Crane, Betty
CRANE (READY), Betty Lynn
Betty Lynn (Ready) Crane was born in Birmingham, Alabama on September 7, 1943. Her father and mother were Leonard and Betty (Rubel) Ready, who both predeceased her. Lynn Crane as she was known to her family and friends passed into the Lord's hands on Friday, June 17, 2022. Lynn loved life and her family above all else. She had been burdened in recent years with a series of chronic illnesses, viruses, and conditions, though she fought back each of these with some degree of success, an ongoing blood disease finally developed into acute leukemia which became too much for her frail body to bare.
In 1960, Lynn Ready left Birmingham for Alabama to follow her mother to Atlanta. Young Lynn entered Secretarial School, while also employed at the Lenox Square Mall Rich's Department Store as a beauty consultant in the cosmetics department. Not long after her arrival, she met Jerry Crane, who would become her lifelong marriage partner. The pair were wed on June 24, 1960. Lynn's passing came only a week shy of their 62nd anniversary.
Like her mother, who also left this world too young, Lynn Crane was a working mother. She joined the family enterprise, Decatur News Publishing Company, and served in a variety of positions, most prominently as the Office Manager and Chief Legal Advertising Coordinator of the Business and Legal Review of the Decatur-DeKalb News/Era, the then legal organ of DeKalb County. But more important than her career, was her family, and Lynn and Jerry Crane would have and raise four children, Bill, Brian, Tanya, and Lisa.
Lynn was active in a wide array of civic and community causes, including volunteer service as an officer in the PTA of Heritage Elementary School, a Girl Scout Pack leader, soccer mom, and fan of multiple sports teams and leagues of all the children and a variety of assignments within the Childrens' Civic Theatre (CCT), in which the Crane children were also long involved. In more recent years she was active in the Stone Mountain Rotary Club, joining her husband Jerry who is a 50+year Rotarian, and the Stone Mountain Women's Club. With the latter Lynn served in leadership roles on the Stone Mountain Park Ghost Tours through the Stone Mountain Park Historic Village, raising funds for backpacks and school supplies for disadvantaged children as well as the Yellow Daisy Festival and Stone Mountain Annual Tour of Homes. Annual Rotary Conventions to Jekyll Island were also a longtime favorite of Lynn's.
Among Lynn's favorite pastimes were beach strolls along Jekyll Island and later St. George Island, where the family had vacation homes. She would spend hours simply sitting on the beach, listening to the waves, watching the water, and occasionally dolphins, as well as enjoying the blue sky and clouds overhead. When her health conditions prevented further travel, a recent high point was a family party bringing a bit of the beach to Lynn, at her family home along the Yellow River in Snellville, Georgia. Second, to being near water, Lynn loved convertibles, with the top-down and the wind blowing in her hair. Her first family car was a 1958 Ford Fairlane convertible and a brilliant blue Camry Solara ragtop was her final car. Lynn befriended almost anyone she met, loving and accepting them as they were. Her most valued honors, apart from family, are the many friendships and neighbors whom she held dear for many years, whether they became Bunco game buddies, or just worked together on community projects. And Lynn loved to talk, about anything and at any time, no matter what she was doing.
Surviving Lynn is her husband Gerald W. (Jerry) Crane, son Bill Crane, daughters Tanya Sommers (husband John), and Lisa Fox. Also grandsons John E. Sommers III and Cody Sommers, granddaughters Barclay Carson (husband Cody) and Olivia Krista, Kylie and Kiera Fox, and most recently two great-grandsons, Carter and Callen Carson. Lynn was predeceased by middle son Brian Keith Crane in April of 2104.
A Celebration of Life Party will be held in Lynn's memory on Friday, August 26th at Vecoma on the River. 4400 Vecoma Lane, Snellville, GA, 30039. The venue is right off Ross Rd, off Hwy 78 just east of Lake Lucerne. Friends are invited to drop by anytime between 3 PM and 7 PM to join Lynn's family in this celebration. A Memorial service was held for Lynn for the immediate family on June 28th.
In lieu of flowers, those who wish to remember Lynn with a charitable contribution are suggested to consider either Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (choa.org), the Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta (https://www.dsaatl.org/give), or the March of Dimes, all worthy and three of her favorite causes.
