Barbara Carter Breuner
1926 - 2018
Concerned that she was losing ground to her Sacramento camellia-growing rivals, Barbara C. Breuner would load her full-grown camellia plants in the back of a U-haul and transport them 130 miles in a backbreaking annual pilgrimage to the California’s Central Valley -- and then bring them back again come fall.
“With that summer heat camellias love, maybe I can sneak up on them,” she hoped.
A hundred plus plants of the 200 she owned took the journey to and from Atwater, California. Thrive they did in the scorching dry heat of the region, and win she did.
With a deep passion, Mrs. Breuner would show her vibrant blooms on spring Saturdays at competitive Northern California Camellia Shows staged by regional Camellia Societies. In over forty years of growing and showing, she was the recipient of dozens of honors -the highest of which being Best-of Show on several occasions, once at the prestigious Sacramento show. Her particular genius came in “The Collection” category where knowledgeable judges graded the artful display of 9 or 12 distinct Japonica species together. She soon became a Camellia Show Judge due to her extensive knowledge, expertise, and the enormous respect of her fellow competitors.
Born 1926 in San Francisco, California to Ruth and Harley Carter who met as a nurse and ambulance driver in World War I, Mrs. Breuner was raised in Berkeley and attended Berkeley High and later Stanford University, following in both parents’ footsteps. She led the Rally Committee, designing card stunts and pregame rallies for her cherished Stanford football team. Soon after graduating with honors, she would fall ill to a tenacious tuberculosis strain that hospitalized her for a year and forced her to endure lung collapse treatments on a regular basis.
Barbara and her husband Bill raised three children in Orinda, California during their 47 year marriage, ended when she was widowed in 2005. Mr. Breuner was 4th generation heir to the John Breuner Co. when he was set up on a high Sierra camping date compliments of close friends. At the time of their engagement in 1956, Barbara was a resident of Honolulu, Hawaii where she served as executive assistant to the President of Hawaiian Pineapple Co. She moved to Honolulu on her own a few years earlier to rejoin her adventurous Stanford friends and found the achievement and independence she craved as an exceptionally capable and intelligent woman. No one but Bill could have coaxed her back to the mainland, and she treasured the many family vacations that took her back to the Napili Kai Beach Club and her beloved islands.
A descendant of a Revolutionary War veteran and distant relative of President Grover Cleveland, she spent her summers on the cherished family ranch in Medford, Oregon where she picked up a fly rod and mastered the local creek. Fishing became a passion and when she graduated Stanford, her father, who called her Dixie, gave her the special pair of waders she coveted. Himself an avid fisherman, he named a fly of his own design after her, the Carter’s Dixie. She dearly loved fishing the lakes of the Sierras for her favorite Eastern Brook Trout.
An ardent college football fan, later Mrs. Breuner would serve on the Stanford Athletic Board with Joe Ruetz. During her tenure, a little known coach named Bill Walsh was selected to lead the Cardinal football program. She also served on the Board of the Stanford fundraising organization The Cardinal Club. But it was 1982, following the incredible game-ending kickoff return known as The Play, during the annual Big Game between California and Stanford, that she vowed never return to Memorial Stadium. She did, however, continue her legendary tailgating under the oak trees on the Farm. Many will miss her pre-, mid, and post-game phone calls rehashing spectacular plays or egregious officiating.
Barbara early on read a passage that said “if you want to be interesting, be interested.” Interested she was, in everyone and everything she knew. She devoured two papers every day and then moved on to her favorite periodicals, novels, biographies, and true crime favorites. It was hard to learn anything about her, because she always wanted to know more about others. Whether it was sitting at the dinner table discussing current events and hearing how those across all generations perceived the world around them, or stopping traffic in the aisle at Diablo Foods to catch up with a friend, she was engrossed in the world and people around her.
Barbara wasn’t one for services. Those wishing to remember Barbara may make a gift in her memory to the Stanford University Buck/Cardinal Club, Stanford Athletics’ annual fund: 641 E. Campus Drive, Stanford, CA 94305-6150. Please note with the gift that it is being made in Barbara’s memory. Cal fans have been granted a waiver to back the Bears instead.
Barbara strived to live on her own in her Orinda home until the end and succeeded, finding humor in the worst that old age could throw at her. Her resolve, independence, and longevity surprised her doctors, but not those who knew her. Her whimsy, wisdom, perspective, and grit will be greatly missed. In addition to her three children, Steve Breuner, Tracy Jaquier and Emily Jaquette, Mrs. Breuner is survived by seven grandchildren, whom she loved with her whole heart and soul. They called her affectionately, Ba.