ELIZABETH AUSTIN, ASH
Remembering Birdy Edwards, 1956-2020
by Debbie Clark and Jacquelynn Bost Morris
It is with a very heavy heart that we share with you that our good friend, Beth Austin, ASH (Birdy Edwards), passed beyond the Reichenbach on April 18th after a brief but courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 64 years old. In addition to ASH, Beth was a longtime member of Watson’s Tin Box of Ellicott City (MD) where she held several offices and was the creator and first editor of Irene’s Cabinet, their annual publication of essays, art, and poetry. Her Sherlockian background and her contributions to the community would take pages to list, but in 2014, Beth was given the honor of organizing the long-standing symposium, “Saturday with Sherlock Holmes,” presented in Baltimore every November for the past 40 years at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. In addition, she was an active and dedicated member of scion societies in Washington, D.C, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, including The Six Napoleons of Baltimore (only the fourth woman in that group’s long history to be invited into membership).
But Beth was far more than her Sherlockian accomplishments. She grew up in Montgomery County, MD and graduated from Frostburg University with a BA in English, then worked for Builders Design in Gaithersburg and Florida. She was a dear friend, a brilliant woman with a wicked sense of humor, a delightful conversationalist, a killer Scrabble player, a keen writer and editor, an unapologetic bibliophile whose thirst for knowledge was never sated, and she shared her delight in “every good thing,” whether it be Sherlockian or from the works of Jane Austen, or just anything which struck her fancy. (One of the things that made her giggle was “I am Groot” from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.) She had eclectic tastes in music, primarily popular, and reading, primarily mysteries and history, and some science fiction. She liked cooking and was good at it.
There is no good time to lose someone like Beth, but we lost her at the very worst time. Everyone was well into self-quarantine when Beth’s diagnosis was made and visiting her (and putting her at further risk) was out of the question. No one knew how quickly she would be gone, so a few phone conversations and texts were all we had to say goodbye. Her family will hold a celebration of her life sometime later this year when it is safe to do so. Her friends will hold her in their hearts forever. Our world will be less bright without Beth.
