Betz was born in Dayton on August 6, 1919 and was a third-grader at Jefferson School when she moved away to California.
She once told former DDN sports writer Marc Katz that she didn’t really learn the game here. As a child, she moved to Los Angeles, where she first played tennis, and later she lived in Washington, D.C., where she was married to sports columnist Bob Addie.
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For this edition of Vintage Dayton, we go into the archives for a look back on the story of Pauline Betz and her rise to tennis fame in the 1940s.
More stories about great Dayton athletes
• Lucinda Williams Adams: Rising above segregation to reach a gold medal
• Remembering Davey Moore, a Springfield boxing legend who tragically died at age 29
• 2 Dayton drivers were part of first Daytona 500 in 1959 (and got a combined $360 in prize money)
• Remembering Donald Smith’s record-setting 52-point game for the Dayton Flyers in 1973
Did you know?
Here are a few great Dayton history facts we’ve learned from our stories:
• Elvis played his last Dayton area concert in 1976, before 13,750 fans at UD Arena.
• The Classic Theater, which opened in Dayton in 1927, is believed to have been the first Black-built, Black-operated and Black-owned theater in the United States.
• The longest winning streak in Dayton-area high school football history was 49 straight games by the team at Jefferson High School.
• Phil Donahue got his start in Dayton, working in the news department at WHIO (radio) in 1959.
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Thank you for reading.