Barbara Gilmore Dinsdale

1930 - 2024

Barbara Gilmore Dinsdale

August 16, 1930 - September 7, 2024

Barbara Gilmore Dinsdale died peacefully September 7, 2024, in Lawrence, KS. She was born August 16, 1930, in Kearney, NE, to Raymond M. and Emma Jane Gilmore.

Barbara spent her first month in the hospital in the care of the hospital staff as her mother was too ill to care for her at home. She grew into an independent woman, skilled in playing the organ, piano, and string bass. She played organ at services at a nearby Army base beginning at age 14 and continued playing a phantom piano on her lap until days before her death at 94.

Barbara graduated from the University of Nebraska School of Music and taught music in public school before her marriage in 1954 to Howard Dinsdale. They moved to St. Paul, MN where Howard completed a residency in ophthalmology. After time for Army service in South Carolina and Howard's first medical practice in St. Paul, the couple made their home in Lincoln, NE. Barbara delighted in her daughter, Nancy and son, Bob. She was a homemaker in the best imaginable meaning of that word and her family is extraordinarily blessed by her devotion to that role. She sewed and entertained, she planned and celebrated and she worked very hard. She read, she learned, she did things right. She served unfailingly those she loved and led in her community, as well. She loved her friends, those in her PEO, her study groups, her church. Barbara and Howard were members of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Barbara sang in the choir and served in church leadership. She led the Nebraska Society to Prevent Blindness and founded their school vision screening program.

Barbara was known, in later years, to play concertos on her head with paper tubes of various lengths. She enjoyed getting laughs from grandchildren with her skull-o-phone performance.

Barbara and Howard resolved to be happy after an accident in 1989 left Barbara with a broken back and Howard quadriplegic. For two decades, Barbara served him by putting her organizational skills to work making sure they continued to enjoy life. The couple traveled all over the world in a time when those with severe disabilities were not always well accommodated.

After Howard died in 2008, Barbara dealt with her own decline in the same way she faced other life challenges. She met severe macular degeneration and hearing loss, as well as disabling arthritis, with matter-of-fact pragmatism, thanksgiving, and contentment.

We are grateful for the excellent and devoted care of Shardaisha McCray, Lisandra Ramos, the staff of Douglas County VNA Hospice and the staff of Lawrence Presbyterian Manor.

Barbara is survived by her daughter, Nancy Rovenstine (Mark) of Dallas, TX; son, Robert Dinsdale (Katherine) of Lawrence, KS; six grandchildren, Sarah Stanhope (Rawley), Anne Rinearson (Sam), Carolyn Prather (Mac ), Andrew Rovenstine (Siuzanna), Phillip Rovenstine and Benjamin Rovenstine; as well as six great-grandchildren and many loving nieces and nephews. She was pre-deceased by her parents; her two sisters, Helen Buckwalter and Pauline Dickson, and her husband, Howard.

MEMORIAL SERVICES will be Thursday, September 12th, 10:30 a.m., at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Lincoln, NE. Memorial gifts may be made to the Music Fund at Westminster Presbyterian, Lincoln, or Nebraska Medicine Low Vision Clinic.