Frances Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Binford
Frances Elizabeth “Beth” Binford, longtime resident of Ambler, died on January 4, 2020, at Foulkeways Retirement Community in Lower Gwynedd Township, Pennsylvania, at age 91.
Beth’s mother died a few months after Beth’s birth. Her father remarried when Beth was 2 ½ years old. Beth loved summers at her grandparents’ home in Pendleton, Indiana, with an attic full of old postcards, a Victrola, Sousa music, dolls, and children’s books.
Beth’s father, Virgil, was business manager at Earlham College and later in the early 1940s managed “Shadeland Farms” in western Indiana, owned by Thomas Watson of IBM.
In 1950, Beth and a group of friends drove across the northern U.S. in an old Ford that had two seats in front and two seats in the rumble seat. They visited Yellowstone. If it rained, they wouldn’t drive. They arrived in L.A., took a four day tourist cruise to Honolulu, were met and hosted for the summer by a roommate’s family. Beth and friends learned how to body surf. They went to the mountains, to a banana plantation, and ate wonderful meals. They spent most of the summer there in Hawaii.
After graduation from Earlham College, Beth, who all her life dressed with style and grace, worked for the Vice President of Halle Dept. Stores in Cleveland. She drove a red MG that she always remembered with pride and joy. Around 1962, Beth began a lifelong connection as a writer and editor for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker international peace and justice organization. She worked in Skikda, Algeria, at the end of the Algerian War. AFSC delivered foods and medicines to people in refugee camps. Beth described the situation: When the Algerian refugees returned to their villages after the war, they found that most of their homes had been destroyed, forests were gone (burned to the ground), fields were full of mines so the farmers couldn’t plant crops, there were bullet holes in buildings and trees, and abandoned cars along the roads stripped of everything useful.
On her return to the U.S. in the mid-1960s, Beth began to work for AFSC in Philadelphia. She was responsible for publications that interpreted AFSC’s work. She wrote one-page project descriptions and was instrumental in producing the Quaker Service Bulletin, sent to donors to apprise them of the AFSC’s work. Longtime co-worker M’Annette Ruddell recalls that Beth appreciated the consultation process, was gracious when she was edited, and was kind when she commented on other people’s prose.
Beth initiated a recycling / fundraising project in the late 1960s at AFSC that continues today. These recycle sales began on a card table in a hallway where staff could put things they didn’t want and take things they could use. The sales (now held quarterly at Gwynedd Friends Meeting) so far have raised more than $600,000 to support AFSC’s work.
In mid-life, Beth studied photography at the Philadelphia College of Art. Her photographs could capture the image of an eye, in a peach stem; the image of an elephant’s trunk, in the wood of a deck. Beth printed her photographs and sold them as greeting cards.
She loved cats and was part of a network of oriental shorthair enthusiast friends. Beth was an active member of Gwynedd Friends Meeting, helped with the newsletter and was a member of the Care and Counsel Committee.
Beth will be remembered for her good natured sense of humor and her ability to connect with people of all ages.
Beth was predeceased by her parents, Virgil F. and Bertha O. (Hallowell) Binford; aunt Willetta Hallowell; step-mother Marianna Binford; sister Marcia (Norman) Binford Nachtrieb; and half-sister Helen Binford (Hay). She is survived by her half-brother J. Dudley Binford, nephews and nieces.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 1, 11:00 a.m., at Gwynedd Friends Meeting, 1101 DeKalb Pike, Gwynedd, PA 19454, followed by a light lunch.
Memorial donations may be made to American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA. 19102.