Jill Simmons
Janet and I would like to thank you for coming to remember our mom today. Most of you have read her obituary on the Evergreen site. There is so much more we could have included. There are many more activities, clubs, awards, campaigns, we could have mentioned, each dear to her heart. We as her children are immensely proud of her accomplishments and her patriotism.
But the Barber girls want you to know that our mom and our dad, and you really can’t talk about one of them without the other, created a wonderful family that we were blessed to grow up in and that was their greatest accomplishment. Our husbands, Bryan and Chris, were fortunate enough to be grafted into that family, completely loved and treated as sons. Beth and Sami, their granddaughters, were never in doubt as to how beloved they were.
Our parents, together, taught us about love and faith, hard work, loyalty, commitment, honesty and integrity, and so much more. I don’t think either of us knew, until we grew up and left the nest, how different and special our home life had been. We didn’t know that not all parents are devoted to each other and give unconditional love to their kids, not all homes are welcoming, not all friendships last for decades, not all children feel safe in their homes. We had all of that and more growing up in the Barber home. That was the greatest legacy of Linda and Jim Barber.