Beth Aly Obituary

Longtime Boulder resident, Beth Copeland Aly, passed away peacefully on June 24th, 2025. She was 91.

Born October 23rd, 1933, in Fulton County, Indiana, to parents Mildred May Robinson and Elijah Gordon Copeland, Beth grew up in the Hoosier State, graduating from the University School in Bloomington in 1951. She remained in Bloomington to earn degrees from Indiana University: a B.S. in Education in 1955 and an M.S. in Education in 1957. After an extensive bicycle tour through recovering post-war Western Europe, Beth moved to Boulder, where she taught elementary students at Washington School and was active in the Colorado Mountain Club, where she made several lifelong friendships. In the mid-1960s, Beth was attending a concert at Boulder’s Chautauqua Auditorium when she happened to meet her future husband, Hadi H. Aly. The couple were married on May 8th, 1967, in Beirut, Lebanon, where Hadi worked as a professor of physics at the American University of Beirut; their idyllic time in Lebanon was cut short by the looming Lebanese Civil War.

The couple returned to the United States in the early 1970s and landed in Edwardsville, Illinois, where Hadi became a professor of physics at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and they raised their two children while splitting their time between Boulder and Edwardsville. The Aly’s returned to the Middle East in the early 1980s when the family moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Beth taught at the Parents’ Cooperative School; Hadi worked as a professor of physics at King Abdulaziz University.

1988 saw the Aly Family settle back in Boulder. Beth and Hadi enjoyed spending time with their friends, enjoying concerts at Chautauqua, attending the University of Colorado’s annual Shakespeare Festival, and traveling throughout the United States, especially cherishing trips to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Estes Park, Colorado.

Beth was predeceased by her parents, Eijah and Mildred Copeland, her husband Hadi, and her sister Jane Habbeggar of Rockledge, Florida. She is survived by her sister Peggy King of Lexington, Kentucky, as well as her daughter Somer and her son Ramzi.

Beth will be laid to rest at Green Mountain Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado.