Barbara Courtney Brumback

Barbara Courtney Moritz Brumback

Barbara Courtney Moritz Brumback passed away on Saturday, October 9, 2010, at Martha Jefferson Hospital with friends and family present.

Barbara was preceded in death by her husband, Robert N. Brumback; and her son, Craig.

She is survived by one sister, Susan M. Gottlieb; and three children, John, Courtney and Natalie; along with one grandchild, Rachel Renne' Brumback Stanley.

From the time Barbara arrived in this world on November 14, 1935, she was predisposed to challenge the world assertively. She was a young woman with astute intelligence and wit.

Barbara was bright beyond her years. She was the first in her family who attended college and received her BA degree in History, English, and Spanish at Michigan State University. Years later she received her Master in Education from the College of Boca Raton, (formerly Mary Mount College.)

She met her husband-to-be in Washington, D.C. and they married in 1961.

Her work ascended in the direction of politics, which became her second love. Barbara became active in political campaigning, beginning with Barry Goldwater and carried on through out her life.

She continued to work in Washington, D.C., until she and her family moved to Florida. Barbara then became a teacher, working in the Hendry County school system. She also became editor of the Caloosa Bell newspaper while working real estate part time in LaBelle, Florida.

She and her family moved to Crozet in the summer of l980, where she took a job that would give her the most pleasure in her career. Along with some very prominent doctors, at the University of Virginia, she helped state the fledgling newsletter "For Kids Sake" as one of the editors and the news letter layout person. Also around the same time, along with her husband procured grant funding, to start the Virginia Relay Center phone system for the deaf and hearing impaired. Both accomplishments are now nationally known and have been adopted by almost every state in the union.

Later she opened her own real estate office in the Crozet area, named Ivy West Realty Company, LLC. There she helped to serve the residents of the west side of Albemarle County with their real estate needs in the area she most deeply loved.When she retired from real estate, she helped children at the Sylvan Learning Center and was asked to be a guest teacher for the summer scholarship program to teach incoming students at Johns Hopkins University. She taught Civics.

In the last years of her life Barbara lost her husband to cancer, and a son to a tragic incident in Mexico. She suffered with dementia, soon after Craig's death, and spent her final years in the loving adult care home of Mrs. Mary Ann Gibson, in Crozet.

The family suggest that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Jefferson Madison Regional Library, Crozet Branch, 5791 Three Notch'd Road, Crozet, VA 22932 or NPR.org/support 22932 or PBS.org/support 22906.

Memorial services will be held at the Anderson Funeral Home Chapel, 5888 Saint George Ave., Crozet Virginia, 2 p.m. Saturday, November 6, 2010.


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.