As a kid playing softball in the parking lot near her family’s South Shore home, and one of the only girls, Deneterius “Dee” Bey refused to join the team she was picked to be on unless her younger brother, Lee, who was barely old enough to join in, could play, too.
As an adult, after opening a business in Rolling Meadows that developed and maintained software for credit unions, she hired her sister Claudette Caldwell’s kids for summertime positions, a move that proved integral in their success later in life.
And, as a resident of the care facility The Pearl of Rolling Meadows, where Ms. Bey spent the last two decades following a diagnosis of neurosarcoidosis, which ravaged her body but not her mind, she was known as a helper who other residents would seek out when they had problems.
“People looked to her for answers and help. She was a leader,” said Amanda Gray, a nurse at the facility.
Ms. Bey died May 28 from health issues stemming from the disease. She was 64.
“Dee had a tremendously positive effect on people around her,” said her sister. “Life is not always about material things, but the effect that you have on the people around you, and her faith in Jesus helped build and inspire her to move forward. When most would have given up, she persevered.”
Strong-willed, goal-oriented and whip-smart with numbers, Ms. Bey attended Lindblom Technical High School and Iowa State University, where she studied computer engineering.
Ms. Bey started Beysch Consulting Group, which later became Bey Caldwell Consulting Group, or BCG, a company that was headquartered in Rolling Meadows, not far from where she lived.
She loved the color mauve, crossword and jigsaw puzzles, Scrabble, Jenga and trivia of all sorts, especially playing along with “Jeopardy” on TV.
“She was the ‘cool aunt’ who called me ‘girly’ and took us swimming and to hit golf balls and always had an answer to all our questions,” said her niece Cherise Caldwell.
Her life was upended a little more than 20 years ago when Ms. Bey was diagnosed with neurosarcoidosis and began to face a series of health issues that forced her to step away from the business.
“It was a shock to us,” said her brother Lee Bey, architecture critic for the Sun-Times. “It’s the kind of ironic and cruel thing that life deals you … her body deteriorated for the next 20 years but for the most part her mind did not.”
“She never complained,” said her aunt, Carmen Simpson Clark, who noted that when she expressed anger and frustration with the unfairness of the disease that was wrecking her niece’s body, Ms. Bey would always respond: “It’s OK Aunt Carmen. It’s OK.”
“I am almost speechless, my heart is just bleeding,” Clark said after her niece’s passing.
Ms. Bey loved Elvis Presley movies and The Three Stooges as a kid, and when the horror flick “Night of the Living Dead” aired on television she and her brother ignored all parental warnings and watched it with the lights off — terrified.
“When it was over I was like ‘Ahh, can I sleep in your bedroom tonight?’ and she was like ‘Nope,'” her brother recalled with a laugh. “The next day we were telling our parents about it and she was like ‘I wasn’t scared.’ And I was like ‘You were, too, scared!'”
Ms. Bey was born Jan. 23, 1961, to Lula Bey, a homemaker, and Lee Bey Sr., who worked for Reynolds Metals Company. She was the middle of three siblings.
“She spoke her mind and if you weren’t doing right she didn’t mind telling you,” said Caldwell, who noted that the last memory she’ll cherish with her sister was a lively discussion on Bible passages.
“Her death was very sad news for everybody here at The Pearl. Everybody knew her. She was like the mayor,” said Gray, who occasionally braided Ms. Bey’s hair.
“She remained upbeat and very hopeful in a higher power to the end,” she said.
In lieu of flowers, folks can make donations to the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research.
A memorial service is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday at The Pearl in Rolling Meadows, 4225 Kirchoff Rd.