In March, 1949 Barbara Morris, a human resources manager working at LaGuardia Airport for the then relatively young Pan American World Airlines, packed her bags to marry her fiancé, Ernst F. Wood, also a Pan Am employee, in Damascus, Syria.  Barbara, in her twenties, had never traveled outside the United States with the exception of a trip to Europe to visit Ernie where he was working to re-establish civilian commercial aviation after WWII. Barbara and Ernie were married in Damascus and honeymooned throughout the Middle East in an incredible month-long odyssey that included waking up after their wedding night to realize that a coup had occurred during the night.  Over the next eight decades Barbara loved to tell this story - and always described her choice to make this trip as entirely unremarkable.  

Barbara was born on September 13, 1922, and grew up in Richmond Hill, New York.  During her childhood she lived in a busy household that contained three generations, her mother, Irma Morris (Jacobs) and father, Walter Morris, an insurance company analyst, her maternal grandparents, and her younger brother Richard.  Late in life she often commented that she had been “a troublesome child,” an identity she fully embraced as an adult. She graduated from John Adams High School in Queens, New York and enrolled as a member of the first graduating class of Queens College at the age of 16. From Queens College, she graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Education, a degree choice pressed on her by her parents as suitable for young women, although she had no intention of teaching and thought she would be miserable in that role.  After college Barbara took an office job at the Fireman’s Fund of New York, the highlight of which was getting lemon meringue pie at the Horn and Hardart Automat restaurant every day for lunch, a pie addiction from which she never recovered.

For reasons that she could never explain even to herself, one day she left work, drove to LaGuardia Airport, walked up to the Pan Am counter and asked for a job.  Perhaps even more surprising was her immediate hiring as a human resources staffer.  In her later years she reflected that she had no idea what emboldened her to take this step, but it set her on a course that was emblematic of her approach to life for the next eight-plus decades.

On Barbara’s Lifetime Top Ten List of favorite stories was her hiring of “a very odd fellow” Ernst F. Wood, who she interviewed and hired from among the ranks of hundreds of returning WWII veterans flooding the airline with job applications.  She described standing on a desk at LaGuardia shouting instructions to hundreds of job applicants and then sorting them into groups for interviews.  After interviewing Ernie she explained to her mother that she had met and hired a very strange (and not in a good way) person that day.  It wasn’t until a couple of years later when Ernie and a group of Pan Am friends planned a road trip to Washington, D.C. and recruited Barbara, and her handy car, to be their transportation, that she became reacquainted with the odd fellow.  The purpose of the trip was a State Department interview for one of their friends.  He didn’t get the job but he later served as Best Man for Barbara and Ernie - and was the cause of their marriage taking place in Damascus where he was “stationed” with Pan Am by that time.

Barbara left her beloved job at Pan Am to follow Ernie to Munich and later Hamburg where they began their family and enjoyed many adventures traveling around post-war Europe.  Her intrepid journeys driving through the Alps with her babies (2) and cocker spaniels (2) while Ernie was at work opening airports and establishing Pan Am’s business in Germany are the stuff of family legend.  Their sons Henry (Judy Wood) and Peter (Inca Robbin) were born during this period and the young family made friendships that brought them back to travel in Europe every year for decades after they took the boys home to New York.  Ernie took up his place working in the iconic Pan Am building in midtown Manhattan, wearily riding the Long Island Rail Road with thousands of other mid-century Long Island dads, while Barbara ran the classic split level home built for them in 1954 in Wantagh at the “Gateway to Jones Beach.” The couple added Thomas (Mary Gherardi), Jennifer (Robert Lee) and Christiane (Steven Brown) to their brood. 

Barbara ran a tight ship in Wantagh, keeping a commuting spouse, five children, two dogs and a cat or two at any given time, and later her mother who moved out from Richmond Hill, spinning like plates in the air. She took on the volunteer directorship of the community Thrift Shop that was an important source of funding for the Southeast Nassau Guidance (Mental Health) Center and became very active with the PEO, a philanthropic organization focused on promoting women’s education.  She attended thousands of teacher conferences, chorus, band, orchestra and marching band concerts and parades.  She stretched Ernie’s modest salary to ensure that the family of seven could use the travel benefits that she had been instrumental in winning for Pan Am employees to travel the globe every year.  She organized dozens of trips to Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Fiji and Tahiti - all while figuring out how to get a party of seven travelers including five children loaded onto multiple flights as standby passengers - with everyone eventually miraculously arriving at the same destination.  

Her three sons migrated to the Pacific one by one, ending up in Hawaii and Guam, while her daughters stayed on the East Coast.  In the 1990s, after most of their Long Island friends had retired to Florida, Barbara and Ernie, true to form, went in the opposite direction, moving north to Providence, Rhode Island.  While their friends in Florida sensibly downsized to condos they joyfully selected a huge “fixer upper” on Providence’s East Side to keep them busy with enough projects to last their very extended lifetimes.  

In Rhode Island they could be closer to grandchildren LuzElena Wood (Gaspar Caro), Max Wood-Lee, and Kate Wood.  From their home base in Providence Barbara and Ernie loved to travel to Hawaii to spend time with their Pacific grandchildren Maile Lani Wood (Keola Barrozo) and Wili Makia Wood (Nicole Lambertson) and were frequent visitors to granddaughters Sarah Brown (Jason Snyder) and Samantha Brown in Maryland. Nothing brought Barbara greater joy in the 21st Century than her visits with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren Samoana Tuala, Amaya Tuala, Enari Tuala, Koda Tuala, Kano Wood, Makia Wood, Belén Caro, and Camilo Caro. 

But Barbara’s time in Rhode Island could not be described as her retirement in any traditional sense.  Not long after moving to Providence Barbara volunteered to cover a few shifts at the law firm of Hardy Tabor and Chudacoff as a morning receptionist when the regular staffer abruptly departed.  Twenty-three years later she was annoyed to learn that the lawyers, all decades younger, were ready to retire and the firm would be closing. “Kids these days who want to retire in their 70s, how tiresome” she observed from her perch of 93 years.  Her connection to three generations of her family, continued friendship with her law firm colleagues, and her over fifty years of involvement with the PEO formed the basis of very meaningful relationships for her after she moved to Rhode Island, giving Barbara a rich and busy life for over 100 years. Even as she crossed the century line and became the “last woman standing” of her New York friends she was fully engaged and engaging, doing things “her way” to the end.  When Ernie died in 2011 she slowed down for a year, turning inward, and then reemerged to take on more than another decade with characteristic gusto.  She would tell anyone who would listen that they were married for 75 years because although he left physically after 62 years, “he is still with me so I am claiming all 75!”

Bringing her full self to the party in her final days, Barbara regaled the doctors and staff at Miriam Hospital and Steere House with her treasured stories and particular perspective.  Asked about her health (while lying on a gurney after a serious fall) she would declare “I am a perfect specimen.” When it was suggested that she might have to limit her activities she responded “Don’t be ri.di.cu.lous!”  Like some in her generation she never cursed but would exclaim “Heavens to Betsy!” if something astonished her.

Barbara was tremendously grateful to the doctors and health care teams who cared for her in the last month of her life.  She thought each and every one of them was wonderful. The kindness and caring of the entire Steere House family will never be forgotten. Even when she was obviously drained and weakened she would summon a smile and greeting for everyone she encountered.   Barbara was the conductor of her own train until her final hours with us. One of her final observations before peacefully slipping away with family and caregivers at her side was “I should never have given up my car.”

Barbara’s family will host a Celebration of Life at a later date.