of her and made her laugh.
He was a dedicated union man who loved the Democratic Party and reading about politics. She was athletic and enjoyed taking long walks. She also ran an organized home. They worked for the Strip resort until their retirements, him about 13 years ago, friends said.
Eileen Muscato, whose grandfather was a boyhood friend of Jerry's in Ireland, said after Friday's services that Jerry would be missed in the local racebooks.
McCarthy agreed, noting that the couple frequented the Flamingo, Imperial Palace, Harrah's -- any of the several resorts that were within walking distance of their home. While he would play the ponies, she would try her luck at nickel and quarter slot machines.
"Jerry was a pistol," Linda Wood, a cocktail waitress at the Flamingo for 34 years, said daubing tears from her eyes as a Palm worker filled in the couple's graves at the close of services. "He was very charming with his Irish brogue and was great with the customers and the waitresses. But he also could make us jump when drinks were needed to be served. He kept you on your toes."
Before leaving the services to go to work, Wood took one last look at the graves that she adorned with small American flags, smiled and said, "God really blessed Jerry and Betty by sparing them the pain of living without each other."
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