Alice Yarish was born Alice D’Alton Foley in Goldfield, Nevada, on April 25, 1909 to Judge Thomas L. Foley and Alice Dean Foley, who was the first woman to practice law in Nevada. After the family moved to Southern California in 1920, her first experience in journalism was working as a correspondent for the South Bay Breeze while she was still in high school. She went on to attend University of Southern California and reported for the Daily Trojan newspaper. She studied law at Southwestern University for two years, but after the death of her parents, the tuition money ran out. While working as a cub reporter for the Los Angeles Express, her big break came as she rode her bike down the Hermosa Beach strand and spotted a black sedan with flags just as Eleanor Roosevelt exited. She approached the first lady and introduced herself. Her story made the front page along with her first byline. During the mid-’30s, she worked as a social worker with the State Emergency Relief Administration. In 1942, she married Peter P. Yarish, who was in the United States Air Force. Yarish was eventually transferred to Hamilton Air Force Base in 1948 and the couple settled in Novato on Yukon Way.
For 10 years, which she referred to as “forced domestically,” Alice Yarish focused on raising their four children and being a “military wife.” After the children were in school, Yarish became a reporter for the Independent Journal in 1952 at age 43. She moved on to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat as its bureau chief and landed at the Novato Advance in 1956. After establishing the Marin News Bureau in 1962, Yarish began covering the courts and county government along with working for the Pacific Sun and San Francisco Examiner. In 1972, these positions developed into full-time, and she closed the Marin News Bureau.
Prison reform became Yarish’s beat after befriending San Quentin inmate George Jackson. Yarish wrote in a 1976 Pacific Sun column: “It was not until I met the late George Jackson that I learned about the horrors and terrors of prison life. Jackson opened my eyes and filled me with information which I had not known before. I was shocked by what I learned. … Prisons tend to be breeding grounds of crime, generators of bitterness, destruction of men’s souls.”
Yarish used her connection to Jackson to speak with the San Quentin Six during the 16-month trial. Her recognition of humanity towards all involved and her writing style became her trademark as a maverick journalist.
In 1972, Yarish wrote a three-part piece on the Marin County Drug Abuse Bureau. She received tips from a judge and a friend of George Jackson’s: discovering that the bureau was planting evidence, stealing drugs and coercing witnesses — all to build up their arrest records. According to her 1993 oral history, Yarish interviewed “dope fiends, drug dealers, probation officers and cops,” along with research into court records. Corruption, entrapment and incompetence were exposed, and the article series prompted the abolition of the bureau. The article series earned a “Best Story in a Bay Area Paper” award from the San Francisco Press Club.
Yarish was known for speaking out for those who couldn’t speak for themselves and inspired other people to follow her lead. Yarish died in 2005 at 96 years old, leaving a spectacular legacy behind, which also included wearing distinctive hats, peppering her speech with salty language, cruising around with friends in her red Chevrolet Cavalier convertible and celebrating life with a daily glass of champagne.
(Originally published as History Watch article in the Marin Independent Journal)