Barbara Louise Webster: Athlete. Matriarch. Veteran. Fashionista. Born Aug. 1, 1919, in Toronto; died June 18, 2024, in Guelph, Ont., from natural causes; aged 104.
Barbara WebsterCourtesy of family
Barbara was the second eldest of five children. She attended Loretto Abbey in the Annex until her father, a successful barrister, moved the family to Ireland for nine months in the early 1930s. Here, the family lived in a castle south of Carlow, and Barbara learned to ride a horse, Paddy, jumping the moat and low stone walls in the fields.
Returning to Toronto at 14, Barbara received skis for Christmas (she had asked for a dog). She joined her older brother on the slopes – it was the beginning of a lifelong passion.
After high school, Barbara worked at a car dealership and then at a bank, where her duties included reserving tee-times for the boss. She was 21 when her mother died suddenly. She was still grieving her death when she joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Barbara was posted to Newfoundland, where she sent Morse code messages to seamen and pilots. “You could always tell if they were flirting on the other end,” she said. One bomber, the dashing HWH (Harry) Webster, was more than flirtatious. Shortly after they met, Harry was sent overseas. She seriously considered joining him by stowing away on a plane bound for England, but better sense prevailed.
Married in 1943, the couple moved throughout Southern Ontario as Harry pursued a banking career. The first of their five children was born in Guelph in 1946, the last in Brockville.
In 1965, the family settled in Guelph. As her children grew, Barbara had more time to spend volunteering in the community. A bowel-cancer scare in 1967 reminded her to savour every day, spurring her on to new adventures. She took French lessons, sang in a choir and excelled at bridge. She was an avid curler, golfer and skater, then took up lawn bowling, tennis, ping pong, badminton and disco dancing. In her 80s, Barbara began competing in dragon boat races and swimming and cross-country skiing in the Senior Olympics.
Her busy life left little time for housekeeping. “I have a happy household, not a tidy household,” Barbara would explain.
Barbara did, however, have a discerning eye for fashion. As a teenager, she was invited to a dance at an all-boys school. Her couture-conscious Aunt Et advised her to wear black because all the other girls would be wearing pink and blue. “I got noticed!” she recalled. Later in life, she mostly left black behind, favouring bright pant suits and dresses, usually set off by a glittery costume brooch. Her flamboyant hats and scarves were legendary, dozens of which the family brought to her funeral reception for guests to claim as keepsakes.
For all her sparkle and shine, Barbara was a stoic. Harry died in 1993, and she lost her eldest son, Fred, in 2022 and his wife, Kathy, in 2019. She processed losses quietly, privately. Yet she refused to live in the past. She stayed active, made new friends and – while stuck in her retirement home during pandemic lockdowns – she learned to play the ukulele.
Family and friends would come to Barbara for advice. “She was always interested in everyone’s lives,” Barbara Webster-Powell, her youngest daughter said, describing how her mother would listen thoughtfully, and then “offer just the right word at the right time.” With 15 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, “you learned to share her.”
One Monday in June, Barbara asked to go back to bed after breakfast – a first. Still, she made up her face, bantered with retirement-home staff and talked with grandkids online. She slipped away the following Saturday, her family chatting and playing music by her side.
Sue Ferguson is a friend of Barbara Webster’s family.
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