Beth Ashley

Beth Ashley was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father was an investment banker, who moved Ashley and her family to Belvedere, California in order to assist in running a shipyard in Marin County in August 1941. She was enrolled in Tamalpais High School in 1942 and 1943.[4]

Ashley was an alumnus of Stanford University, where she was the editor of the campus newspaper, the Stanford Daily, and graduated with a major in journalism in 1946.

She moved to Paris, and later worked for a magazine, and for the United States Department of State as a public affairs officer in Germany in 1949. She joined the staff of the Marin Independent Journal in 1951, and wrote over 1200 columns for the newspaper.[5][6]

Ashley not only focused her writing on life in Marin County, but also on her wide-ranging travels outside the US, including Afghanistan, Russia, and Iran.[2]

She is the subject of a tribute by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey placed in the Congressional Record. Woolsey praised Ashley's "passionate and thoughtful writing that has made her a community institution."[2]

Ashley was the author of two books, one being a compilation of her columns for the Marin IJ titled Since You Asked, the name of her long-running column.[7] A book on Marin County titled Marin, with photos by Hal Lauritzen, was released in 1993.[8]

She raised five sons, from two marriages, and lived in Greenbrae, California from 1959.[9] She married retired IBM engineer Roland Fellows in 2009.[5]