On July 12, 2021, Elizabeth “Betty” Blair Boncek, loving wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, passed away at the age of 82.
Betty was born on May 3, 1939 in Dedham to Robert and Helen (Burns) Blair. She spent her childhood with her older sisters, Joan and Barbara, and her younger brother, Robert, on Mount Hope Street in Dedham. She graduated from Dedham High School in 1957 and on November 16 of that year she married Thomas Nicholas Boncek, who would spend the next three decades on the Dedham Fire Department. Betty and Tom lived in East Dedham all their lives and raised two sons and five daughters.
Betty’s sense of humor was her trademark. Even during her frequent hospital stays in the final years of her life she was joking, telling hospital visitors “we have to stop meeting like this.” Some of her favorite summers were spent camping, first at at Circle CG Farm in Bellingham in the late 1970s and then at Normandy Farms Campground in Foxboro throughout the 1980s. In the 90s she treasured her Urkel doll based on the character from the TV show “Family Matters.” In her later years she enjoyed trips to Las Vegas and Foxwoods. She loved the Patriots, bingo, bread pudding, racecar driver Kasey Kahne, and weekends at the Cape. All her life she was known for crocheting; it wasn’t a baby shower without a tiny crocheted sweater from Betty.
Betty was preceded in death by her husband, Thomas, in 1990, and her son, Dennis, in 2020. She is survived by her remaining six children Thomas M. Boncek of Dedham, Pauline Boncek of Vero Beach, Florida; Brenda Boncek of Dedham; Patricia Boncek of Quechee, Vermont; Laura Boncek of Lebanon, New Hampshire; and Sandra Hume of Fort Collins, Colorado; grandchildren Danielle, Kendra, Dennis, Paul, Nicholas, Jamie, Shaunna, Luke, Sky, Wilder, and Timber; and great-grandchildren Darren, Cylan, Ava, Mason, Tukker, Landon, Noah, Bruce, Jade, and Cole.
Visiting hours will be on Friday, July 16, 2021 at the George F. Doherty & Sons Wilson-Cannon Funeral Home, 456 High St., Dedham, from 4 – 8 pm. A Funeral Mass will be held on Saturday, July 17, 2021, at 10 am in St. Mary’s Church, 420 High St., Dedham. Interment in Brookdale Cemetery, Dedham. In lieu of flowers donations may be sent to Catholic Charities.