 Carroll Beichman |
Beichman, 84, was struck and killed by a vehicle while walking alone in Palm Springs, Calif., on the evening of Jan. 8. She had been visiting family and friends in Southern California over the holidays and planned to return to Naramata this weekend.
Sgt. Mike Kovaleff of the Palm Springs Police Department said Wednesday no charges are contemplated against the driver of a 2003 Kia Sedona, which struck Beichman as she was crossing a four-lane roadway shortly before 6 p.m. She was not in a crosswalk.
"It was very dark," he said. "The driver stopped at the scene. There was no indication of alcohol or drugs being involved."
There was also no suggestion of excessive speed or driver negligence, Kovaleff said.
Son Charles Beichman said in an interview from his home in Pasadena, that Carroll had gone to Palm Springs to visit long-time friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk.
Wouk phoned Charles' home the day after the accident, wondering why Carroll hadn't made their lunch date. The family then inquired with the police and learned about the fatal mishap.
"It was just an awful bit of bad luck," her son said.
Carroll Beichman (nee Aikins) was born in Naramata on Oct. 11, 1928. In 1950, she married Arnold Beichman of New York. Although they lived in several cities across North America over the years, they always returned to Carroll's family home in Naramata each summer and
retired there in 1979. Arnold died in 2010.
Family friend Renee Matheson of Naramata said Carroll always appreciated the close-knit community.
"She was just a true, true old-fashioned community-minded person and neighbour and friend," Matheson said. "She was such an incredible Renaissance woman. She was highly educated, extremely sophisticated and very, very humble."
Charles Beichman noted his mother also had a life-long love of horses.
"Much of her formative years was spent riding around on horseback all over the valley," he said. "She'd ride everywhere. The West was very much in her bones."
Carroll Beichman is survived by her two sons, Charles and John, three grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
Members of her family are well known in B.C. legal circles. Her brother, John Aikins (who passed away in 1989) was a Supreme Court justice and her nephew, Austin Cullen, is the current associate chief justice for the B.C. Supreme Court.
A memorial service in Naramata will be held at a yet-to-be-determined date in the late spring or early summer.
The family's distinctive stone lakefront home and surrounding acreage, a Naramata landmark for decades, will likely be sold, Charles Beichman said.
