In Memory of Dora Ball Barnard

107 Estrada Street, Old Town

Feb. 18, 1923 – Mar. 21, 2010

Dora Barnard was a smiling, strong, independent spirit. She grew up on a West Virginia farm poor in money but rich in home-raised, home-cooked food, hard work, and love. She loved her gentle father and her strict mother, but left to live in Ohio with her older brother. Even then, still a young girl, she followed an inner spirit yearning for independence and a look at the big world.

In Dora’s own words, “I’ve had a good life.” She worked hard and well, starting as a girl in factories where she moved from one to another as the inclination took her – always so capable and well-liked that she could return to an old employer when she wished.

Dora’s free spirit brought her to Fernandina, and to us. In her prime, with her second husband Porter Barnard, her universe was the Old Town waterfront where an entire county of friends, neighbors, politicos, the who’s who and the who’s not were drawn to the couple’s fish camp. It didn’t matter who you were – the Barnards’ fish camp was an easy, welcoming place where you could enjoy a drink, play a game of dominos, politic behind God’s back, and fill en empty stomach on a plate of fish perfectly salted and fried by Dora’s deft, hard-working hands. At the center of it all was this fun, generous, beautiful woman, like a sun,

Dora was open and easy with everyone, but underneath she had principals, an inner line you crossed at your peril. As a beautiful young woman, or an older woman, alone, if an occasional person might be a little too helpful, a little too insistent, Dora’s real, deep-down independence came out. Suddenly out would come a stream of salty, descriptive terms worthy of her backwoods Appalachia, and when she said, “I can handle it,” you had no doubt.

Even in the heyday of her popularity, Dora chose to make others feel good rather than bolster herself. Hers was a natural modesty. She was proud, but not prideful.

Dora was also, in many ways that we tend to forget, worldly. She was interested in politics, especially the local doings of her city, the events of her neighborhood, the economy. As practical as she was capable, she crocheted beautiful pieces and sold them for good money. She read voraciously. A newspaper and a book were in progress on her sun porch every day.

In her last months, Dora reflected on the fish camp, on her parents and siblings, most gone now, and the family farm. She remembered legions of friends, many also gone; spoke of the cats and the neighbors who came to her door, and her extended West Virginia family who over the years she’d lost track of, and they her.

Because Dora lived alone for many years after Porter’s death, it would be easy to think she was lonely and alone. Like the many neighbors who stopped by to visit or offer a hand, I thought I was helping her – indeed I was. But Dora gave me back far more,

She was, simply, fun to be near. Nonjudgmental. A ripping story teller. A generous cook. Good company.

On the last day of her life, she laughed.

Dora, we bid you goodbye with love.

-- Patricia Borns