Meals on Wheels Senior Spotlight: Barbara

When Barbara was growing up in the 1930s, horse-drawn buggies clopped down the dirt roads in her Norfolk neighborhood, delivering blocks of ice. The fourth of ten children, Barbara sold home-grown vegetables out of a wagon as a little girl. It was just the beginning of a remarkable life of hard work and service.

Fresh out of high school at 16, Barbara rode the trolley to interview for her first job at Woolworth’s on Granby St. “It was scary,” she remembers, riding the trolley for the first time. Her mother, busy with six children at home, couldn’t come but gave clear instructions: “You’ll see a chubby man—he’s the conductor. You tell him you’re getting a job downtown. He’ll take care of you.”

Barbara was hired, and it wasn’t long before she left her job at Woolworth’s for a better one at the telephone company. After a car accident caused a serious brain hemorrhage, Barbara was forced to quit. She slowly recovered, got married, and went back to work, this time at Sears. But when she became pregnant, she was fired. “That was the attitude toward women back then,” she says.

Undaunted, she reapplied and was rehired after the birth of each of her four children. She worked in many different departments at Sears in Norfolk and Chesapeake over thirty years. With her husband mostly absent, Barbara supported the family on her own. “I don’t envy women raising children by themselves,” she says. “I know what I went through.”

When she retired from Sears at 65, Barbara embarked on a second career. She went back to school to become a nurse’s aide and found work in home healthcare. She had personal experience with caregiving: her daughter lived with multiple sclerosis and passed away in April. “Caregiving is hard,” she says. “It wears you out.”

At 92, Barbara has outlived two of her four children. She still lives in her home of sixty years, just two blocks away from the house where she was born. “I do sometimes wonder why I’m still here,” she says. It’s clear to those who know her that Barbara is here as a shining example of perseverance, hard work, and kindness.

Rosita from Senior Services says, “It is remarkable that at 90-plus Barbara is still able to live at home independently and successfully. Each visit with her teaches me life lessons. I am one of Barbara’s biggest fans.”

The feeling is mutual. “Rosita is great,” Barbara says. “She came and sat on my porch and talked to me about Meals on Wheels. I got a good feeling from her the first time I met her.”

Barbara looks forward to chatting with Rosita and receiving her home-delivered meals “like clockwork” each week. She also talks on the phone daily with her two sons and tunes in for Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond. She has five grandchildren, one greatgrandchild, and one on the way.

“I’ve been through a lot of fights in my life,” she says. Now, hopefully, after a lifetime of significant challenges and many triumphs, the fights are behind her. If you would like to donate to home-delivered meals for amazing older adults like Barbara, donate here.