Lasting Memories

Elizabeth Clinch
April 4, 1936-Dec. 8, 2024
Portola Valley, California

Elizabeth Clinch, author, musician and historical researcher, died peacefully at a retirement home in Portola Valley, California on December 8, 2024. She was 88.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Kenneth Campbell, winner of the Wright Brothers Aeronautical Medal in 1944, and Margaret Bruce Campbell, daughter of an Episcopal minister, both from San Francisco. She grew up with her three sisters in Ridgewood, New Jersey where her father had moved to take a job with Curtiss Wright Aeronautical.

After graduating from Wellesley College, “Betsy”, as she was known, was a researcher for the Encyclopedia Britannica. She then took a job in writing and researching articles for the National Geographic. It was there that she interviewed Nicholas Clinch for an upcoming story about his adventures on his most recent Himalayan mountaineering expedition. That afternoon was the spark that ignited a succeeding 57 years of marriage. Nicholas and Elizabeth had two daughters, Lee and Alison.

While Nicholas was busy with mountaineering arrangements and articles, Elizabeth’s focus, when not raising her daughters, was playing cello with musical groups.

Elizabeth and Nicholas both loved to travel. They joined excursions to both ends of the globe, to Antarctica in the South and to Iceland and nearby territories in the North. They combined their interests in the world’s areas with their talents in research, collaborating on the production of a book about a British couple’s travels throughout Asia in the mid nineteenth Century. The result was Through a Land of Extremes: The Littledales of Central Asia

. Elizabeth was known for her unbridled energy and enthusiasm for anything she set her mind to. She loved animals of all kinds and had an insatiable curiosity about the people and places around her. Anyone she encountered would find their personal history and stories filed away by Elizabeth’s active mind, to be recalled and retold later to a captive audience. She was a most loyal family member and friend, and will be missed by many.