Erica Dawn Beal, 97, a resident of Oak Island, North Carolina, for the past 17 years, passed away peacefully on January 18, 2023.
The daughter of Dr. Eric Stewart Marshall, the physician and cartographer on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s pioneering five-man expedition to the Antarctic in 1908, Dawn was born in Farnborough, England, on February 10, 1925. She grew up there and in more remote Kenya, West Africa. Her maternal grandfather, Sir William Treacher, was the first English governor of Borneo.
She graduated from Battle Abbey School in Bath, England. At the outbreak of World War II, she joined the Wrens women’s service corps. Emigrating to the United States in 1950 with her first husband Peter Mends, Dawn embarked on a vibrant American-flavored lifestyle. In all, she was married four times. One betrothal was to Robert Rowe, an inventor and entrepreneur who perfected the small electric motors used in slot cars and other devices. Dawn was also wed to Dr. Homer Beal and Douglas Smith, who both predeceased her.
She had homes at various times in New York City, Sag Harbor on New York’s Long Island, Montego Bay in Jamaica (West Indies), and Carmel, California.
Dawn was known for her creative talent in gardening, decorating, and living a life of nature with her beloved pets.
Dawn is survived by a daughter, Erica Lynne Keiser (formally Calhoun) of Newbury, Vermont, and her husband David Keiser; and a son, Barry Mends of New Mexico and Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
