Shelter Island Reporter obituary: Elizabeth Price Hansel

Elizabeth Price Hansel passed away on March 17, 2025, St. Patrick’s Day, at Peconic Landing, where she resided for the past 20 years. Betty lived an extraordinary, long, and fabulous life, her family said, passing away just short of her 102nd birthday.

She was born Elizabeth McKee Price on April 12, 1923 in Pittsburgh, Pa. to Ralph and Mildred Price, joining her older brother Jack. At 17 she attended Carnegie Mellon University. During her freshman year, her family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii where she joined them during a break from college. On Dec. 6, 1941, Betty attended a party on the USS Enterprise; she was close enough to Pearl Harbor that when it was attacked the following morning a piece of shrapnel flew through her window.

When she was able to get passage back to San Francisco on a naval ship, she met the love of her life, her future husband, US Navy Lieutenant Charles “Cap” F. Hansel Jr. during a game of bridge.

They married on July 1, 1942, in San Francisco and moved after the war to Cranford, N.J. where they raised five children and lived for the next 50 years. Betty also found time to be active in the Junior League, The Cranford Children’s Service League, and many other worthwhile causes, supporting others, a credo she lived by always, her family said.

In those years Betty and Cap saw to it that grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins saw one another often; they were instrumental in establishing the same strong family ethos and close intergenerational bonds that remain to this day.

Betty was no less busy on Shelter Island, where Cap’s family began coming in the early part of the 20th century. But it wasn’t until 1950 that the family bought two homes in the Heights in which the ever-growing, multigenerational families summered for more than 50 years, and where she helped four generations make memories and share magical times together.

When Cap became Commodore of the Shelter Island Yacht Club in 1974, Betty had a new role to play, which she enthusiastically embraced. She enlivened the Club with wonderful parties and memorable clambakes. When she wasn’t at the Club, she was Cap’s first mate on their beloved Omaha, a 35-foot original Friendship sloop, which could often be spotted sailing out of Dering Harbor with scads of grandchildren on the 15-foot bowsprit and a cockpit of happy family and friends.

Besides sailing, Betty loved tennis; that passion led her and her doubles partner, Rae Helme, to open a small shop on Bridge Street called, “Our Racquet.” A few years later, she bought the business, expanding it into larger premises on Grand Avenue selling gifts and women’s apparel. Betty had a wonderful way with people, her family remembers, a great eye and sense of style, which earned her a loyal clientele. With her incredible staff she operated the business for 20 years before Cap became ill.

After Cap died in 1994, Betty moved to Shelter Island full time and became involved in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, where she put her gifts and energies as a gardener into designing and implementing “St. Joseph’s Garden,” an intimate interdenominational crematory garden at St. Mary’s, which offers solace to Islanders.

She founded The Progress Club for women, and was a long-standing member of the Historical Society, East End Hospice Shelter Island, the needlepoint group, “Pin  and Sin,” as well as the Garden Club of Shelter Island. She should have been an architect, her family said, always designing and rearranging rooms to make them better. She loved cards and became a “card shark” with her grandchildren, with games such as ”Spite & Malice.”

Late in life Betty took art lessons, becoming a very good painter; her paintings were displayed at the Shelter Island Library by her family to honor her 99th birthday.

Betty spent the last 20 years of her life at Peconic Landing, where she was as busy and involved as ever. Because of her warm and outgoing personality, she had many friends and touched the lives of all who had the good fortune to know her. Betty, her family said, lived a wonderful life, full of deep love for her family and her many dear friends, always thinking of others and giving back to her community and mankind.

She will be truly missed, especially by her family. She is survived by five children: Kathryn (Peter), Gretchen, Elizabeth (Keith), Cap (Saskia), and Margaret “Megan” (Charles); 12 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren, all of whom affectionately referred to her as “Gow.”

A private burial will be held just for the immediate family followed by a celebration of her life for her family and friends at noon, Saturday, April 12, 2025, at 10 Spring Garden Avenue in the Heights.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to: St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, PO Box 1660, 26 St. Mary’s Road, Shelter Island, NY 11964, or East End Hospice, PO Box 1048,  481 Westhampton-Riverhead Road, Westhampton, NY 11978.