When, in 2008, Betty Olds retired from serving District 6 on the Berkeley City Council after 16 years, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the council “will lose its crankiest, wittiest, and often most rational member.” Six years later, the path that connects Sterling and Whitaker avenues in North Berkeley (previously known as Twain Path, #68 on the BPWA map) was renamed the Betty Olds Path in her honor. The children’s room at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library also bears her name.

Olds—a feminist, environmentalist, and animal rights activist—was known on the Council for speaking her own mind and taking unpopular positions. During her 67 years in Berkeley, she served as a member of the Rent Stabilization Board, the Zoning Adjustments Board, and the Berkeley Library Board. She was a political moderate who encouraged her colleagues to focus less on international issues and more on those that directly impacted Berkeley residents.

“In Berkeley, where everyone is passionate and people won’t talk to you if you don’t agree with them, Betty would embrace her opponents if she thought they were nice people,” said her former aide, Susan Wengraf, who went on to fill Olds’ seat on the council. East Bay Express readers voted Olds “Best Politician,” in the newspaper’s 2008 Best of the East Bay competition. When she retired at the age of 88, she was likely one of the nation’s oldest elected officials; at her retirement event, she observed that she had outlasted four mayors and five city managers.

During her tenure on the board, Olds was instrumental in securing city funds to finance the first map of the Berkeley pathways. It was published by the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association and is now in its 10th edition.

Olds passed away in 2017 at the age of 96. But her memory lives on for the many wanderers who use the path in her name.