Beulah Lynch Oakes, a 29-year resident of La Cañada Flintridge, passed away peacefully in her sleep at her home on El Camino Corto on June 21. She was 105 years old. Beulah was an active member of the Thursday Club for many years, having moved to La Cañada Flintridge to live near her son and his family following the death in 1988 of her husband, Dr. Harold Oakes.
Beulah was born in a ranch house on Nov. 16, 1911, near the town of Salt Lake, New Mexico, the youngest of six children. After growing up on the ranch and graduating from Albuquerque High School, Beulah traveled to Washington, D.C., to work for the Department of Labor. She worked in the office of Frances Perkins, secretary of Labor in the Franlin D. Roosevelt administration, who was the nation’s first female cabinet member.
Beulah met Harold in El Paso, Texas, and following their marriage in 1942, she received her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley while Harold was serving in the Army in the South Pacific.
Following the war, they settled in Los Angeles and raised two children, Marilyn, a physician living in Anaheim, and Royal, a lawyer, and a La Cañada Flintridge resident since 1978.
Beulah was an active member of the Los Angeles County Medical Association Auxiliary, serving twice as president of the Auxiliary’s District 6 in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s.
Beulah is survived by Marilyn and her husband, Andrew; their children John and Anna; Anna’s husband, Steve; Royal and his wife, Lauren; their children Claire, Connor and Faye; and Claire’s husband, Ilia, and their son Benjamin.
Services were held at Forest Lawn Glendale on July 8, conducted by Rev. Chuck Osburn of the La Cañada Presbyterian Church.
