Alice Beall, a longtime Marshall resident who loved native grasses, embroidery and walking barefoot, died in her sleep on Nov. 10, ending a long battle with a degenerative disease. She was 67 years old.
Ms. Beall will be remembered as a loving and determined individual who “existed on a plane above nonsense.” “Many people have written that she was a different kind of human—the kind that makes a true difference in the lives of those who knew her and who leaves the world with a real piece missing,” her daughter, Isis Hockenos, said.
Born on Sept. 10, 1949 in Cleveland, Ohio, Ms. Beall was the youngest of three sisters. Her father, Neil, was a doctor and her mother, Patricia, would raise her three daughters following a divorce when Alice was an infant. Throughout Cleveland, Ms. Beall was known as a free spirit and would go on to receive an associate’s degree from Pine Manor College in Massachusetts. Her focus turned to photography, and she began studying under the prominent photographer Emmet Gowin, in Ohio.
Ms. Beall had extended family in California and she would often visit them at Stinson Beach. In 1969, she moved to Oakland, where she began studying at the California College of the Arts. In addition to photography, she studied fiber arts and embroidery, passions that would last until her final days.
Longtime friend Élan Whitney recalled a story Ms. Beall once told about her time in art school. Ms. Beall had an assignment to create an embroidery for an anthropology course, but neglected to complete it until the final day. “She thought she could whip it out, but ended up getting a D grade,” Ms. Whitney said. “That started her interest in embroidery.”
Ms. Whitney called the activity “tedious” but admired Ms. Beall’s commitment to the craft, especially in her final year of life.
“The thing that really impressed me was when I visited her in Santa Rosa before she died,” Ms. Whitney said. “She had made these beautiful embroideries, about 50 different ones hanging in her apartment. The work is absolutely gorgeous, and I hope it goes on display one day. It was the work of an artist knowing that she was leaving us with a beautiful body of work.”
During the Christmas season of 1972, Ms. Beall met Rob Hockenos, who was studying painting in Oakland, through mutual friends. Ms. Beall would read aloud the “The Alexandria Quartet” by Lawrence Durrell as he drew inside a coffee house in Berkeley. The couple married in 1989. From their home in Oakland, they would often take day trips to West Marin, and ultimately Ms. Beall insisted they relocate.
In 1972, she and Mr. Hockenos moved to Inverness; two years later they moved to Marshall. During the next decade, Ms. Beall went on solo journeys to Nepal, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia—“in a long skirt and barefoot, as was her wont,” added Ms. Hockenos—and took countless photos.
Throughout her life, Ms. Beall was an avid gardener who freelanced and worked at Mostly Natives Nursery in Tomales. “She knew plants,” Margaret Graham, the former owner of Mostly Natives Nursery, said about Ms. Beall’s early days at the nursery. “And she knew gardening, but she didn’t know a lot about native grasses.”
Ms. Whitney reckons it was her lack of knowledge of native grasses that led to a lifelong infatuation. “I think it’s because there was so much to learn,” she said. “They’re pretty hard to identify all the types, and she liked the challenge. I just remember her commenting on all the different ones.”
Ms. Hockenos said that as a child, she and her mother would walk up the Marshall-Petaluma Road and “she’d point out and identify all of the wildflowers, grasses and bushes along the road.”
At Mostly Natives, Ms. Beall preferred to work barefoot, but Ms. Graham said that was quickly amended. “Alice would wear shoes, but wouldn’t like them. She liked being connected to the earth and was very practical. She never found shoes she liked very much and that helped keep them off her feet,” she said.
Following the birth of Isis in 1986, Alice would walk down Highway 1 with her daughter perched in her backpack before being picked up by Mr. Hockenos coming home from work at The Station House Café. The family lived in an old Victorian near Hog Island that had a reputation of being haunted, and Ms. Hockenos said her parents appreciated the lore.
“It was an ongoing project for her and my dad. They wanted to make it livable while maintaining the magic,” she said. “That was their next big project after me. It definitely embodies their spirit.”
The family was known in Marshall for hosting an elaborate Christmas Eve celebration featuring a large tree, caroling, Ms. Beall’s mother’s polished silverware and, on occasion, attire fit for a Charles Dickens adaptation. “I don’t do parties but I always went to hers. They made people feel welcome and comfortable,” Ms. Graham said.
Ms. Beall was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy in July 2015. She decided that living in Marshall was too difficult and eventually she settled in Santa Rosa.
“Six months before she died she sent an email [telling friends] about her disease and how we can visit her,” Ms. Graham said. “She handled it like everything in her life: very matter of fact.”
On Oct. 24, Ms. Beall decided to assume control over her own destiny and stopped eating and drinking. “She decided she didn’t want to live with a disease where she eventually wouldn’t be able to walk, talk or pick up a pencil,” Ms. Hockennos said.
She died peacefully on Nov. 10 with her daughter and partner at her bedside.
Ms. Graham recalled a conversation with Ms. Beall about Janis Labao, a friend of theirs who had died on Oct. 30. (Ms. Hockenos called her mother and Ms. Labao “Marshall matriarchs.”)
“When Alice was dying, I told her I had a picture in my mind of [them] holding hands and skipping together,” Ms. Graham said. “It was a very nice way to see them both,” she said.
Alice Beall is survived by her partner, Rob; daughter, Isis; and older sister, Trish Beall. A celebration of her life planned for the spring will be “surrounded by native plants,” Ms. Hockenos said.