Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/1528788
FALL / WINTER 2024 29 club life club heritage that a horse-and-buggy trip to the Yesler general store took an entire day's travel. Fast forward 14 decades and you'll see a completely different scene. Rising 21 stories above the corner, the Wash- ington Athletic Club stands as one of the city's last early skyscrapers. Newman ran a boarding house on the site before selling to W.D. Comer. She died at the age of 96, but not before the WAC rose to the sky. Comer developed the WAC, a place most of the Cramer siblings have belonged at one time or another. Kip is a 101 Club member and played in the basketball league for many years. His younger sister, Michelle Prince, brought her kids to Saturday swims in the pool for much of their childhoods. Kip, Michelle, Scott, and Kimberly all enjoyed family dinners with their parents, long- time members Bettylee and Bill. Michelle is the family historian, a role she took on as a teenager when she used to spend aernoons at her grand- mother Elizabeth Pritchard's house. Elizabeth, mother to Bettylee, was the granddaughter of Hannah Newman and a key connection between Hannah and Michelle. e lives of Hannah and Elizabeth overlapped for 23 years, while Elizabeth and Michelle shared a 33-year overlap before Elizabeth's death. Newman and her family lived in the Central District. "e family would visit Lakeview Cemetery on Sundays," Michelle says. "My grandmother told me it was a tradition to enjoy a picnic with your neighbors on the grass." It's here in Seattle's "pioneer ceme- tery" that Hannah Newman procured two family plots. She was laid to rest in Lakeview, as were Bettylee and Bill. Mi- chelle's record-keeping of their connec- tion to Newman is so fastidious, she was able to secure the remaining plots for her mother and father by showing the cemetery association the lineage. Newman's success in business, mean- while, had a lasting effect. "e funds that Hannah had set up in a trust paid for my mom to go to UW," says Michelle, who named her daughter Hannah. While the streets have long been paved—and the journey to Yesler is now a breeze without traffic—Kip and Michelle agree that the hardscrabble pio- neer attitude Hannah Newman embod- ied lives on in Seattle. "She's a family legend," Kip says. "Every time one of us goes by the WAC, we pat her plaque." C O U R T E S Y M I C H E L L E P R I N C E Bettylee Cramer poses with the likeness of her great-grandmother Hannah Newman. Bettylee passed away in August 2024. Support WAC heritage Help preserve Washington Athletic Club heritage and the WAC Clubhouse with a tax-deductible donation to the WAC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations to the Foundation directly fund Clubhouse improvement projects, and donors at the Bronze level and above are honored on the Foundation wall in the Clubhouse lobby. The Washington Athletic Club was built in 1930 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. To donate and learn more, visit wac.net/foundation-donation. Many thanks to the following Foundation donors: Platinum ($100,000-plus): Family & Friends of Roger Kelly, Thomas Carlton Rogers II Founders ($50,000-plus during Foundation's first two years): Earl Lasher, Laurel & Pete Shimer, Linda Kelly, Patricia E. Doyle, Tammy Young & Hahns Burg, The Banerjee Family Silver ($25,000-plus): Dr. Bill Callahan, Daniel & Margaret Carper Foundation, Robert Wallace Charitable Fund, Matthew & Laura Van Beek Bronze ($10,000-plus): David Carlson & Vicki O' Briant, Dianne Harrison & John Wujack, Don & JoEllen Loeb, Gregg & Jane Blodgett, Jack R. & Sarah A. Sutermeister, James & Anna Johnson, James Hirshfield, Chuck & Nanette Nelson, John W. Meisenbach, Joseph Blattner, Kathleen & Karl Krekow, Kraig & Lora Marini Baker, Michelle & David Rudd, Patricia L. Sheppard, Patrick & Karen Crumb, Peter S. Carpenter, Robert R. Braun Jr., Sharon & Scott Kelly, Tom Horsley & Cheri Brennan, 101 Club Foundation, Tracy & Eric Pozil, Walt Smith, William & Rebecca Smead, Steve & Eileen Finnigan, Frank & Marilyn Clement, Sam & Karen Coe, Roger Wylie & Daiva Tautvydas