Margaret Elizabeth Barr

BARR, Margaret Elizabeth (Bigelow) Born in Elkhorn, Manitoba, April 16, 1923, died following a stroke, April 1, 2008 in Saanich Peninsula Hospital. Margaret was predeceased by her husband Howard E. Bigelow of Mass., USA, parents, Irene and Dave Barr of Duncan, B.C., sister Frances M. Smythe of Victoria. Survived by her sister, Dr. Elsie Culliton, G.P., ret'd. of Ottawa, Ont.; nephew Geoff and Una Culliton and family of Nepean, Ont., niece Margie Culliton, G.P. and husband Wes Harris and family of Cornerbrook, Nfld., brother Gordon W. Barr of Ardmore, North Saanich, the remaining clan of the Chaster family, Duncan, B.C. My sincere thanks to Dr. Kennedy and the nurses and staff at Saanich Peninsula Hospital for their help and kindness during her last days. At her request she was cremated with no service. Following is an abbreviated account of her career written by her associates, Meredith Blackwell, Emory Simmons and Sabine Huhndorf: MARGARET ELIZABETH BARR BIGELOW Margaret E. Barr Bigelow, an internationally known mycologist, was born 16 April 1923 in Elkhorn, Manitoba. She spent her adult life working on a great diversity of fungi --daily observing more ascomycete diversity than most mycologists see in a lifetime. Margaret received a BS degree (1950) and MS degree (1952) from the University of British Columbia. She was a student of Lewis E. Wehmeyer at the University of Michigan, where her 207-page dissertation, Taxonomic position of the genus Mycosphaerella as shown by comparative developmental studies, earned her a Ph.D. in 1956. In Ann Arbor she made lifelong friends among her fellow graduate students, and married one of them. She and Howard Elson Bigelow, were married in June 1956, just a week before they completed their PhDs at the University of Michigan. Howard died unexpectedly in November 1987. There were no teaching positions available the year they were married, so she and Howard spent a summer collecting fungi in northern Maine, and she along with Howard went to Montreal where she worked as a National Research Council Fellow in the Botanical Institute at the University of Montreal. The next September (1957) Howard was hired as an instructor in botany at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Because of rules against nepotism, Margaret could not have an official appointment in the department. She was, however, allowed to be part of a ''women's auxiliary," which allowed her to teach and do research for many years for little compensation. Appointed as instructor (1957), she rose rapidly to the rank of professor after nepotism laws were revised, eventually serving as Ray Ethan Torrey Professor (1986-1989). She and Howard had been at the University of Massachusetts for 30 years at the time of Howard's death in 1987, and in 1989 Margaret moved to Sidney, BC. Margaret volunteered both time and money to her academic field. She served as program chair for the Mycological Society of America (MSA) at the joint AIBS meetings of 1963 and again in 1973. In 1987 she was chair of the entire AIBS meeting. She was Editor-in-Chief of Mycologia, the journal of the MSA (1976-1980), and she served the society as vice president (1979-1980) and president (1981-1982). In 1992 she was elected Distinguished Mycologist by the MSA. Although her primary society was the MSA, she also belonged to the American Institute of Biological Societies, International Association of Plant Taxonomists, and British Mycological Society. She established several endowments: The Howard E. and Margaret E. Barr Bigelow Endowed Fund for the Life Sciences Collection for biological sciences and geosciences journals, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts, and Howard E. Bigelow Mentor Fund and Margaret E. Barr Bigelow Mentor Fund for student travel to annual meetings of the Mycological Society of America. In 1989 about 40,000 specimens of the UMASS fungus herbarium, which contained the bulk of Margaret's and Howard's collections, were transferred to the New York Botanical Garden. Other Margaret E. Barr collections are on deposit with the Canada Department of Agriculture, Ottawa (DAOM, about 5000 specimens) and the University of British Columbia (about 250 specimens), with a few types and later collections added to the holdings at NYBG. She published about 150 scientific works that provided broad scale coverage of many groups of ascomycetes. After her retirement from the University of Massachusetts, she returned to her native British Columbia where she worked regular hours daily for many years on monographic studies of ascomycetes. Collectors from around the world sent her specimens for identifications. She studied fungi from as far away as Hawaii, China, Australia, Japan and Spain, as well here at home in British Columbia. Her last paper on a new species from oaks in western Canada was published late in 2007. Barr trained two PhD students at the University of Massachusetts (Jean Boise-Cargill and Scott Schatz). After retirement she continued to serve as mentor to several generations of young mycologists. She died 1 April 2008 in Sidney, B.C. 460290