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.
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