Elizabeth S. Black

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Elizabeth “Betty” Black at 86 on May 31, 2026. She passed peacefully in her home in Las Vegas, NV surrounded by all of her children. Elizabeth Hawley Black, née Steel was born on September 11, 1939 in Smithtown, NY on Long Island. Her parents were Jane and Norman Steel. Liz was born a twin with Jane Steel (Grandjean). She also had a younger sister named Marilyn who passed away and a younger brother named Peter. Betty went to Smithtown High School where she graduated in 1957. She played volleyball, basketball, baseball, and tennis in high school. She then went to Southern Seminary and Junior College where she graduated in 1959 and played field hockey. She was also in the Home Economics club and the Dolphin club, where she performed synchronized swimming. She then went on to graduate from Russell Sage College in 1961, where she received a bachelor of science in home economics.

Elizabeth moved from Troy, NY to Tuba City, AZ in 1961 by herself on a Greyhound bus. There, she taught home economics on a Navajo reservation. She moved to Las Vegas where she got a job teaching home economics at JD Smith Junior High. Betty worked there until she had her first child, Karen. From then on, she worked as a substitute teacher.

She married her husband, Roy, on May 27, 1967 at Griffith United Methodist Church, in Las Vegas. Liz had three children, Karen, Kelly, and William. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

Elizabeth is survived by her twin sister Jane Grandjean, her brother Peter Steel, her three children, Kelly Groenlykke and her husband Hans, Karen Black-Passmore and her husband David, and William Black, her four grandchildren: Claudia, Audrey, Daviren and Wyatt, and her beautiful 18 month old great granddaughter, Saylor Rose.