![Friends Betsy Berg (left) and Lisa Marie Borchert volunteer as ushers at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis. ] (JIM GEHRZ/STAR TRIBUNE) / July 28, 2013, Minneapolis, MN – FOR DUETS COLUMN](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/W4JHP2ORLGYTOXJESAOATW7A3E.jpg?&w=1080)
Betsy Peak's husband of 47 years died six years ago, just as Lisa Marie Borchert was planning a vacation to London.
Come along, Lisa Marie suggested. Betsy graciously declined — her passport had expired, the timing felt off — but she was touched that a friend would be so thoughtful. It was even sweeter considering that her friend is 30 years her junior.
"We do not think of ourselves as mother and daughter," says Betsy, who met Lisa Marie in 1996 when they worked for the same Twin Cities events planning company. "Maybe this will encourage other people to reach out to those they would not usually see as a fit. She has made my life so much richer."
Lisa Marie, of northeast Minneapolis, grew up in the country near St. Peter, Minn. Betsy, of Edina, was raised in Louisville, Ky. "It was pretty instant," Betsy says of their friendship. "Lisa Marie walked up and said, 'I like your sweater.' I thought, really?"
Betsy laughs. "That was the opening."
They ate lunch together nearly every day for four years, until Lisa Marie took a new job. But their friendship never faltered. Together, they've volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, formed a book club, traveled to Hawaii and Chicago, watched "Project Runway" and fed their mutual love of indie films. Lisa Marie took Betsy to the DIFFA fashion show featuring men in drag ("I had a ball," Betsy says) and taught her friend to text.
"I told her this will be a benefit down the line with her granddaughter," Lisa Marie says. "The generational difference," she adds, "is kind of like the good without the history."
The two women just began their 11th year of ushering together at the Jungle Theater. "I hand out the programs and tell them, 'You may take in your beverage,' " Lisa Marie says.
