Elizabeth Betsy Haswell

Elizabeth (Betsy) Santee Potter Haswell, was born on October 28, 1922 at the Ellenville Hospital, Ellenville, NY and passed peacefully at home on July 18th, 2022.

Her father, David Allen Potter, was a life-long citizen of Ellenville whose insurance business was headquartered in the Hunt Memorial Building with the motto: “Potter Provides Proper Protection” and built the family home at 1 Camp Street in Ellenville; Her mother, Helen Mills Potter graduated Magnum cum laude from Syracuse University, and was a well-known pillar of the community and also mother to her brothers: Frank J. Potter (b. 1924) and Allen Milton Potter (b. 1928). Her grandfather, Frank J. Potter, was a Ellenville pioneer, starting with a tinker wagon and eventually an eponymous general store in Ellenville.

After graduating from Ellenville High School in 1940, Betsy attended Russell Sage College and married Walter Thomas Haswell in 1943 and moved to Washington, D.C. where both worked at the Naval Labs. They later moved to Latrobe, Pennsylvania and thirty years later to their farm on Smokey Hollow Rd. in Jamesville, New York.

Betsy and Walter became the loving parents of Walter T. Haswell, III  (d. 2007), Nancy D. Haswell, Helen E. Haswell MacCartney, Sally S. Haswell, and David P. Haswell.

Betsy’s early and sustained embrace of a healthy lifestyle, natural foods, and nourishing endeavors with the Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church choir, Natural Foods Coop, soap- and candle-making and home milling of flour and baking of delicious home-made bread while helping to raise the family’s bees, chickens, and turkeys at the family farm in Jamesville, NY has sustained her long and generous life.

In later years she become a semi-active though unofficial participant in the workshops and activities of the Home Garden Club.

Remarkably at the age of 99 she survived COVID as well as pneumonia. She read and enjoyed the Wall Street Journal as well.

Betsy is survived by her children Nancy Haswell, Jamesville, NY; Helen and Kim MacCartney of Williamsburg, VA; Sally S. Haswell of NYC and Dr. David and Lauren Haswell, Erieville, NY; as well as 9 Grand children and 13 Great Grand children. There are also several nieces and nephews.

Our hearts are full of gratitude to all those Doctors, Nurses, Technicians, other service people, friends and especially her loving and faithful companion. Thank you all. You made Betsy’s life the best it could be.

She was a greatly loving, forever forgiving pillar in our lives. We celebrate and give God thanks for the honor of her wise and loving presence in our lives.

Donations in remembrance Betsy can be made to the Jamesville Community Museumm, 6492 East Seneca Turnpike Jamesville, NY 13078

Phone: 315-492-4980