Sheila Baldridge

Elisabeth Sheila Baldridge, marine science librarian and one of the stalwarts of environmental conservation on the Monterey Peninsula passed away peacefully in her Pacific Grove home in the loving care of friends, dedicated caregivers, and a team from the Hospice of the Central Coast. She was 88. Sheila and her beloved husband Alan, who died in 2014, nurtured the marine science and birding communities for decades. They were instrumental in helping form the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Friends of the Sea Otters, and the local chapters of the Monterey Audubon Society and the American Cetacean Society. Sheila was a founding board member of the Earl & Ethel Myers Trust for Marine Biology, providing grants to marine science graduate students at local universities.

Born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England, Sheila married her beloved Alan Baldridge in Liverpool, England, in 1960 and soon after these adventurous librarians came to the United States. Sheila worked in a variety of libraries but is best remembered for her many years of dedicated service to the faculty and students at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, including the time during and after the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. In 2005, the labs honored her by naming their new research vessel the Sheila B.

Although Sheila was away from her first home all these years, she was still in her family’s hearts and minds. Her brother, Colin, recalled “Mum and Dad gave us a loving family home, with Mum looking after the home and Dad going out to work. That's the way it was in those days. Sheila loved playing tennis at the local club where we lived in Wigton, and ride out's with Alan on his motorbike (rain or shine). Birds were always their love, notably traveling to the coast of the Solway Firth to see the barnacle geese that migrated from Svalbard every winter. She always said it was very cold on the back of the motorbike, but it was worth it!"

Sheila embraced life and prepared for her death. She found tremendous comfort in her family and friends—in person, via Zoom, with phone calls, texts, cards, and letters—as well as through her Tibetan Buddhist beliefs. She also described her own life as she wanted to tell it. Sheila wrote:

I wish that all who knew me understand the gratitude I have felt for a life blessed by so many – by my wonderful husband, Alan, my dearest love and fellow world traveler, who for 54 years enriched my life beyond measure; by my dear family and friends who have meant so much to me and who I have treasured; by my little dogs, Bodhi and Sophie, who taught me how life should be lived by greeting everyone with the “smile” of a wagging tail and not having your feelings hurt when you receive a growl in return; by the opportunity to live for so many years in this beautiful place; and by the rewards of my professional life especially the years I spent at the Moss Landing Marine Labs, whose faculty and students I will never forget.

Sheila also wanted to share this 1992 poem with everyone, “When death comes” by Mary Oliver (from the New & Selected Poems: Vol.1, Beacon Press, Boston, reprinted with permission):

"I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what it is going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.

When it is over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world."

Sheila is survived by her brother Colin Gibson and wife Josie of Gretna, Dumfriesshire, Scotland; nieces Lisa Gibson of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England and Karen Gibson of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland; brother-in-law Kenneth Baldridge and wife Katherine of Darlington, County Durham, England; and cousins Joan and Frederick Frater of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England.

No service is planned. A Celebration of Sheila’s life will be scheduled at a future date. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Sheila’s favorite charities:

• Student Grant Fund of the American Cetacean Society - Monterey Bay Chapter, PO Box HE, Pacific Grove, CA 93950 https://acsmb.org/

• Earl & Ethel Myers Trust for Marine Biology, PO Box 52091, Pacific Grove, CA 93950

• Doctors Without Borders, 333 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001 https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/