Barbara Lee Stanush

Barbara Lee Evans Stanush was beloved by many -– family, friends, fellow writers, newspaper readers, and library champions. Curious and intrepid, she wasn’t afraid of either life or death. Earlier this year, she suffered complications from a hip break and wasn’t able to recover. But at age 89, she was at peace with dying. Her body was tired and she was eager to be reunited with departed loved ones, particularly her husband Claude.

Barbara was born June 17, 1931, near her home of Maplewood, New Jersey, the first child of David and Connie Evans. Barbara’s father was a hard-working pediatrician with a twinkle in his eye and uncompromising ethics; his daughter inherited his vigor and values.  From the start, however, Barbara rebelled against domesticity. Nothing made her happier than to escape the house and roam -- particularly in nearby woods. Her favorite book: “Lone Cowboy.” Later, that evolved into sailing, camping, and sports. Barbara also found flight - of a different sort -- in church choirs. She had a lovely voice.

Barbara attended Duke University, where she majored in sociology and excelled at just about everything. She graduated magna cum laude, but was unsure what career felt like “her.” Eventually she became a program coordinator at the Institute of International Education in New York City. She moved into an upstairs apartment in a Greenwich Village brownstone. And there her life took a huge turn. 

Barbara shook her mop out the window and the man living in the garden apartment below came upstairs to investigate. That man was a writer named Claude -- a transplanted South Texan with enchilada sauce splattered on his walls. Fate had led Barbara to a lone cowboy (of sorts). Within a few years, they were married, had a daughter Michele, and were planning a move to Claude’s hometown of San Antonio. Barbara helped pack a few household items and 4,000 pounds of books.

In 1965, the young family rented a small but historic cottage in a patch of San Antonio woods --Maverick Hill. Barbara loved the setting, and felt natural as a mother, but she struggled. Her husband had a calling, as a fiction writer and essayist, but what was hers? One morning, facing a cluttered house, staring at a half-eaten grapefruit, she picked up a book of children’s poetry. A line jumped out: “Home is where, when it’s dark, you can walk through without touching anything.” Something in that line triggered something in her. She wept and wrote her first poem -- messy, imperfect, but a new connection. From that day onward, poetry became a driving force in her life.

In many ways, Barbara and Claude lived a counterculture life – even bohemian. They were devoted to creative and community pursuits that paid little or nothing. But they were financially responsible and dressed conservatively. “Our mask was that we looked like everybody else,” Barbara would say. Saturday dinner was family taco night (when the grown-ups drank Pearl beer, prudently). Sunday morning was Dunkin’ Donuts and hours of conversation -- about theology, art, history, the community.

In 1967, Barbara gave birth to twin daughters Pam and Julie. Later, Barbara volunteered in their schools, eventually becoming an elementary teacher and poet-in-the-schools. Intrigued by Claude’s Polish roots, she also found a calling at the Institute of Texan Cultures. She spent three years researching and writing “Texans: A Story of Texan Cultures for Young People,” a lively book that explored the multi-layered question: “Who are Texans?”

In 1989, Barbara began writing columns for the San Antonio Express-News -- penning more than 350 over 16 years. Much more than personal opinion, the columns gave voice to others doing important work but whose lives were often not well-known -- from artists to naturalists to doctors. “We must pass on our best values, art, skills, and stories,” Barbara wrote. She herself did much community work, including founding the Writer Friends of the San Antonio Public Library. She was honored with an Arts and Letters Award and a Library Champions Award.

As an adult, Barbara still loved to escape and roam. She had a special fondness for hummingbirds, herons, rocks, bones, horns, and natural springs, like the Blue Hole, source spring of the San Antonio River. Her observations of nature -- from lovely to disturbing -- are in some of her best poetry. A collection, “Stone Garden,” was published by Pecan Grove Press in 1992, reprinted in 1995. Other poems are in the anthology “Keeping Company.” 

After Claude died in 2011 at age 92, Barbara processed her grief through poetry. “Love does not die,” she wrote. “It becomes wider.” Despite profound loss, Barbara came to believe a person’s richest years can be in later life. She loved the poem, “Late Ripeness,” by Polish-American writer Czeslaw Milosz. When Barbara, as a widow, moved into The Village at Incarnate Word, she made copies of “Late Ripeness” for new friends. She also slept next to “The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully,” a book by Sister Joan Chittister.

Barbara’s daughters loved spending time at the Village, with its ageless Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. For the twins, it was connecting a circle -- they’d attended nearby Incarnate Word High School. Meantime, the Village was around the corner from the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, where Barbara worshiped at St. John’s Chapel. She still loved hymns, although after Claude died, she wept as she sang.

In mid-2020, Barbara moved to her eldest daughter’s home where she found a silver lining in a dark pandemic -- undiluted time to ponder, pray, and sit in the sun. Even after her hip break, when the prognosis was unclear, she was at peace. “This isn’t tragic,” she said, “It’s magical.” In those last hours, flanked by family -- in person and virtually -- memories were shared about Maverick Hill and road trips in a lopsided station wagon.

Special thanks to Barbara’s dear friends Cyra Dumitru, Olga Samples Davis, Veda Smith, Leslie Burns, and Donna Peacock for solace. Barbara’s poetry and passions had led her to these -- and other -- deep connections.

A life celebration will be next year; for updates, see The Angelus Funeral Home website.  

For memorial donations, please consider the Headwaters at Incarnate Word -- and loud cheerleading for the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures.

Barbara was predeceased by her parents, husband, and beloved artist sister Janneka Hannay Baird. She is survived by her daughters; grandchildren Grant, Sydney and David; son-in-law Todd Podbielski; brother-in-law Rod Baird; and extended family and friends.

Barbara also leaves behind countless boxes of research, letters, clippings, writing, and scribbled thoughts -- and thousands of books.