Barbara L. Talcroft (1930-2023). My mother, Barbara, died last week at the age of 92 after a short bout of pneumonia, a complication from a mild stroke she suffered about two weeks before her death. She had been living with me since May of 2021 when it became apparent after a fall and brief hospitalization that she would likely have trouble on her own. She lived independently in Sebastopol, CA, about 10 miles west of Santa Rosa, until that time. In the end, it was good that she was with us for the last 17 months of her life.
My mother hated to be photographed. As a result, we have few recent photographs of her. The most recent still image of her I have at hand is from 2000, shortly after my son was born. Here are a few early photos, including one of her in 1935, as a young girl; her high school graduation photo (she graduated from Fairview High School in Dayton, Ohio, in 1948); a photo of her at college at Carnegie Tech (today Carnegie Mellon), where she graduated at the top of her class, in 1952; and a moody shot of her later, when she had moved to New York, dated August 1956. After getting her BFA from Carnegie Tech, she went on to to earn two master's degrees. Her second master's thesis
, on the English novelist Rosemary Sutcliff, was so well written it was published as a book, '
Death of the Corn King'.
When I have the time, I hope to write a proper appreciation of her life.
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