In 1928 Betty accepted a job in Kansas City, Missouri, testing seed for Rudy Patrick Seed Company.  In 1932 she received her M.S. degree from Kansas State College, studying seed physiology under Professor Wilmer Davis.  Soon after, she began doctoral studies at U.C. Berkeley in plant ecology under the direction of Professor W.L. Jepson.

“After a year, the depression of the thirties and a lack of funds for graduate students descended up us.  I had fallen in love with California so I took my twenty dollars capital, boarded a Greyhound bus and headed south.  The new ‘Ransom Seed Laboratory’, an independent, self-owned laboratory, was established near two major seed companies in Los Angeles, California.”

The lab remained in Los Angeles until 1957.  During these years, Betty married, had four children, and moved the lab next door to her home, facilitating her double duties as professional and mother.  Now as Betty Ransom Atwater, Betty continued to operate the lab; testing field, vegetable and flower seeds, and finding the great variety of species produced in Southern California a continual challenge and outlet for her creative mind.  From 1944 to 1949 Betty maintained a branch laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona.