Cancer Claims Leader of Fight to Save Marsh

Elizabeth Shaw, a leader in the fight to save the Madrona Marsh, died last week of cancer while vacationing in Colorado, never seeing her dream of a wildlife nature park in Torrance. She was 59.

Shaw, a former elementary school teacher, was the chief negotiator in the talks with developers in 1983 when an agreement was finally reached to preserve nearly 43 acres of the vernal marsh on Sepulveda Boulevard and Madrona Avenue.

“Betty had the task of reaching reasonable ground with the developers,” said Mayor Katy Geissert, who became a good friend of Shaw during the 10-year effort to save the marsh.

In 1982, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Audubon Society presented Shaw its annual Conservation Award. “We like to recognize someone locally who has not really received their due credit,” Jess Morton, the group’s president, said at the time.

Shaw, who is survived by her husband, George, and two adult children, came to Torrance from Pennsylvania 30 years ago. In a 1982 interview she said she fought so hard to save the marsh, one of the South Bay’s last stopping grounds for migratory birds, because it reminded her of the woods she left behind in Pennsylvania.