Memoriam

It is with gratitude and sorrow we write of the passing of Barbara Coleen Liebst Westebbe Friday, November 4, 2016. Barbara passed peacefully at home after a long, rich, and memorable life. 

She hailed from Medicine Lodge, Kansas and moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age to work for Kansas Senator Capper in the mid 1940s. A passionate American writer, artist, sculptor, painter, poet, and advocate for women right's and Down’s Syndrome citizens, Mrs. Westebbe lived in Greece, Zaire and New York, settling in Virginia. 

She taught all 12 grades in a one room school house in Deerfield, Kansas at age 17, worked as one of the first women  engineering illustrator for Culver Aircraft in Wichita and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1946 to work in Senator Capper’s office in Washington in the 1940s when she met her husband Richard Westebbe. They had their two oldest children while in Holland on Mr. Westebbe’s Fulbright, had their third child in northern Virginia and later moved to Greece where she learned to work with marble. Her marble sculptures were highly regarded by Greeks and Americans alike.  

Barbara worked tirelessly on behalf of Down's Syndrome youth and adults, most particularly for her youngest daughter Susy who was born in Greece and turned 50 recently. She served several decades on the Board of Directors of the National Womens’ Party and later founded Life Conservation in Fredericksburg, Virginia as a nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality of life of the intellectually disabled.  Barbara's legacy includes a beautiful homestead, the historic Smith-Forbes house, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where Susy will continue to reside. She leaves behind her husband Richard, son Mark and his wife Carlene, daughter Shelly and her husband Jeffrey Kealing, son Bruce and his wife Misty, daughter Susy and grandchildren C'aira, Mark II, Matthew and John.

This blog shares images of her work and life starting with her youth in Kansas. She was born in the tiny farming community of Medicine Lodge, Kansas in 1925 in an era of drought and dust storms followed by the Great Depression. Having survived extreme hardship, she never took people or things for granted, making art out of leavings, bringing hope to hurt and damaged people with love. Although she was endowed with a volcano of creative energy, and finding her artistic voice early, she often put her work on the back burner to help others. Her passions led her away from home into an international journey. Barbara marched with Alice Paul for women’s rights in Washington, D.C., took care of four children and husband through several countries as his career grew.  

One of her most productive periods during 7 years in Athens in the 1960s, when she created a body of artistic work that includes dramatic sculpted busts and paintings of Greece in the simpler, pre-EU years, in addition to her prolific body of work in the U.S. and Zaire. Barbara published poetry under the name of Collen Cody. The blog also shares photos of her family and important events in our lives. She will be buried on the Westebbe farm in which she loved dearly.

Career

Summary:

Barbara Liebst Westebbe, passionate American writer, artist, sculptor, advocate for women and Down’s Syndrome citizens. Recipient Citizen of Year from the American Legion,; Board of Directors of the National Women’s Party, 1946-1966; Member of the Stafford County Virginia architectural review board 1989-2016; Member Fredericksburg Center of Creative Arts, since 1990. Member of the National Education Society, Alpha Zigma Tau.

1.    Born Dec. 8, 1925 in Newton, Kansas, daughter of Harold Charles and Marie Josephine Whitcomb Liebst. Mrs. Westebbe studied music, and showed the promise of a world class talent in painting, poetry and sculpture.

2.    Attended Kansas State Teachers College, 1945 and Utrecht University in Holland, 1954 while accompanying her husband Richard Westebbe on his Fulbright Fellowship. She taught at the American High School in Den Haag, Holland, from 1953 to 1954 while writing poetry and painting.

3. In Greece, Mrs. Westebbe wrote regular columns in the Athens Post and other newspapers, continued to write poetry and began working in marble and clay sculpture in addition to painting. She had many exhibitions, one of the largest at Pierce College, Athens in 1966 while her fourth child Kathleen Lena Susan (Susy) in Greece the same year. Her husband worked for the Greek government Foreign Trade Administration.

4.    Returning to the U.S. in 1967 with four children, Mrs. Westebbe continued to create including editing several collections of poems and published her own collections under the pseudonym of Colleen Cody in the Federal Poet from 1967-1970.  Mrs. Westebbe was active in the National Women’s Party and marched for equal rights over several decades. She devoted much of her life to the wellbeing of her daughter Susy and other individuals with Down’s Syndrome. She wrote a quarterly column Downs Syndrome Magazine from 1990-1994, founded a nonprofit and instituted several group activities like weekly bowling, some of which continue today. She was a prolific and talented gardener and could grow almost anything from seed and saved countless animals in Greece and the U.S. earning the nickname of “Mrs. Doolittle”.

 5.    Mrs. Westebbe moved to Kinshasa, Zaire with her husband Richard when he became the United Nations Resident Representative, starting a completely different period in painting by creating three dimensional paintings and embracing Africa in her poetry as well. She travelled to several countries on the continent with her husband and youngest daughter.

6.    She is survived by her husband Richard Westebbe, her son Mark Westebbe and his wife Carlene Westebbe, her daughter Shelly Westebbe and husband Jeffrey Kealing, her younger son Bruce Westebbe and his wife Misty Westebbe and her younger daughter Susy Westebbe. A later service is planned.

Career Highlights:

Teacher at age 17 in a one room schoolhouse: Deerhead School in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Engineering Illustrator for Culver Aircraft Corporation in Wichita in1946 after which she joined Senator Arthur Capper’s staff in the U.S. Senate in Washington from 1946-1947, and became active in the women’s equal rights movement, all occupations unusual for women at the time.

 Following her work in the Senate, Mrs. Westebbe became the assistant to the chairman of National Association Motor Bus Operators 1947-1948. She married Mr. Westebbe December 18, 1948 and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts while her husband attended Harvard graduate school. She worked as the office manager to Dr. R. McFarland in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Human Engineering Department from 1949-1951.

In Holland, Mrs.Westebbe taught at the American high school and was Editorof the Den Ramp series of American Academy of Sciences, Holland from 1954 to 1956. She, her husband and three children moved to Athens, Greece in 1959 where she studied sculpting under well known Greek sculptor Sofialakis and discovered a great talent. Her clay, marble and plaster pieces have been exhibited in both Greece and the U.S., some of which are featured in this blog. She also wrote a weekly column in the Athens Post Newspaper from 1961 to 1965.  After returning to the U.S., she founded and directed nonprofit dedicated to Down’s Syndrome adult life enrichment - Life Conservation, Inc., based in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the early 1970s while raising four children.

Reference:

http://prabook.com/web/person-view.html?profileId=356869#