Barbara Meyer Cotts

Cotts, Barbara Meyer

Barbara Meyer Cotts of Ithaca died November 20, 2014, at the age of 86. She is survived by her husband of 64 years, Robert, her brother, Richard, of Waupun, Wisconsin, three of her four sons, and four grandchildren. Barbara was born to Sheldon and Opal Lawrence Meyer in Waupun, Wisconsin, on October 20, 1928. In high school, she became the Wisconsin State Debate Champion, and worked for the Waupun Leader News. She attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, majoring in Journalism and Home Economics. It was there that she met her husband Robert, and they later married in her parents' home on the day after their graduation in 1950. They moved to Berkeley, California where Barbara wrote bulletins for the California Cooperative Extension while Bob pursued a PhD. They enjoyed camping in the Sierras, the Bay Area culture and raising a young family.



In 1957 they moved to Ithaca, building a house on South Hill in the summer of 1960. Barbara was a stay-at-home mother in the close-knit, Northview Road community that teemed with children playing through houses and backyards. She was a community volunteer, working with learning-disabled children in the Ithaca City Schools and she was active in South Hill PTA, the Unitarian Church, Friends of the Library, League of Women Voters, and the Auraca Herbarists. She served as Director of the South Hill Childcare Center, which developed into what is now the Ithaca Community Childcare Center. Barbara and Bob enjoyed long stays in England, visiting many gardens and returning to Ithaca to improve and extend their own gardens on Northview Road. Barbara loved the Cornell Plantations; she led the Auraca committee that made items to sell at the shop, wrote articles for the magazine, taught garden trough-making workshops, and volunteered in the Herb Garden.



Their son David pre-deceased Barbara in 1992. Son Eric and his wife Madeleine live in Vestal, NY; son Stuart and his wife Stephanie Butler live in Ashland, OR, and son Steven and his wife Pamela Young live in Greenfield Center, NY. Barbara had four grandchildren, Kristin Cotts, Nathaniel Cotts, Sheldon Cotts and Benjamin Cotts. A memorial service for Barbara will be held at 2:00 PM on January 18, 2015 at Kendal at Ithaca. Donations in memory of Barbara may be made to the Cornell Plantations Development Office, 1 Plantations Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850. The family would like to thank the staff at Cascadilla House, Kendal, for their kind care.