Bettie Chase: “One of a Kind”

It is sad when the old generation goes. Even in the greatest weakness and mis- ery they give shelter from the wind, and a special world lives around them. And that kind of person will never come again.

- Isak Dinesen B ettie Lloyd Chase left us on April 20, 2013.

As Waitsburg has been described as "One of a kind," so we would have to characterize Bettie Lloyd Chase.

She was a true Waitsburg native, born here in 1920 and lived her life as a credit to her hometown.

She married Berger Chase and the couple had one child, Sally, who married another Waitsburg native, Glenn Baker. So the family was truly Waitsburgian.

Our family came to Waitsburg in 1963. Bettie worked part time for the Waitsburg Times, keeping the office open on Monday afternoon when publisher Carl Dilts went into Walla Walla to sell advertising.

Our family had a pur- chase agreement with Carl and Virginia Dilts, which involved a year of employ- ment before the transfer of ownership. During that time, I became acquainted with Bettie and admired both her command of the English language and her vast knowl- edge of Waitsburg history.

When the paper was transferred to our family I asked Bettie to work for me on a full-time basis, and she agreed. The first summer of ownership I was also privi- leged to employ her daugh- ter, Sally, as a reporter and bookkeeper.

Bettie had the "Who's Who" of Walla Walla Coun- ty in memory. She could recite the names of the sons and daughters of the area's pioneering farm families and their descendents, including the names of the kids cur- rently in Waitsburg's school. Old photos in the files? Very few ever stumped her. Many a week she'd be one of two people in town who knew that so-and-so, Class of '47, had died in Indiana, and The Times would publish the obituaryhellip;for the record.

That level of recall and dedication to getting it into print is priceless. When our family was new to the valley, she saved us from a myriad of miscues involving fam- ily relationships and proper identification of citizens.

Bettie and Doris Hulce were my steady help from that time until we sold the newspaper in 1991. They both started with hot-metal technology and eventually graduated into electronic and computer operations.

Bettie answered the phone "Times officehellip;" for over 40 years. She hammered out "Chips and Splinters," the birthdays, engagements, weddings, birth announcements and obituaries on a manual Royal typewriter. Thinking she would appre- ciate an electric typewriter, I bought one and switched them one weekend hop- ing to surprise Bettie. That Monday when I entered the office, that brown Royal typewriter was back in its place.

In the hot-lead days, Bettie proofed galleys and helped make up pages as the press deadline approached. She was aptly named: a "chase" was a steel frame within which the lead type was made up into a newspa- per page. On press day, Bet- tie operated the addressing machine, a stencil-imprinter that sometimes jammed up. Long-time Times sub- scribers may recall their newspaper addressed in her beautiful Palmer-method penmanship.

My son Loyal, who later published The Times from 1996-2009, started at the ripe age of 7 as "flyboy," catching folded newspapers from the folder and deliver- ing them to Bettie at the addressing machine. Bettie's sharp command "PAPERS!" would often jolt him out of his reverie amid the rhyth- mic clacking and rumbling of the Miehle press and folding machine.

Bettie was a great proof- reader. It was most difficult to sneak any language dis- parity by her watchful eye. She did not pretend to be a bookkeeper, but she obliged by keeping track of advertis- ing and legal accounts.

If an electric typewriter was a non-starter, then you can imagine her response to computers. Still she contributed to The Times in sig- nificant ways. Bettie was "in her element" if the topic was history. When The Times reached its 100th year in 1978, that landmark issue was dedicated to her. The 75th anniversary of the Days of Real Sport in 1988 necessitated a look back at those 75 years of horse races and royalty courts, and Bettie knew just about everything because she'd been in charge of the Times' archives all those years. In 2000, The Times published a 12-page broadsheet special section "Century In Review," which won second place for special sections from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Her reference desk was a collection of old phone books, city directories and spiral notebooks in which her cursive handwriting noted the various clubs, groups, mayors, city councils, school boards, Commercial Club presidents and officers, and et cetera, for as far back as any of these organizations existed. On deadline, therefore, it was quick and easy to find how many years so-and-so served on City Council before being unable to dodge becom- ing mayor, or when writing a sparkly bio for a Days of Real Sport princess, that she was Queen of the May last year.

A bit of humor at a Lions Club meeting resulted in the appearance of a small blurb under the heading "Berger Sez," and that became a standing feature for several years. After Berger passed away, the little item was rebranded "Bettie Sez," and it continued until her official retirement from the paper.

Bettie was such a re- nowned historian that when the Boy Scouts would visit the newspaper to get their names set on the Intertype in hot metal, they would ask what she remembered when the dinosaurs were still roaming the premises. She always had a ready answer for them.

Bettie didn't do many things short-term. She was secretary of the Eastern Star Chapter for some 40 years. She was correspond- ing secretary of the Waits- burg Alumni Association for most of its existence, care- fully hand-addressing all the mail that was sent out to give details of the upcoming re- union. I think she may have missed only one Alumni meeting during all the years she was active. She was the first woman president of Waitsburg Commercial Club and the first who served two consecutive terms.

Mrs. Chase served four terms on the City Council during some of the terms when I served as Mayor, and she was a most capable councilperson who didn't put up with a whole lot of nonsense. When she heard "B." and "S.", she knew it and said so. Check the ar- chives. It's there.

Bettie received the Com- munity Service Award in 1991 and was named Pi- oneer of the Year by the Waitsburg Historical Society in 2001. While serving on that board, she was usually the main source of the next candidate for the honor. She was Parade Marshal for the Days of Real Sport Parade in 2011.

She was a valued mem- ber of the Waitsburg His- torical Society and served that organization from its founding to where it is today. The recent addition of the Wilson-Phillips House includes a library-reference room, which will be named the "Bettie Lloyd Chase Me- morial Resource Center." In it is the desk at which Bettie worked during her 40-plus years at The Times. The room will be a fitting memo- rial to someone who was so faithful to the preservation of the people and history of this valley.

This memorial to Bettie Chase was compiled by Tom Baker and his son, Loyal Baker, who are both former publishers of The Times.