Betty Lancer (Provided)
On August 18, Betty Lancer will celebrate her 100th birthday. Lancer has witnessed the rapid growth of Charleston, where she was born and raised. Now residing on Sullivan’s Island, she emphasizes the importance of being near family.
I was first greeted by Roslyn Barkowitz, Lancer’s eldest daughter, at the front door of their Sullivan’s Island home.
“Mama said that I must offer you something to drink before we start,” said Barkowitz, foreshadowing the welcoming environment I was about to enter.
Cozied up in the living room, surrounded by her proud daughters Roslyn and Sheryl, Lancer began to reflect on her childhood, which started at 45 Calhoun Street.
Lancer’s parents, Bella and Max Hirsch, immigrated from Poland to New York at a young age. In 1924, Lancer was born in the heart of downtown Charleston, as her mother thought it was best to start a family in the South. Lancer was raised in a single-parent household for her first few years of life, as her father continued searching for work up north.
By the time her father returned, the family moved in with her aunt due to their economic state. Back then, Lancer recalls it cost a fortune to obtain household necessities, such as water heaters and air conditioning, making the winter and summer months the most difficult to live in. Although the Great Depression of 1929 created hardships for the Hirsch family, Lancer has positive memories from that time. In 1932, she remembers sitting in front of the radio, an invention that fascinated her, to hear that Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election against Herbert Hoover.
The Battery, a historic landmark in downtown Charleston, was an outlet for children to play and catch a breeze during the hot summer months.
“From where the Fort Sumter Hotel was to the first cannon was nothing but Jewish immigrants and first-generation children, and we had such a ball,” Lancer said. “We would play games and get really tired. The parents would put out blankets on the grass for us to go to sleep, and when it was time to go home, they’d pick us up in a car or whatever we had and take us home because it was too hot to be in the house.”
Folly Beach is another place where Lancer spent time as a child. Sullivan’s Island was too expensive for the family to visit because they had to pay a toll to cross the Grace Memorial Bridge. As she got older, Sullivan’s Island became a place she visited often.
Memminger School is where Lancer spent most of her teenage years. During her attendance in the late 1930s, Memminger was an all-girls school, allowing Lancer to create long-lasting friendships.
“By the way, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my friend Anna Latto; she’ll be 101 when I’m 100. She and I graduated together,” Lancer said.
Lancer and Latto are the only remaining women out of their original friend group of six, which started back at Memminger.
“Mama has a great sense of humor,” Barkowitz said as Lancer told a joke about needing hearing aids and magnifying glasses at her yearly reunion with Latto.
Lancer recalled three significant dates from her teenage years that profoundly shaped her life. The first was in 1937, when Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. She still remains dumbfounded over Earhart’s disappearance.
The second was September 1938, when five tornadoes struck the Charleston area. The tornadoes destroyed the downtown market and took the lives of 32 people, one of them being Lancer’s classmate at Memminger. The storm caused her to have a lifelong fear of storms, especially in September.
The last date was 1939, when “Gone With the Wind” came out. At 15 years old, Lancer and the Memminger School girls attended a screening of the movie, where they were amazed by the displays of affection they’d never seen before. Alicia Rhett, who played India Wilkes in the movie, spoke to the students about the filming process, as she was from Charleston. Lancer has kept the autograph she received from the actress to this day, as well as a picture of actor Clark Gable on her fridge, proving the lasting effect the movie has had on her.
At 16 years old, when Lancer was living on the corner of Anson and Society streets, she would take the Meeting Street bus to her job on King Street. Jules Lancer, her friend who worked for a tire retreading company nearby, introduced her to his brother David Lancer, who also worked at the shop.
“That’s the guy I'm going to marry,” Lancer thought at the time. “And I did,” she said during our chat.
Lancer attended the College of Charleston in 1941 for one year and then the University of South Carolina for six months. Her college education didn’t last long because, in 1942, David enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. She found it hard to focus on her studies while being away from David, who was stationed in Beaufort at the time.
“Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds today are babies; we were already grown at that age,” said Lancer.
The couple got engaged in February 1943 and were married on July 7, 1943, when Lancer was 18 years old. A year later, the couple had their first child, Roslyn. When Roslyn was five months old, the family moved into a newly developed neighborhood in West Ashley called Byrnes Downs on 13 Campbell Drive. At the time, it was only open to enlisted men and essential war workers. They were one of the first families to move there, as the roads weren’t even paved yet. While residing in Byrnes Downs, the Lancers added two more children to their family, Murray and Sheryl.
Sullivan’s Island, a place Lancer only visited to see her school friend from Memminger or to attend a house party on the corner of Station 28 and Brooks Street, eventually became a place that she would call home. As her children got older, they moved to the South Windermere neighborhood of West Ashley. Lancer worked as a court clerk alongside her attorney son-in-law, Donald Barkowitz, for 25 years.
Betty and David would frequently visit the Barkowitzes’ Sullivan’s Island home to spend time with their family, until Roslyn suggested that her parents make their stay permanent. In 1975, after building an apartment in the basement, the pair moved in. During that time, Sullivan’s was a place for summer vacationers.
David Lancer passed away in 1988 at 65 years old, and a year later, Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston. Lancer’s basement apartment was destroyed, resulting in her moving into a condo until reconstruction was finished. Berkowitz recalled missing the company of her mother during that time.
Lancer now spends her days enjoying her favorite afternoon show, “Judge Judy,” and eating chocolate snacks, although she mentions she can’t have as much because of the caffeine. Lancer is also a passionate Broadway fan, with her favorite musicals being “South Pacific,” “Show Boat,” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which she played the grandmother in Robert Ivey’s Ballet production.
Before the pandemic, Lancer mentioned that some of her favorite memories were made at Disney World with her family, as they went every year. “
We laugh a lot,” said Lancer, after reflecting on the past, causing the room to light up with laughter.
Turning 100 is something Lancer tries not to dwell on.
“All I know is that I go to sleep and I wake up. All of a sudden here I am,” she said, referring to the mystery of her longevity.
What she does know, however, is how she wants to celebrate her birthday: surrounded by her immediate family. Through the stories of her life, Lancer has demonstrated the importance of being close to loved ones. She shows that reaching a milestone age is not a big mystery after all. The key to a long life seems to be quite simple: surround yourself with people you love and who make you laugh, just as Betty does every day.