Marin Women's Hall of Fame

    Sweeping changes have radically transformed women's lives over the last few decades.  At times the changes have been confusing and overwhelming, but always they have been challenging as women grapple to redefine themselves in a world in constant motion. Amidst the uncertainty, writer Beth Ashley has served as a thoughtful and honest guide, her words reflecting the issues, needs, challenges and victories of her audience.  As Beth has searched for what it means to be a woman living in Marin County, U.S.A. at this point in history, she has shared both the pain and the joy of her journeys. Her readers have seen their paths reflected in the glow of Beth's writings, and their lives have grown bigger, richer and deeper as a result.

    Born in 1926 in Newton, Massachusetts, Beth feels that she’s still a New Englander despite years of California living.  The last of Guy and Marion MacVicar's offspring, Beth was blessed with loving parents who were devoted to their four children: Beth, her two sisters, and a brother.  Beth's father was a successful investment banker, and the family prospered, enjoying well-appointed homes, maids, and elegant cars until the Great Depression wiped it all away.  Beth's father's struggled to keep the family afloat and often worked away from home during Beth's childhood.   In those desperate days, some men committed suicide rather than face the total loss of their fortunes, but Beth's father was essentially a cheerful man, and put his energies into supporting his wife and four children.

    Beth was too young to fully experience the family's reversals.  Her childhood days were happy, and she remembers her mother's influence on her young life. "My mother was "a real lady," Beth recalls, "a wonderful, dear, quiet, gentle person."  The family was often on the move, and Beth lived in many places across the country and attended more than a dozen schools before college. Without lasting childhood friendships, Beth drew support from her loving, strong family.

     Beth recalls her father's pride in his children.  He was always promoting them and making them feel good about themselves.  Writing was also a part of Beth's childhood.  She recalls writing "hideously illustrated adventure books" in the fourth grade and also always worked on the newspaper of whatever school she attended.

    Wartime brought dramatic changes.  Beth's family moved to Marin County, California in 1942 when her father became head of recruitment for Marinship in Sausalito. The family first lived in San Rafael, then moved to Sausalito and finally Belvedere  When Beth had finished her junior year of high school, she was admitted to Stanford University.

    At Stanford Beth hesitated to pick a major as she was intensely interested in  many subjects.  Two things drew Beth to journalism:  her passion for finding the right words to express herself and an insatiable curiosity about the world and people around her. Beth thought journalism might be a little like taking a class in every subject.  Because the men were away at war,  many  opportunities opened  for women students on campus and Beth became editor of the Stanford Daily, an experience that sealed her fate.    In 1947 Beth graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a dual major in journalism and political science. She was ready to take on the world.

    In 1947, Beth worked briefly as program director of KTIM, a start-up radio station in Marin County.   She wrote, produced and narrated a daily news and interview show called "This is Marin," and also developed a disc jockey show called "Kate and Tim" after the call letters KTIM.   Beth enjoyed radio, but still hoped to work on a newspaper.   She got her first newspaper job at the Inglewood Daily News in Southern California as a copy editor and reporter.  She ended up, eight months later as city editor.

    While enjoying her job, Beth was always looking for new horizons.  When a friend from Stanford asked her, out of the blue,  if she'd like to move to Paris, she answered, "Why not?"   Beth and two friends, a man and woman, spent a year living in St. Germaine de Pres in Paris.  Beth worked as a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times and as an international secretary for a French firm.  She also worked nights in the translation department at UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.  Within a year, she moved to Germany, where she found a full-time job as a reporter-editor on a U.S. State Department news magazine focused on the reconstruction of Germany.   As a reporter, Beth traveled throughout West Germany, working in Frankfurt, Berlin, and later in Munich, writing and supervising production of the magazine.

    In Germany, Beth fell in love and married a U.S. newspaperman.  Shortly thereafter, Beth's father died, and the couple returned to the Bay Area to help Beth's mother through her grief.  Beth's husband worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Beth gave birth to her first son.

    The marriage ended soon after, and Beth was left alone with a young child to support.  using her journalism skills, she worked a short time at the Mill Valley Record, then hired on at the Marin Independent Journal as a copy editor in 1953.  Within six months, Beth became news editor, one of two women news editors on daily newspapers in California at the time.  She picked the stories, placed the stories and assigned the headlines.  She held this position for six and a half years and during that period was elected president of the United Press Editors Association of Northern California.

    Although she had enjoyed her work in the mostly male newspaper world of that time, Beth happily gave up her journalism career in 1959 to become a fulltime wife and homemaker. She married Ross Ashley, a journalist and widower with  two sons from a previous marriage, and, together with her son, they formed a blended family.  Beth later gave birth to two more sons.  With five boys to raise, Beth did all the things women were supposed to do in the Fifties, "although these were the Sixties.”   She submerged herself in the roles of wife, mother and homemaker. "I can scrub a floor with the best of them".  She recalls these years as the happiest of her life, but twelve years later, in 1971, Beth's husband died from cancer and Beth was again on her own.  She was in her 40s, jobless, close to broke, and her youngest children were 8 and 11 years old.  Beth took a risk and started a public relations business with two partners, which became a resounding success.   While exciting,  the start-up venture was also demanding and stressful, and Beth was often torn between spending time with her young children and with her work.

    One day Beth received a call from the Marin Independent Journal.  Did she want to come back?  Beth took the job as editor of the Women's Section, which later became Marin Living, then Lifestyles, and continued as that editor for eight years. She then became a fulltime feature writer and wrote a column appearing twice a week. 

    As a columnist, Beth started out with “people in Marin” items, but changed dramatically as she found her true writing voice.  One day Queen Elizabeth came to San Francisco.   Beth wrote a humorous column comparing her life with the Queen's, and her sons' lives with those of the English princes.  The column generated an enormous response from readers.  Beth had found her voice, a self-mocking ability to laugh at what life deals you.   Beth's writing "makes us care a little more, think a little more, and wonder a little more" says one reader. "She makes us laugh, cry, and sigh, at ourselves and others."

    As a  journalist, Beth has been a city editor, news editor, feature editor, columnist, headline writer and feature writer.   Although she can report hard news, her specialty is features, many of which are based on interviews with people.  Beth loves the opportunity to get to know people.  "Everybody’s interesting. Everybody’s got a story."

    Beth has interviewed many celebrities, but has also searched out the little known heroes and heroines who live next door to her readers. In March 1997, Beth wrote, "We're used to reading about the media darlings - Liz, The Prez, Madonna, Michael Jordan – but lots of great folk go unsung.  Here is one I was in touch with this week: Carola Detrick and I had lunch.  She's the person who single-handedly started Meals of Marin to feed people with AIDS." 

    Another local heroine she celebrated is a woman in Fairfax who became caretaker for two young blind quadraplegics.  Totally helpless, the children relied on this woman for all their needs.   Eight years after the interview, Beth met the woman in a local beauty salon and learned that she was still caring for the quadraplegic kids.  Overwhelmed by the such selflessness, Beth found it hard to imagine coping with such stress for eight long years.  Beth hopes her writings on the courage and compassion of everyday people inspire her readers to live more compassionate lives themselves.

    Twice, Beth was invited to work on large dailies in San Francisco, but decided to stay here in Marin and be part of the community.   "My sons were here, and I had established a life.  People answered my phone calls." 

    Beth does not shy away from controversy, and brings sometimes divisive issues to her readers with insight and sensitivity.   During the Gulf War, Beth asked, "How long will machine guns and bombs be the only answers we can find?"  In another column she described her friend Lilian, an 83-year old advocate for euthanasia, who took her own life and asked that her friends “just rejoice with me that I'm where I want to be." In that column, Beth said that while Lilian’s life had ended, the questions she raised would be with us for a long time.

    Beth’s articles succeed through a combination of authenticity and expertise, her ability to be herself and also to be part of her audience. She keeps in mind her educated and sophisticated audience, and balances that perspective with her own thinking, sharing the process of how she arrives at her point of view.  This honesty and authenticity has shaped Beth’s unique voice.

    Beth combines her love of travel with her passion for writing.  In 1990, she travelled to Moscow as an exchange editor on the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.  Moscow at the time was experiencing Glasnost, an opening up of communication and a release of political control, along with a severe economic breakdown.  Goods were in short supply. Beth recalls being "stuck in elevators interminably in the dark." She sent home two columns a week through the Associated Press wire service so that Marinites could read of Moscow's empty shelves and streets full of beggars. She relayed the question most Russians were asking at the time, "What is freedom, when you can't get shoes?"

    In 1992 Beth spent three and a half months in Beijing as guest editor of the China Daily newspaper.  She experienced an intense learning curve, just finding out where and how to buy food.  Beth again shared her experiences with her Marin readers. She first went to China right after the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, when Chinese troops fired on student demonstrators, killing an estimated 2,000 or more.  Beth left China with a greater understanding of the country in upheaval and of the Chinese officials' desire for rigid controls to keep the economy from failing.  Of Beth's China experience, one reader said, "she is an Ambassador in the finest sense.  Her reminiscences have again added a new depth and detail of human understanding, building important bridges among many Chinese and Marin residents."

    In 1996 and 1997 Beth spent 4 months in Washington D.C. at USA Today working on the Life Section. Beth's job keeps her constantly learning.  "It's great to follow your curiosity,” she says.  “If suddenly you decide you want to know about comets,  you can assign yourself a story about comets.  You’re thrown into something you don’t know about - you ask questions and then you learn - it’s great fun."   She is also always ready, at all times, for new challenges.  For a brief time, she taught at the College of Marin, and most recently began teaching journalism at the Dominican University of California.  "I love what I do,” Beth says. "I do something different every day, and I learn something new every day."  Beth's enthusiasm illuminates her classroom.

    Although not many women of Beth's generation have had the opportunity to thrive in the business world, Beth serves as a model of professional achievement and competence. She is confident about her viewpoints and knows that her feelings are valid.  "I’ve lived them," she says. "I like to be honest, to laugh, and I am willing to be humiliated."   When she was much younger, Beth used to be afraid to ask certain questions, but she says, "Now I think: 'what do I want to know?'  I’m not ashamed to ask stupid questions.  If I don’t know the answers  after all these years, then maybe it’s worth asking.  No one can know everything."  Negative comments don’t bother Beth.  "I get lots of nasty email, but it doesn’t bother me," she says. "When you’ve lived as long as I have, you get immune to the negativity."

    Beth portrays herself with self-deprecating humor.  Sometimes when people say, “I liked your column,”  Beth thinks, “Oh, I’m so glad.  I didn’t sound complete insane.” Beth is not particularly religious, but when she runs out of ideas for articles, she starts to pray.  That’s a rarity though, because “something is always happening in my heart or in my life."   "Everything is grist for the mill," she says. "If people only knew while we’re talking that I’m thinking, “Wow, what a great quote.”"

    Beth has tried to build many bridges in the Marin community. She likes to give voice to underrepresented elements that society might overlook. Beth says, “As a writer I have particularly enjoyed getting close to my community and its people, and helping promote the institutions that make it special.” She feels that "everybody should be represented fairly.   A newspaper should be the main glue of the whole community."  Through her inclusiveness, she has fostered awareness, sensitivity and collaboration.

    Beth captured the essence of Marin in her Bay Area bestseller entitled "Marin," published by Chronicle Books.  Beth's lucid prose is complemented by sumptuous photographs of Marin settings by nature photographer, Hal Lauritzen   The book has been called “a visual and verbal treat”  a tribute to Marin from one of its finest writers.

    Beth has served on many non-profit boards in Marin County, including the Red Cross, the Marin Senior Coordinating Council, and the Marin Education Fund. Serving as a Board member of the  Marin Aids Political Action Committee, Beth says, "has been very instructive and heartwarming.  I was plugged into a community I might not have known."  Beth is also an honorary life member of the American Association of University Women.  She has served in the past as a Board member of LITA - Love is the Answer, and of the Elizabeth Terwilliger Foundation.

    In 1993, Beth was recognized by the Marin Cultural Center and Museum with a Distinguished Citizen Award for her contributions to the quality of life in Marin and the Bay Area.  Beth "attends functions endlessly," says a fellow volunteer, “yet with the same caring enthusiasm as though it were her only obligation."  Beth also helped found the Wednesday Morning Dialogue, a group of 100 accomplished professional women. 

When not traveling abroad, Beth brings the big world into her home. She has been active in the international student exchange movement and has had several foreign students live with her.  Beth loves theatre and the dance, and when asked to pick items that best describe her for a time capsule, she replied, "a great book, a Sara Vaughn record, a video of Nureyev dancing, and photos of family and friends. These things have shaped me and my inner "soul."

    Now Beth is the oldest person in the newsroom and has spent over 25 years on the Independent Journal.  "Other professions earn more money and more respect," Beth says,  "but I have never wanted to be other than a journalist or writer."  She says she had thought life was over when her husband died, and feels blessed to have had a second life.  Beth's successful combination of career, motherhood and community involvement serves as an outstanding model for women everywhere.  In 1994 Beth was inducted into the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame as an honoree in Business and Professions.

    The Marin Independent Journal has been Beth's primary link to the Marin community, and she has gained lasting friends and admirers through her writing. In a column one February 14th, Beth wrote that she hadn't raised her children to send valentines, so she probably wouldn't hear from any of them on Valentine's Day.   To her surprise, Valentine cards poured in from loving readers. Beth has won a reputation for compassion, kindness and helpfulness and an adoring audience that has grown older and wiser with her through her work.  "The columns she writes on her travels and herself,” says one reader, “capture her thoughts and her life as she learns what it is to let go of her family and to grow and age in our community.”

    Beth says, "My life's journey has been to expand my world and to reach out to others."  Through her writing, Beth has expanded not only her own world, but also the worlds of her readers. In sharing her thoughts with abundant compassion, honesty, and vitality, she has brought world-class journalism to our doorstep and made our small corner of the whirling globe a far better place.