Maude "Betty" Malley

Betty W. Malley, originally known as “Maude Elizabeth Wilkes,” was born in Biloxi in 1937. She was old enough to remember seeing giant ships heading to war from our Gulf Coast, to remember the days when a teenaged girl could ride her horse down to Biloxi Bay, and to remember the exhilaration of swimming out to Deer Island on hot summer days. She grew up in a town where the cops knew her name, not because of the trouble she caused but because of her inability to keep her horse from wandering over to graze at the cemetery. She was a wild child and an unabashed animal lover. She trained trick ponies and performed at rodeos. She collected wayward dogs. She cussed like the sailors she hung around (thanks in large part to her mom’s active involvement with the Biloxi Yacht Club). She rode her horses on the beach, swam in the surf, and generally had much more fun than a demure debutante should be allowed. What debutante teaches herself to drive by asking out boys who owned cars, gets them to drive out to the country and show her how the gears work, then drives herself home? Betty, belle of Biloxi.

As a good debutante she had a refined side. She had a voice that made people stop and listen. She came from a family of Jazz musicians, and her singing was the highlight of every party. She sang every chance she got and relished opportunities to perform with other musicians. She once casually mentioned that she very much enjoyed singing with a young man named Elvis who had come down with his guitar one summer to play at the clubs (“He was a very nice boy.”). Her sense of rhythm followed her out onto the dance floor, and many young men and women on the coast could attribute their dancing skills to a nice instructor named Betty at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio.

Shortly after her official coming out as a part of Biloxi society, she did what any self-respecting debutante should do. She found a rodeo man disguised in a Naval uniform and ran off to the ranch. Together they raised four children who proved just as impossible to contain as she had been. She once was heard lamenting that it had been easier to train mules than to teach her kids to do anything. We take pride in that.

As the allure of the rodeos wound down, the beach called her back to the coast. She met and married another Naval man, likely without letting him know just how crazy she was about animals. He learned quickly. Just as she had beguiled those boys to teach her to drive, she beguiled this unsuspecting Naval man to build barns, pig pens, and chicken coops. They raised rabbits, goats, and ducks. They planted gardens and built fences. But as much as she loved the land, she always kept going back to the water, where she would catch mullet, gig some flounders, and pull up crab traps. She was quite a versatile debutante.

She built her dream home on a quiet river with an expansive marsh and a spectacular sunset. Of everything she’d ever experienced, her favorite was sitting on the bench looking out over her marsh. She said she never wanted to leave that view, and like everything else in her life, she made that wish come true. She spent every last minute in the place that she loved. We could all be so lucky.

Betty was preceded in death by her parents, Sarah Estelle and George Park Wilkes; her brother, William Wilkes, and her Naval man, Jerry Malley.

She is survived by her closest companion, Maggie the Magnificent Mutt, and her children, Richard Vogt, Michael Vogt, Suzanne Clapper, and Robin Vogt. She is also survived by numerous grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews.

Funeral service will be held at 2:00 pm on Monday, June 2, 2025, with visitation beginning at 1:00 pm for friends at Riemann Family Funeral Home, 11280 Three Rivers Road, Gulfport. A private burial will take place on Tuesday, June 3, 2025 at Biloxi National Cemetery.

An online guestbook may be signed and memories shared at www.riemannfamily.com .