Janet Wright

Janet Wright Born in September of 1914 in San Francisco, and died in Medford, OR, January, 2006. She was 91, and lived all but the last few years of her life in San Francisco. Her parents were Frederick F. Wright and Rose Ella McNulty Wright. She was a fourth-generation San Franciscan, the great-granddaughter of Andrew and Julia McCormick, who came around the Horn from Ireland in the late 1840s. Julia washed clothes for the gold miners, and Andrew, as a carpenter, worked on the first house built on Telegraph Hill. Janet started work as a teller in 1935 at Wells Fargo Bank, which then had only one office, which was located in SF. By the time of her retirement from the bank 44 years later, she had become the first woman officer and then the first woman vice president of a major SF bank, in charge of the computer division. By then she oversaw operations in hundreds of bank branches in several states. At the same time she was an outstanding athlete. She became a top-flight amateur badminton competitor, being runner-up for the national championship singles title and, with her partner, national doubles champion, both from 1941 to 1948. She was also elected to the Helms Hall of Fame. Janet was awarded the first Ken Davidson Award for Sportsmanship, having to be carried onto the court on a stretcher at the national tournament in order to receive it, since she had torn her Achilles tendon in the previous game. She continued tournament badminton until another tendon injury finally ended her participation, wherein she turned to golf, following the tournaments as a spectator and playing courses throughout the state. She was a Seals and Giants baseball fan since before Joe DiMaggio played for San Francisco, and unsurprisingly, the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 found her at Candlestick Park waiting for the first pitch! She held season tickets for both Stanford and 49er games through several generations of neighboring seatmates and seldom missed a game. Janet never married, and lived in the same apartment in SF for 60 years, where she watched the construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, the flood of military in WWII, the gun flashes of the Barker brothers when they seized control of Alcatraz from prison authorities, and the protests of the '6Os. She always saw life as an adventure, and faced with any now situation, she usually said, "Oh, boy!" After suffering a stroke while exploring the outback of Alaska at age 88, she moved to Medford to be nearer family. She is survived by a large family. Many of them were not related, but she ways still their "favorite aunt." Her friends include anyone she ever met, especially children. Surviving relatives include nephews, Fred (w. Norma) Wright of Talent, OR, and Robert (w. Jane) Hansen of Rocklin, CA; and nieces, Nancy (h. Ted) Vian of Portola Valley, CA, Barbara Nagaoka of Merced, CA, Jan Hansen of Folsom, CA, and Mary (and Ray McDowell) Maupin of Kingman, AZ. She is also survived by 13 grand-nieces and nephews, and 18 great-grandnieces and nephews. Janet's ashes will be inurned with her family at Woodlawn Cemetery, Colma, CA, later this year, at which time a large gathering of her friends and family will celebrate her life (perhaps in a stadium!) Janet has touched the lives of each of us in so many ways. We will try to keep her humor, spirit, and love alive by passing them on and on, as Janet always did.