Life got interesting when Bobby reached adolescence. He had been a quiet, introspective boy; Beatty says she expected him to become an English teacher. But at ten he started playing the guitar and soon Bob Dylan---he renamed himself for Dylan Thomas---was carrying his guitar from college campus to college campus, where he found both an audience and a reason to avoid going to high school. His mother was alternately angry and admiring. "There were lots of times when he was ready to come back to Minnesota," Beatty recalls. "But he stuck with it. No one helped Bobby---they shut doors in his face, but no one helped him." She watched his progress from afar---"and then, when he was ready for Carnegie Hall, he called us." 

Beatty never expected him to become the success he is; she marvels that "he's so big, and he seems to be getting even bigger." 

Beatty says she gets along "very, very well" with Bob and his younger brother, David Zimmerman. "I did a wonderful job raising both my children," she says, "and I've been able to stay close by never interfering." 

Does she like Bob's music? "He's a beautiful poet. I have things he wrote for me when he was five or six, sacred things, that I'll never show anyone. But I don't think he was ever the greatest singer. He was never an opera star." 

Then she adds, "Of course, I love everything he does. I'm his mother." And what's more, "He's a remarkable, wonderful man. He's a very ordinary person; he's full of compassion; he has no ego. People don't really know him. But I do, and I'm grateful for it. Every mother should have a son like Bobby." 

Beatty died on January 25, 2000, in St. Paul. She was 84. She was survived by her children, Bobby and David, grandchildren (including singers Jakob Dylan and Seth Zimmerman) and great-grandchildren. Her family released one of the poems Bobby wrote for her as a young boy. It read: 

"My dear mother, I hope that you
Will never grow old and gray,
So that all the people in the world will say:
'Hello, young lady, Happy Mother's Day.'"