The name Betty Brinn is a families one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two spacial places in the city – the Children’s Museum and the Children’s Room at the Milwaukee Public Library- carry the name. Yet few Milwaukeeans know anything about Betty Brinn. Elizabeth Arlene Nelson was born on May 7, 1938, the second of five children of Howard and Dorothy Nelson. Times were hard for the Nelson family, and when Betty was 7 years old, she and her brothers and sisters were sent to live at the local orphanage. Later, they lived in foster homes in northern Wisconsin. Although these were mostly sad years for Betty, she never stopped dreaming of a better life. Most of all, she wanted to live in a real home with a family that loved her. Finnally, Betty realized that she could not wait for others to make her dreamscome true. On her own, she began to create a better life for herslef, the kind of life she had always imagines. With hard work, determination and perseverance, Betty reached her goal. She became a wife, mother and succesful businesswoman, but she never forgot her childhood or stopped caring about children who were growing upwithout love and security. Today the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, the Betty Brinn Children’s Room at the Milwaukee Public Library, and the Elizabeth A. Brinn Foundation all remind us of Betty’s remarkable life and how much she cared about Milwaukee and its children.

Author: Priscilla Pardini
Additional Author: Elizabeth A. Brinn Foundation
ISBN: 0-9711188-1-7
Count: 1