Cora Jane Bidwell Barr

Cora Jane Bidwell Barr, born Jan. 16, 1940, in Bellingham, WA, died at her home in Arlington, VA, on April 10, 2008, after a long battle with cancer. Class of 1958, Mount Vernon High School, Mrs. Barr was 68 years old. Daughter of Victor Bidwell and Marie Frances Hawkins Bidwell, Cora attended the University of Washington School of Nursing, the University of Chicago and received her B.A. in Elementary Education from Fresno State in 1965. Genealogist, adventuress and world traveler, Cora is survived by two daughters, Karen Marie Edensword Pritzker, of Marin County, CA, and Diana Lisa

Edensword Conway, of Potomac, MD; her former husband, Jon Goodwin Edensword, of Washington, DC; eight grandchildren; four sisters; and innumerable friends. Husband Dr. Nathaniel F. Barr predeceased her. Cora and Jon began to raise their family in Bakersfield, CA, then went overseas in the service of the U.S. Department of State in 1968. The family lived in Fort de France, Martinique; Monrovia, Liberia; Port au Prince, Haiti; Amman, Jordan; Cambridge, MA; and Nice, France, before settling in Arlington, VA, in 1979. Cora worked as an elementary and middle school teacher until 1968, and then taught ESL Abroad until 1970. Upon her return to the U.S. in 1979, Cora became a legal secretary in the Washington, DC, area for a variety of top law firms. A consummate linguist, Cora spoke excellent Arabic, Haitian Creole and French, as well as some Farsi, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Swedish and a few words in almost every other tongue. Cora visited every continent except Antarctica, where she had no desire to go. She never got to the subcontinent of India either, but had plans to travel there with her daughter Karen and her family in Dec. of 2008. An inveterate correspondent, Cora made friends wherever she traveled, and she remained in contact with them, often throughout decades. From hitchhiking through the African bush with her daughters and sleeping on dirt floors, to camel trips through Jordan's Wadi Rum desert, to rafting the Colorado River with inner city high school students from Providence St. Mel, to entertaining royalty on the French Riviera, to riding King Hussein's stallions around his racetrack, Cora's sense of adventure, panache and joie de vivre were unparalleled. Her greatest joy was traveling the world with her grandchildren and teaching them to be as open-minded and intellectually curious about everyone they met and everything they saw as she was. Another unfulfilled plan was for a second trip to the Galapagos this summer, with grandchildren, grandnieces and other good friends. Cora will be sorely missed, and never forgotten, by all who knew her. The viewing will be at Kern Funeral Home, of Mount Vernon, WA, on Saturday, April 26, from 9 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. Services will be held at Salem Lutheran Church, in Mount Vernon, WA, at 3 p.m., followed by interment at Mount Vernon Cemetery and dinner at Eaglemont. Cora requested that those attending her funeral wear black, and that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to Providence St. Mel School, 119 S. Central Park, Chicago, IL 60624.