This was a display constructed by Barbara's sister, Audrey.
Beginnings
Parent's Wedding (click to enlarge)
On August 20, 1947, telegrams went out from Norman Wells, North West Territories, announcing the birth of Barbara Louise Stewart. Her parents were Daphne Audrey Leake and William Evans Stewart. Daphne's parents had immigrated from England in 1919. They settled in Nanaimo, BC, where Daphne was born. The family later moved to Vancouver, settling near the ocean in the Kitsilano neighbourhood. Daphne's teen years spanned the Great Depression, and she was in her twenties during World War II. Bill, whose family were longtime Canadians descended from the first river pilot at the mouth of the Fraser, grew up in the adjacent neighbourhood, along Marine Drive. He graduated from UBC, having studied science and won an award for school spirit, and began his career as a meteorologist. This led to a wartime posting doing weather observations in the north Pacific ocean. Daphne worked for the federal government.
Norman Wells
When Bill was posted to Norman Wells, with a week's leave in between, the couple got married in Vancouver. Bill was in charge of the radiosonde station and provided meteorological services to the U.S. military/construction base at the eastern end of the Canol pipeline. The pipeline was built during the war to move oil from Norman Wells westward to the Alaska highway, providing energy security to Alaska and the Yukon. The young couple had many adventures learning to live in a remote community with a small population of aboriginal people, a relatively large US military component, and a few non-aboriginal Canadians. Barbara's birth was a major event. As the first white child born in the community, she was feted by all. The Aboriginal community was particularly interested to see a blonde, blue-eyed child.
Childhood Home
Baby sister Audrey joined the family in 1948. They then relocated to Edmonton, living in government housing adjacent to the airport in Edmonton, on Tower Road. In the early 1950s they moved to North Glenora, one of the city's first planned subdivisions.
School Years
Polio Ward
Although North Glenora had a brand-new school, Barbara missed most of Grade 1. She was one of the victims of the 1950s polio epidemic, spending eight months in the children's polio ward at the Royal Alexandra hospital, followed by lengthy physiotherapy. She recovered well, but had a weakened left leg. As a result, she (and her sister) had to wear supportive brown oxford shoes for many years, being denied the thrills of saddle shoes or mary janes. As an adult, she made up for this lack with a wide variety of shoes, but never oxfords.
When Barbara was in Grade 3, her father died suddenly, after receiving a penicillin injection for influenza. Although pressed by all the grandparents to return to Vancouver, Daphne decided to keep her family in Edmonton, finding employment as secretary in the local school so she could share holidays with the girls. When they were old enough to care for themselves after school, she moved to the headquarters of the Edmonton Public School Board, where she worked in the planning department. She became responsible for establishing attendance boundaries for all schools in the system, and was renowned for the consistent accuracy of her forecasts of how many students would register at each school.
Summer Camp
Barbara joined Brownies, then Guides, and attended the neighbourhood Anglican Church. She took dance lessons at the local YMCA, skated at the community rink in the winter, swam at Oliver pool in the summer, was a frequent visitor to the local library, and attended an outdoor camp on Lake Wabamum.
A highlight of most summers was a trip to visit family in Vancouver. At first these trips were by bus, including a memorable trip around the big bend of the Columbia River on a now-abandoned highway. Later, the brown family Hillman car provided transport, using a different route to the west coast every year.
The family established traditions of cooking summer breakfasts over an open fire in one of Edmonton's riverside parks, and of visiting Elk Island National Park. Barbara particularly enjoyed Elk Island's huge, swinging merry-go-round, the rainbow ice cream, the Ukranian house, and the hill to roll down. She took her own family there to mark her 60th birthday.
July 1964
By the time Barbara was at Westglen Junior High School, the family began camping, using a 9' x 9' canvas tent from Woodwards Department Store. An initial trip to a buffalo jump was great fun, and also demonstrated the need for sleeping bags, air mattresses, and a way to make morning coffee! More fully outfitted, the family set out to learn more about Alberta. Daphne's interest in archaeology, natural history, and geography led them to explore aboriginal teepee rings, rivers, old fort sites, ferry crossings, and countryside. One memorable summer they visited each of Alberta's major drainage basins, spitting in the Athabasca, the Milk, and the North Saskatchewan rivers as a way of connecting with the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Highschool Grad
In high school at Ross Sheppard, Barbara made many life-long friends, especially from her grade 10 latin class. She excelled in languages, and was a lively participant in the French Club, which provided great fun and enough familiarity with the culture of France that when the Ross Sheppard Thunderbirds adapted Edith Piaf's "Milord" as a football cheer song, members could and did sing along in the original French lyrics. Her enjoyment of latin went beyond the class toga parties and singsongs (Gaudeamus igitur and Adeste Fideles were special favourites). Grade 12 latin was not offered at Ross Sheppard, so she took it by correspondence in the summer, spending several nights translating Caesar in Alberta campgrounds.
Her love of music flourished at high school. It was the time of folk songs, and Barbara and her friends gathered to sing and play. She learned to love opera, as the group got together to listen to records and sing along with their favourite arias. Her long-time love affair with CKUA began then, as she discovered others who listened to the station, and particularly to the notoriously excitable DeKoven, whose evening program offered the best of "barococo" music. She and her friends prided themselves on their appreciation of the rarified elegance of Corelli, Vivaldi, Lully, Rameau and other composers, as well as beginning their exposure to jazz. She could also be found making costumes and helping backstage for the yearplay.
In Grade 12, Barbara was part of the Noon Hour Nihilist club - so named because they sought to do nothing and pretended to believe in nothing. Luckily, these beliefs did not stop them from working hard enough to graduate well and continue to university.
The University of Alberta
It was the time of the Vietnam war and draft dodgers, the popularization of recreational drugs, women's liberation, Quebec separatism, student-led education, and the first cracks in the Social Credit domination of provincial politics. The lead group of the baby boom celebrated their freedom and established their involved, questioning, engaged style at university as their generation came of age.
An expanded version of the Ross Shep group held together through first year, making its headquarters at Hot Caf with its famous cinnamon buns. Much time was spent playing bridge and Botticelli (a self-developed question game). Friday and Saturday evenings brought the symphony (student seats in the upper balcony were $2), movies, the pizza folk art houses, or quiet house parties. Mateus for everyone, Chianti for the brave, and Metaxa for the bold, were the drinks of choice, and were especially prized for bottles which would hold candles.
Barbara took up dance in a more serious way, joining with Nancy Henwood in classes given by the Jazz Dance club. Dancing connected her to the Jubilaires, the university's musical theatre group, and she helped backstage for their performances. She continued with dance classes for many years, at Laine Metz's studio on 124th Street, and subsequently at Grant MacEwan.
The University of Alberta celebrated Canada's centennial with Second Century Week, a week-long academic, cultural, and athletic celebration for university students from across Canada. Barbara made preparations for SCW a central part of her year, notably on the entertainment side, where she helped to arrange performances by Gordon Lightfoot and three well-known Quebec performers - Monigue Leyrac, Claude Gauthier, and Claude Levaillee.
During the summer of 1967, she and her friends, like many other westerners, took the train to Montreal to visit Expo 67. It was a true journey of discovery, as the size of the country, the different culture and history of Montreal, and the exuberance and international exposure of Expo were eye-opening.
1968 is remembered as the year Pierre Elliot Trudeau won the leadership of the Liberal Party and became Prime Minister. His new ideas and clear vision ignited Trudeaumania, especially attracting youth nationwide. Barbara was there, working locally to build support, and participating in the April convention in Ottawa. Her dreams were somewhat bruised when, arriving in Ottawa, she was invited to don an orange miniskirt to signal her support. She declined.
University Graduation
Barbara lived independently during her later university years, but maintained strong family connections. Sundays became known within the family for "starving student dinners". The two girls, both U of A students, invited friends for Sunday dinner. Those from out of town or otherwise separated from their families had priority. The Stewarts would cook up huge meals, often exploring the new cuisine of Julia Child, and be impressed by how much the visitors, especially the young men, could put away. Conversation was always vigorous, and as often as not one of the visitors would volunteer to play a few pieces on the second-hand piano which Daphne had by then acquired.
In 1971, Barbara received her degree in Elementary Education, majoring in special education.
Wedding
She was still a student when she undertook her first formal leadership role in the wider community as President of the Edmonton Film Society. The society was a major component of Edmonton's cultural scene, and membership was so large that screenings were held in the Jubilee Auditorium.
It was also while Barbara was at U of A that she reconnected with one of her childhood friends. Neil Roberts was now a handsome and charming medical resident. Their friendship deepened, and led to a marriage in 1972 and the opening of the next chapters in Barbara's life: her family.
