Barbara was born in Buffalo, NY in 1942, and remains a tremendous Bills fan to this day. She was raised in foster care, switching homes a number of homes until she met Sally and Jerry Privitera. They took her in as theirs and were her parents all their lives.

Her Dad was in the Navy for 21 years in NY, and when he was transferred to Iceland, Barbara went to Miami. She got a motorcycle and tried her hand at a variety of jobs: Stationery engraver, bartender, gas station attendant, and industrial jobs like maker of logo parts for Mustangs, and anodizing propellers for small planes.

Her next stop was Norfolk Va, where this 108 pound woman drove a city bus for a while. With her safety on the route in question, she headed back to school, and earned her CDL license. She was among the first women driving tractor trailer long haul OTR routes, traveling from NY to PA to MD and DC.

When she tired of always being on the road, and she relocated to Alexandria, VA. She found a job as a courier for a small independent packing and shipping company, where she became an expert at packing up strange shaped items, from weather vanes to a collection of vintage guitars.

That is also where she met her future wife, Sandy. After years working together, they bought the business, and got to know pretty much everyone in Alexandria.

Barbara began to search for her birth mother, and took up genealogy as a hobby. She found her family, which included a half brother and half sister who she keeps up with.

She has always enjoyed sports and coaching, and running road races for fun. Her wife, Sandy would find races and sign her up.

3k, 5K and 10K runs were her weekend pastimes. I met them when we lived in the same townhouse development in Arlington VA, and we began to run the National Mall on Sunday mornings.

As we got older, I got slower, but Barbara got better. She ran her first marathon, the Marine Corps, in 2009, at age 67, and the Cleveland Marathon in 2019, at 77, with lots of other races in between, usually taking medals in her age group.

She wants to be remembered as never let being a woman stop her from trying new things, and she is always interested in new experiences…mostly.

Her friends are younger than her, and she loves to show them that getting older does not mean they are done. There is a lot of fun ahead!