Barbara W. Massey

Barbara W. Massey

1923 - 2022

Barbara died on May 7 in Ashland, Oregon. She was 98 years old. Born Barbara Alice Weinberg in New Brunswick, NJ, she grew up in Mt. Vernon, a suburb of New York City. The child of a mother who descended from a mainline, Eastern seaboard family of English origins, and a Jewish Hungarian father, she was raised as a nominal Christian who was nevertheless always considered Jewish by neighbors and teachers because of her maiden name. While experiencing a largely idyllic childhood in a prosperous household, she felt the sting of anti-Semitism at various points in her young life. An excellent student in high school, she set her sights on Mt. Holyoke College. Her high school counselor discouraged her from applying, intimating that she would not get in because they would only accept one or two Jewish students and she was not up to the competition. She applied anyway and was accepted and also offered two scholarships. She excelled at her studies and majored in biology. It was the first of many instances in which she would defy and exceed societal norms and expectations.

She met her husband, Eric Massey, through her beloved brother, Howard, in 1942. As he told the story, he came to their house to pick up Howard to play tennis, and Barbara came downstairs and for Eric it was love at first sight. She reserved judgment, since he was completely tongue-tied and hardly spoke a word to her. A few years older than her, Eric spent WWII driving an ambulance for the American Field Service, and it was only after he had returned from the war, and she had graduated from Holyoke and was working as a lab tech at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, that they married. Their young married lives took them to Boston for Eric's graduate school, and then to Chicago for the same reason. During this period, they had two girls, and Barbara, always a pioneer, combined motherhood with a full time career largely supporting her family while Eric attended classes. She worked at Chicago's Argonne National Lab as an assistant to Dr. Friedrich Wassermann, who urged her to think about graduate school. She was then recruited from Wasserman's lab to Cy Rubin's gastric cytology lab at the University of Chicago hospital, and promoted from tech to research associate. This was, by her own account, one of the best jobs she had, as she loved the environment and the research.

In 1955 Eric was offered a job at California State University Long Beach, and they decided as a family that they were ready for a new adventure. Moving to California changed Barbara's life. It was her introduction to the deserts and mountains of the West, and initiated a life-long love of nature, camping, hiking, and above all, birds. After moving, they bought their first house, had their third and last child, another girl, and Barbara finally did go back to school, receiving a master's degree in ornithology at CSULB in 1972. This second career enriched her life immeasurably. Her thesis was on the breeding biology of the California Least Tern, an endangered species that she observed in nesting colonies in Huntington Beach, Venice Beach and Camp Pendleton. Her research focused on vocalizations, and she had a breakthrough after visiting Little Tern colonies in the UK and recording their vocalizations. While they were often thought to be the same species as Least Terns, Barbara realized that their breeding calls were distinctly different and she determined that the two groups of birds, while physically so close, could not interbreed because they were unable to recognize each other's calls. This research culminated in an article published in the most prestigious English language ornithology journal, The Auk, in 1974. From then on, Barbara published multiple articles and engaged in studies of other endangered species such as the Light Footed Clapper Rail and Beldings Savannah Sparrow. She also published multiple birding guides to the Salton Sea, Anza Borrego Desert, and Rogue Valley.

She was a life-long environmental conservationist. Her proudest contribution to conservation was the founding of an international group called Pro Esteros, committed to saving and protecting estuaries and coastal areas in Baja California. It started in 1979 when Barbara traveled to Estero de Punta Banda (a saltmarsh just south of Ensenada) to do a bird census, and found a housing development underway on the barrier beach. Originating as a joint US and Mexican effort, Pro Esteros was formed to help Mexican conservationists raise money and negotiate the politics and economics necessary to save Baja's coastline and rich natural habitats from untrammelled development.

A life long traveler, Barbara visited such diverse places as Namibia, Madagascar, Australia, Turkey, post-Glasnost Russia, and many other locales. She also was an avid learner of new art forms, beginning with ceramics in her 40s and moving on to watercolors, sketching and mosaics in later life. In 1998, she and Eric moved from their home in California to Ashland, OR. It was a fortuitous resettlement for both of them, and she developed a devotion to the town itself, the Rogue Valley, and the friends she made here, which gave her much joy and satisfaction.

And finally, she took enormous pleasure in the lives and careers of her daughters, and developed an almost mystical belief in the female power of three-girl families. She is survived by her daughters, Heath, Jenny and Lyle; six grand children, Yael, Phoebe, Hilary, Alex, Charlotte, and Sam; and seven great grand children, Isaiah, Orli, Junie, Beau, Mattie, Ellie, and Abel. In lieu of flowers, please consider donations in her name to the Rogue Valley Symphony, the Britt Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Pro Esteros.