Barbara E. Asnes

1964 - 2026

Barbara E. Asnes

Freeport, ME - Barbara Esther Asnes, formerly of Hartford and Cavendish, Vermont, died at home at age 73 on February 26, 2026, from acute respiratory failure and congestive heart failure. She had been in declining health for months.

Barbara was born in Boston to Harold and Ray (Green) Asnes on June 21, 1952, and grew up in Newton Highlands. She met the love of her life, Stuart Bratesman, in 1983, and they married the next year at the Dartmouth College Rollins Chapel.

Her friends have described her as "sharp-witted, courageous, funny, self-aware, aware of the world, and so very kind and generous," and have noted her love of animals and her "unmatched kindness and generosity of spirit."

Barbara graduated from Clark University, earned a University of Chicago Master of Social Work (MSW) degree and a JD from Vermont Law School, but never practiced. Most of her varied career was devoted to working with people with major mental illness or developmental disabilities and assuring compliance with related federal court orders in North Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Maine. Barbara left social work for a while in the 1980s to start her own successful full-service catering business, Good Taste Catering, serving as many as 900 people. Later in North Carolina, she testified as an expert defense witness during the sentencing phase of several death penalty cases. She then worked for the North Caolina Department of Human Services by helping coordinate the federally court-ordered delivery of proper settings and services for persons with intellectual disabilities who had been inappropriately confined, some for decades, to state psychiatric hospitals.

After Barbara and Stuart moved to Maine in 1998, she continued her career in social work. However, when a 2007 collision with a negligent driver's logging truck broke all the bones in both feet and ankles, she was told in the emergency room she would probably never walk again. Nevertheless, she persevered and took her first few steps after 5 months of surgeries, recovery and intensive physical therapy. She spent the rest of her life on crutches and in chronic pain but rarely complained. Following her recovery, she spent a year working as a care consultant at the Alzheimer's Association of Maine and then retired.

Barbara loved gardens and travel, visiting all over Canada, Western Europe, Bermuda and New Zealand. Barbara was devoted to dogs and cats her whole life. During retirement, she drove hundreds of miles to deliver rescued feral cats to their new homes.

Barbara is survived by her devoted husband of 42 years and by her cousin, Bill Asnes of Sugarland, Texas.

Barbara did not want a funeral or formal memorial service. She asked, instead, for an informal gathering of friends "with good food and good drink" at her home in June, when her beloved garden will be in bloom.

Barbara believed in supporting a wide variety of non-profit organizations. Those who wish to make donations in Barbara's name are encouraged to contribute to a local animal shelter, your local public television and radio stations, Partners in Health, the World Food Program, World Central Kitchen, Doctors Without Borders, the Equal Justice Initiative, Good Shepherd Food Bank, or organizations that support immigrants and the unhoused.