Susanne Cramer Ballantyne's Obituary
Susanne Alice Cramer Ballantyne, born on July 19th, 1932, in San Diego, California, passed away on March 6, 2026, in the city of her birth, with family at her side. Susanne was raised in Point Loma from Cabrillo grammar school, with a detour to Bishops Jr. High, and back to Point Loma High School where she grew and developed her personal foundation (roots and appreciation for her familial and community heritage), talents (love of music and piano), skills (a great affinity with financial numbers and records), passion for sports (competitive nature) and sheer enjoyment of travel and seeing the world.
Susanne’s range of interests and abilities led her to start playing piano before she was four, chasing after her 7-year-old brother, Edward’s lessons. She went on to playing in recitals and piano tournaments as a teen, leading the boy’s Pointer Four Quartet, and playing piano and organ in church for over 50 years. The highlight of her musical experiences was accompanying a 100-voice choir before a full San Diego Symphony Hall on their Concert Steinway Piano for the church’s Easter Cantata.
Susanne’s skills with numbers and records resulted in her going into the Cramer family businesses which later led to a 1957 meeting with Don McLane (Ballantyne... explanation to follow), whom she married the following year. They had two children, Clark and Laura, during a five-year stint of Don building homes for his uncle in the San Francisco Bay Area. While up north, Susanne was asked to play piano in the family’s Menlo Park Ward, which led to her baptism a few years later, before moving back to San Diego, where Don started his own homebuilding business, greatly expanding her financial books and records responsibilities.
Susanne’s pride in her family’s heritage in San Diego and her grandfather’s and father’s Cramer’s Bakery gave her a first taste of fame as a bread-wrapper clad “Little Miss Buttercream” at the tender age of five. Later, she learned of her great grandfather’s 1840's-1880's congregational mission to South Africa, and his book “Forty Years Among the Zulus” where he translated the bible into Zulu. Collecting family and other mementoes expanded to full blown family history research after joining the church, and trips to the Salt Lake Genealogical Library, doing ‘microfiche... ing’ (it was the 70's after all) became her thing, as did wandering through cemeteries looking for family names from California to Utah to New England. Her own legacy expanded with Clark and Kelly having her grandchildren, Cameron, Kaitlin and Connor, and then again with Cameron and Lindy giving her a great-grandson, Brooks (and a great-grand-something sibling to be named soon, whom she’s probably negotiating for as we speak).
During this period, Susanne learned more about Don’s birth as Don Ballantyne, and late adoption (when he was drafted into the Army) by his “Mom and Dad” (his biological Aunt and Uncle that raised him as their own due to Don’s biological mother’s passing a few days after childbirth). The family later changed back to Don’s surname at birth. In an effort to preserve more home heritage, in 1977, when Clark was at PLHS, she committed to reviving and re-forming the Point Loma High School Alumni Association and spearheaded it’s membership and reunions organization for the next 25 years, and of course, then continued to participate, organize and inform another 25 years after having passed the torch to the next Pointers generation.
Susanne was destined to be a sports fan, and her mother assured it by taking her (at only 3 weeks old), to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Her love of sports was endless, from Point Loma Pointers, to Stanford In... Cardinal, to SD Chargers, to PCL Padres, to SD Padres, and either went to or watched/listened to games from Lane Field (at Broadway/Harbor Dr.), to SD Stadium/The Murph to Petco, from Coleman & Leitner to Don & Mudd, on through her Grandchildren, Cameron’s, Kaitlin’s and Connor’s baseball, basketball and soccer games and tournaments from all over SoCal to Europe, she cheered them all.
If not before, Susanne developed the bug to travel after her parents invited her to travel the world with them after her third semester at Stanford... which she did... for the better part of a year. This was the first of many worldwide trips and cruises she would take with Don after their marriage from Alaska to Panama and South America, and from Europe and Africa to Asia.
Susanne lived a wonderful, full life over 93+ years, and survived her greatest fear of not keeping her wits about her until the end. She did this through her dutiful commitments to music, reading, crossword puzzles, community involvement, more reading, and working in the family businesses (up to and including as recently as 2 days before entering the hospital). She was a sensitive, thoughtful, loving, sharp, witty and fun wife, mother, aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother. She will be sorely missed by her family, friends and the communities she loved and supported.
There will be a Graveside Funeral Service held at 1PM on Sunday, March 29, 2026, at Greenwood Mortuary, 4300 Imperial Ave, San Diego, CA 92113.
There will also be a Reception held thereafter (beginning at 2:30PM) at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6th Ward (in Point Loma), at 3705 Tennyson St., San Diego, CA 92106.
What’s your fondest memory of Susanne?
What’s a lesson you learned from Susanne?
Share a story where Susanne's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Susanne you’ll never forget.
How did Susanne make you smile?
