Elizabeth "Beth" Walukas

June 13, 1960 - Dec. 27, 2023

Elemental Beth Elizabeth Walukas Louis passed on Dec 27, 2023 after a heroic fight with a cancer with which she had regular conversation. “There’s room for both of us here. If you kill me, we both die.” Accepting that her days were finite yet each a gift, Beth committed to living fully and in the moment, with wit and heart. “False hope is better than no hope.”   Family and Friendship were paramount to her. Soulmate to Ray, a capital Mom, accomplished transportation engineer, gardener, world traveler, needlepointer, adventurous hiker, yoga enthusiast, the consummate Giver—Beth packed an eon of engaged living into sixty-three sterling years.   Find her in black earth and the mushrooms she grew in it. In dinner plate dahlias and a brimming bowl of blueberries. In the green reach of pea shoots. On the wedding dance floor boogieing, one hot mama. She was the sun and Whitman’s “Voice of the Rain.” She was the gleeful sled ride down a snowy slope. Her voracious curiosity and keen intellect and imagination took in Mayan hieroglyphics, civic commitment, wood carving, science, poetry, writing, and always, always books. London’s Heywood Hill bookstore curated a monthly selection tailored just for her, and the innate girl in her delighted in the surprise and the unwrapping. Enormously empathic, she sought no less than the world and endeavored to take her loved ones along for the ride. Mentor was her middle name. Charming her giggle and brilliant her smile.