Elizabeth Pond "Betty" Dalton

ELIZABETH "BETTY" POND DALTON
October 24, 1910
August 17, 2007
Betty was loved by everyone and she passed from this world knowing that in her heart.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Betty moved to Hartford, Connecticut at an early age. Her father, Charles Miles Pond was an engineer. Her mother, Alice Myers Pond, was an artist. In Hartford, Betty saw modern technology evolve. She recalled her brother, Charles Jr., entering into a contest sponsored by a local department store, to see who could build the best crystal radio set from a kit purchased at the store. Before going to school one day, she listened in awe to the announcer from KDKA in Pittsburgh, marveling at how someone hundreds of miles away in Pittsburgh could be heard in Hartford. She listened to the radio again that afternoon and ever since. Her brother won the contest.
She loved to walk in Elizabeth Park near her home. Even as a child, Betty had spunk. Later in life, she regaled her family and friends with tales from her childhood. Such as, in the early days, Betty's family had their laundry sent out. One day when she was seven years old, Betty was home when the laundryman delivered the clean clothes. Unfortunately, Betty's mother didn't have the correct change on hand to pay him. He wanted to take the clothes back until he could be paid. Betty saw her mother and the laundryman in a tug-of-war over the bundle of clothes. She grabbed the nearby bull whip and cracked it loudly, which sent the laundryman running. He got paid later.
Betty was a good student and an accomplished pianist. She attended Wellesley College and graduated in 1932. After college, she embarked on a lifelong love of travel and adventure when she went to England with her Wellesley friends. She also traveled to Scandinavia with her father. She began studying music at Julliard College, but returned to Hartford shortly thereafter to care for her ailing mother and then to keep house for her father after her mother died. She played piano and was the assistant organist in a nearby church. The minister was a Hartford Seminary student, Robert "Bob" H. Dalton.
One day when the main organist failed to appear for the church services, Bob asked Betty to fill in for the day's services. This was where their relationship began. Bob and Betty were married on June 4th, 1937. Even their honeymoon was an adventure. They took a motor camping trip to the western United States. One day Betty was alone in camp preparing dinner when a bear wandered in. Ever practical and never flustered, Betty threw an empty bean can at the bear who was most satisfied and left with his treasure.
In 1944 the family moved to Ithaca, New York, where Bob became the chairman of the newly formed Department of Child Development and Family Relationships at Cornell. It was during the war, with food rationing, a new baby in the house, and harsh winter weather. Betty's strength helped everyone get through. She was a mother extraordinaire. Betty made clothing for herself and her four children, Alice, Anne, Robin and Peter.
Betty was instrumental in organizing a children's concert series in Ithaca. She brought the first live production of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors to open the series.
Betty instituted programs at Tompkins County Memorial Hospital to allow parents to stay with their hospitalized children and for a book cart with children's books to be circulated. She was an active member of the PTA and a Cub Scout leader.
In her early forties, Betty suffered a paralysis and was unable to play the piano. As part of her recuperation, she strengthened her hand muscles by working with clay. Soon she was able to resume playing the piano, and continued for the remainder of her life. But her new love was ceramics and from then on she referred to herself as a potter. She went on to study ceramics at Alfred University and with the famous Native American potter Maria Martinez. Her artistic pottery creations are treasures she has left behind.
In 1952, Bob and Betty scoured the east side of Cayuga Lake for a weekend getaway spot. They found some land in the community of King Ferry. There was no road and so they had to haul a trailer there through a farmer's field. Over time they built a house overlooking the lake. Then their children built homes there as well. For the next fifty-five years Betty called King Ferry paradise and it was her favorite place on earth.
In the nineteen-fifties, Bob had a sabbatical leave and the entire family spent a year in Europe. Betty led the family on expeditions throughout the continent and into North Africa. Alice and Anne went to school in France while Betty home-schooled Peter and Robin where they lived in Spain. She had planned out the entire year in such detail that everyone got an exposure to European history, geography, art, and culture.
By the mid nineteen-sixties, Bob and Betty's children had all left home, and retirement was upon them. Bob and Betty built a home in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. It was a special place with fabulous weather and pristine beaches. For the next forty years, Betty and Bob were regularly visited by family in the winter months.
Betty continued to travel throughout the world. Every spring throughout her 70s, 80s, and even 90s, she went on a trip to some part of the world. She visited China, Africa, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Europe, and Alaska. At 77, she went with an Elderhostel group for three weeks in Japan. Then she journeyed for another three weeks on her own with a pair of sneakers and a backpack and visited pottery sites throughout Japan. She made lasting friendships on these trips. She often traveled with a group and at times was accompanied by family members. At age 73, Betty went with Robin whitewater rafting on the San Juan River in southern Utah. She visited Sicily, Australia, and New Zealand with Anne. She went up the Douro River in Portugal and through the Panama Canal by boat with Peter. Two years ago, at 95, Peter and Robin accompanied Betty on a two-week cruise from Buenos Aires, around the southern tip of South America to Valparaiso, Chile. She was the sweetheart of the trip.
After her spring trips, Betty would return to St. Thomas for a month. Then she would go to King Ferry, where she would spend the summer at the lake. She enjoyed boating, swimming, going to restaurants, and parties, as well as entertaining at home and having family and friends visit and living close by. She continued to play the piano both in King Ferry and in St. Thomas, but more important were the ceramics shops she had in both residences.
Every fall, Betty would spend one or two months in New York City to "recharge her batteries" with art, music, and family who lived nearby. By Thanksgiving, she would return to St. Thomas for the winter.
Wherever Betty lived - New York City, King Ferry, or St. Thomas - she made new friends and relished in her old friends. One summer in King Ferry, Betty kept track of her visitors. There were fifty-eight people who came to see her. Many people also visited Betty and Bob in St. Thomas. Betty often said, after losing her home in a fire and twice in hurricanes, that possessions meant nothing. Personal relationships are what is truly important in life. She treasured each and every one.
Betty and Bob were married seventy years the summer that Betty died. Before she passed away in August 2007, she visited with much family that summer and got to meet one of her great-granddaughters for the first time. She spoke with all her family in the last days of her life.
Her surviving family are her husband, Bob; and her children, Alice Brown, Anne Dalton, Robin Dalton, and Peter Dalton; plus Alston Harris, a man who w