Beth Ready Liles

With much sadness, we share the passing of former longtime MBL employee Beth Ready Liles, who died on May 6, 2024 after a nine-month battle with cancer. Beth was an integral member of the MBL Communications department for 28 years. The MBL flag will be lowered in her memory.

Beginning as an administrative assistant in 1987, Beth was the MBL’s Graphic Designer after 1990, designing the journal The Biological Bulletin, the institutional magazine, MBL Catalyst, as well as countless pieces of collateral for MBL Communications and Development and other MBL divisions. In 2012 Beth was named Assistant Director of Communications for Creative Media and Summer Outreach, with her role expanding to include web development, internal communications, and management of Communications staff and summer programs. She was also very proactive in diversity and inclusion initiatives in Woods Hole. Beth retired from the MBL in 2015.

A Celebration of Life for Beth will be held on Saturday, June 29, 2024, 3:00-6:00 pm, Saint Barnabas’s Episcopal Church (under the tent beside the church), 91 Main Street, Falmouth, Mass. If you are so inclined, you may also join at 2:00 pm inside the chapel behind the main church for a Prayer Service before the celebration.

An obituary, provided by Beth’s family is, published here and copied below.

Beth Ready Liles, a long-time Falmouth resident and member of the Woods Hole community, died May 6 after a nine-month battle with cancer. She was 65.

Beth was born January 24, 1959 and was raised in Norwalk, Connecticut, the youngest child of Charles and Margaret (Peg) Ready. She moved to Cape Cod in her early 20s and worked in restaurants in Woods Hole. She sang in several rock bands, including the Geotones, and enjoyed the life of a Woods Hole washashore.

In 1983 Beth married Chris Stone. They bought a house in Falmouth, had a daughter Abby Stone, and divorced in 1987.

Beth married George Liles in 1992 and moved into a house on Shore Street, where they lived for 34 years, raising four children in a blended family that included their son Matthew Liles. At Shore Street Beth designed and tended a backyard garden and hosted holiday open houses, fire pits, and summer barbeques.

Throughout the chaotic child-rearing years, Beth took college courses, eventually earning her bachelor’s degree from UMass Dartmouth in 2009. Beth worked at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole for more than 25 years, first as an administrative assistant and later as a graphic designer and eventually as the associate director of public information. After leaving MBL, Beth worked in the fundraising operation at WCAI in Woods Hole and as a designer and project manager for the Decatur House in Sandwich. She retired in 2022 and served on the Steering Committee of the Woods Hole Historical Museum. In retirement she concentrated on gardening, road-tripping with her husband, and spending time with her friends and with her grown children and her grandchildren.

While Beth considered herself a Cape Cod girl, she also fell in love with Vermont, and 2014 she designed and supervised construction of an off-the-grid cabin in South Royalton. In the last ten years of her life, Beth and her husband George and her sister Lynne spent time in the cabin enjoying rural Vermont life.

Beth is survived by a large blended family: her husband George Liles; their children, Lisbeth Liles and husband Benjamin Harden (East Falmouth), Abby Stone and husband Morgan Kinder (Charleston, South Carolina), Honah Liles Kern and husband Louis Kern (Saco, Maine), Matthew Liles and partner Jennifer Cramer (East Falmouth); her grandchildren, Malka and Eliezer Harden, and Jay and Jordy Kern; her sister Lynne Ready and son Mateo, and her brother Brian Ready; her aunt Beverly Clancy and numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends who were like family.

There will be a celebration of her life later this summer, Beth's favorite time of the year. In lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to the Falmouth Service Center or WCAI.