Barbara Fowler Stutz

1927 - 2022

Barbara Fowler Stutz

1927 – 2022

Barbara passed away peacefully, following a stroke, on April 13th, at her home in Napa, California. Her daughter Ellen, son John, and caregiver Rosa were by her side. All of her extended family was with her in spirit.

Barbara was born to Alan and Minnie Fowler near Guernsey, Wyoming, a small town still part of the "Wild West". It was here where they started raising their four children. Alan, an engineer and graduate of the Naval Academy, moved the family to Baltimore, Maryland, where they lived for eight years. She remembered trips to the Bicksler family farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she had to participate in various kinds of farm chores, like helping to make head cheese. Two months before the start of the war, they moved to Newport, Rhode Island, after Alan secured a job with the Naval Torpedo Station. She attended Eastern High, entering the tenth grade at 14, having been moved ahead.

She had just started college, as a chemistry major, when she met Burton Stutz, a training officer at Melville, the main base for PT Boats. He had freshly returned from active PT duty in the Solomon Islands. They were a very handsome couple! One month after the war ended, they were married in Newport, and shortly after drove west to California in an old jalopy. Burt was still in the Navy and they initially settled in Sausalito, California. He was from Marin County and had family nearby. Children soon followed, and by 1953 there were four.

The family moved to Napa in 1964, building in Monticello Park, and other than two years in Aptos, remained in Napa. Barbara was very active in the Napa Valley Symphony League, Napa Valley Landmarks, and St Mary's Episcopal Church. She was an avid tennis player, and played on the NVCC team into her 70's. Her tennis, bridge, and mahjong partners would tell you how much she hated to lose!

Barbara will be remembered by all, as pragmatic, tenacious, and adventurous. She also had a warm laugh and a good sense of humor. In 1959 she and another housewife drove across the entire country on old US 40, with six kids, in a three row station wagon, and everyone survived (physically)! Many family camping trips and travel to several World Fairs followed. Starting in 1971 she and Burt started traveling the world, visiting individual countries for four or five weeks at a time, often with no reservations other than the days they landed and took off. They cruised through the Panama Canal and crossed the Atlantic.

Barbara loved her life, family, cooking, wine, and her dachshunds, and spent sixty seven years happily married to Burt, before his death in 2012. She was predeceased by son Jim (Chris), and survived by Debbie Caldwell, John Stutz (Lyn), and Ellen Mehrens (Dave), five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Our extended family grieves, yet celebrates her wonderful life. She enjoyed our family reunions every five years, and was looking forward to the one planned for June 5th, in Napa. This will now be a celebration of her life. She loved, and was much loved by all her nieces, nephews, and their children.

The family thanks, with all our hearts, her wonderful caregivers, Rosa and Myrna. They diligently saw her through the pandemic, where she powered through severe Covid, viral pneumonia, and increasingly difficult dementia. Special thanks go out to the compassionate staff at Collabria Care, who visited daily during her last weeks.

The family would appreciate any donations to be made to either Collabria Care or St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Napa.