Nancy Bates

1924 - 2016

Nancy Witter Bates

February 5, 1924 - August 14, 2016

Nancy Witter Bates, daughter of Jean Carter Witter, original partner of San Francisco-based Dean Witter & Co., then the largest securities brokerage firm based outside New York, passed away Sunday, August 14, 2016 at age 92 in her home in Piedmont, California.

Born February 5,1924 at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco to Jean Witter and Catharine Maurer, Nancy had three children, seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

She was married to a prominent San Francisco trial lawyer, John "Jack" Burnham Bates, for 58 years before his passing in 2004. Bates was a partner at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro in San Francisco for 40 years and served as its managing partner during the 1980's.

Nancy was raised in Berkeley, California until the age of seven when the Witter family moved to Piedmont. She attended high school at Anna Head School for Girls (now the Head-Royce School) in Berkeley for two years before graduating from Madeira School for Girls in Greenway, Virginia. While studying at Madeira she took the school's motto for her own for the rest of her life, "Finish in Style!"

She had a life-long love of animals, particularly dogs and horses. She was given her first horse, Tom Boy, at 14 whom she kept at Diablo Country Club. She went on to become an award winning jumping competitor in high school and continued riding with the Woodside Hunt and on the family ranch in Gilroy, California into her eighties.

Upon graduation from high school she attended the University of California, Berkeley, a long family tradition that saw more than four generations of Witters, 40 family members, who attended the college over 60 years.

Witter Field, the university's rugby complex, is named after the family and an academic scholarship program also exists in the name of the family. She was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and graduated in 1945.

During World War II her brother, Jean Carter Witter, Jr. was killed in 1942 on the USS San Francisco during the Battle of the Solomons. To support the war effort she quit college several times to work as a volunteer Red Cross nurse's aid in several army hospitals in the Bay Area. She and her family have been active in supporting the USS San Francisco Memorial in The Presidio.

Nancy Witter married Jack Bates in 1946 and had three children while living in Piedmont. She and Jack loved outdoor pursuits with the children, including fishing at the McCloud River Fishing Club, duck hunting at Honcut Creek Ranch, and skiing at Sugar Bowl.

In the 1950's, she and Jack bought a ranch in Gilroy where they could spend weekends with family and friends, ride horses and raise cattle. In the 1970's they added a vineyard and began making Cabernet Sauvignon as Janaca Vineyards under the Bates Ranch label.

Having had ear surgery when she was 21, Nancy had a personal interest in hearing issues. Her father had established the House Ear Institute in 1945 after her successful surgery and she was honored at the organizations 50th anniversary in 1996. She served on the board of the Hearing Society of the Bay Area for nearly 30 years and was appointed by Governor Ronald Regan to the first state commission to certify hearing aid dispensers.

She and Jack enjoyed playing golf and tennis and were members of Cypress Point Club, Claremont Country Club, Old Baldy on the North Platte River in Wyoming, and The Balboa Club in Mazatlan, Mexico.

They were supporters of the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Symphony. Nancy was an active member of the Piedmont Garden Club and helped start the Piedmont Beautification Foundation. She helped oversee the re-landscape of Piedmont High school when it was rebuilt.

As an active member of the Junior League she volunteered at the Adoption Agency, the Children's Theater and served on the San Francisco Multiple Sclerosis board of directors. She was a founding board member of the Piedmont Educational Foundation and served on the first Women's Board of the Oakland Museum of California.

Mrs. Bates is survived by her three children, John Jr. and his wife Denise, both of Piedmont, Katy Bates Kreitler and her husband Peter, both of Pacific Palisades, and Charles Bates and his wife Diane also of Piedmont, seven grandchildren, James Bates, Amanda Coulbourn and her husband Clark, Justin Bates and his wife Aimee, Laura Kreitler, Cameron Glover and her husband Paul, Cecily Brittain and her husband JB, and Carolyn Bates, as well as four great grandchildren.

Services will be private and memorials may be made to the Piedmont Beautification Foundation, 120 Vista Ave, Piedmont, CA 94611 or Friends of Mountain View Cemetery, 5000 Piedmont Ave, Oakland, CA 946111.