Remembering Betsy Adams

HONORING ONE OF CORAL GABLES’ MOST BELOVED LEADERS

Coral Gables would not be the city it is today without the contributions of local activists and civic leaders like Betsy Adams, whose legacy is found throughout the many beautification projects she spearheaded in the Gables. She organized the creation of three new city entrances, located at Coral Way and Red Road (1991), Miracle Mile and Douglas Road (1997), and Ponce de Leon Boulevard and 8th Street (2008). She also led the effort to construct the statue of city founder George E. Merrick in front of City Hall, as well as the statue of Althea Merrick – Merrick’s mother – seated on a bench at the Merrick House on Coral Way.

Adams joined the Coral Gables Garden Club in 1958 and was eventually elevated to president. With over 50 years of service, she won numerous awards, including the George E. Merrick Award of Excellence by the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce, the first-ever Coral Gables Citizen of the Year Award by the Coral Gables Rotary Club, the National Federation of Garden Club’s Civic Development Award, and the Blanche Covington Leadership Award by the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs. The city also named a day and a park – The Betsy Adams and City of Coral Gables Garden Club Park – after her. 

As the sixth of 11 children, Bessie Arminta (aka Betsy) Adams was born in 1929 in Lenoir, North Carolina, where she was raised by her mother, Bessie Warren Gregg, and her father, William Leonard Gregg. The tenets of hard work and determination were ingrained in Adams at a young age, and she spent much of her youth tending to her family’s garden. After graduating high school, Adams joined the FBI in Washington D.C., where she flourished. She played for the FBI women’s basketball team and competed in the Miss Washington D.C. pageant, finishing in second place, thanks to her fine singing voice and her appearance in the bathing suit contest.

Adams met her husband and lifelong partner, Larry, after he spotted her sunbathing in a yellow bikini on Miami Beach, where he was working as an FPL lineman (he later became a senior VP at FPL). Betsy and Larry married five months after that chance meeting, together raising three sons. They were together for 73 years until Larry passed away in December 2024. She followed him in September of this year at age 96, dying peacefully at home surrounded by family. She is survived by her three sons – Thad, Larry Jr., and Ron Adams – as well as granddaughters Kelly Adams, Jennifer, and Julie, great-granddaughter Leah Adams, and sister Shirley Barlowe. 

Adams will be remembered as an admirable wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother; a sweet, mild-mannered, and kind woman who was also a fearless leader and terrific public speaker. Her most impressive quality, however, may have been her humility. When the city chose to honor Adams with a park, she made sure that the park’s name included the Coral Gables Garden Club, not just hers. “I had no idea this would happen,” Adams told the Coral Gables Magazine in 2018. “But I’m grateful for it, I really am.”
– Luke Chaney 

In place of flowers, the family asks that donations in memory of Adams be made to the Coral Gables Garden Club.