Elizabeth ‘Teppie’ Weber Lary
Elizabeth ‘Teppie’ Weber Lary lived a rather unconventional life. As her surviving husband of 35 years, I’m here to tell you about my wife:
The eldest daughter of a family of nine kids, she always said she needed to get her work done before she could go out to play. As such, she was an extremely organized person. Her father, Jake called her ‘Lizzy Business.’ For the first 40 years of her life, she was known as ‘Teppie’, a nickname her older brother, Jack, gave her on account of his compromised pronunciation due to a jaw reset operation. On the Elmhurst (Chicago) street where the Weber’s lived, there were many families of 9+ children— so play time was always fun time. Growing up thru a succession of Catholic schools and colleges, Teppie maintained lifelong girlfriends, who met annually in her later years—including a visit to Austin’s Broken Spoke where they line danced to Asleep at the Wheel. Some of Teppie’s most memorable adventures included her senior year at Loyola College in Rome, where she took a trip to the Middle East to see Petra and ride camels for the first time.
Her freewheeling spirit directed her to go for the gusto — At 19, she attended JFK’s funeral procession in Washington D.C. JFK’s assassination—November 22nd—was her birthday. In 1968, while working as a social worker in the Chicago projects, she got tear gassed in the DNC peace demonstrations. In the early ’70s, Teppie moved with her family to Santa Barbara and lived on a sailboat in the harbor for $40 a month. In this newfound paradise, she happened into a very creative job on the Riviera with Ken Snyder, who produced the original animated segments for Sesame Street. She was granted free rein as a creative writer and art director for such projects as the Emmy-award winning children’s TV series, Big Blue Marble and later the Scott Education’s Learning with Laughter scripts and Doubleday Multimedia’s World Crafts Workshop which featured the lives, homes, and cultures of children around the world. One of artists she featured was Michael Gonzales, who, in 1974, conceived the SB Solstice Parade to celebrate his birthday.
In her quest to develop her full creative potential, Teppie learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) and soon became a TM teacher in Vittel, France and Interlaken, Switzerland. She got an M.A. in Education from Maharishi International University, in Fairfield, Iowa. Finally, having had enough of the Iowa winters, she moved to Texas where she was married on a Hill Country overlook and lived for 35 years in the intentional community of Radiance with her husband Scott Lary. In Austin she first taught pre-school and then had a career as an adjunct faculty teaching Adobe Photoshop thru the printing and later Visual Communications department at Austin Community College.
Elizabeth (Teppie) remembered family and friends throughout her life, helping and advancing their needs and interests with vigor and love. Her unbridled generosity was said to be her greatest trait, which she exhibited in never forgetting a birthday, and every Christmas season transforming into a gift-giving elf that Santa himself would be proud of.
Scott Lary, her husband, Nina Lary, her stepdaughter, and all Teppie’s living siblings, Thomas Weber, Stephen Weber, Mary Lee Weber, Michael Weber, and Nancy Dorwin, will miss Elizabeth ‘Teppie’ Weber Lary. She gave us her best!
Please attend a Requiem Mass to celebrate Teppie’s life in the Serra Chapel at the Santa Barbara Mission, Saturday, August 17th at 11:00 AM. Teppie loved dessert and flowers—so bring as many flowers as you wish. Or feel free to order from Alpha Florist in Santa Barbara. Cassie will make morning deliveries on Saturday. www.alphafloralsb.com (805-965-5165). If you prefer to donate in her name, Teppie’s favorite charities were: franciscanmissionassoc.org; and motherdivine.org.
For those out of town, a streaming version of this Mass to be announced: via this URL [https://tinyurl.com5n6bchva]