Barbara O’Neil Ross

November 23, 1931 - April 22, 2023

Barbara O’Neil Ross was born in 1931 in New York City to Viola (née Dotterer) and Henry Eli O’Neil. From Greenwich, CT the family moved to St. Louis, MO, where Barbara attended the wonderful John Burroughs School, which nurtured her talent for art. She spent two years at Vassar College before transferring to Stanford University, graduating in 1953.

Barbara taught at all levels of primary and secondary education across three states: the Hamlin School in San Francisco, Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, and Collegiate School in New York City. During the 1960s she developed her talent for black and white photography and drawing, illustrating two cookbooks written by her dear friend, Shirley Sarvis: Table for Two and Cooking Scandinavian.

In 1967 Barbara married John Ross, a gregarious Yankee with a passion for furniture-making and sailing. They lived in Cambridge, MA for many years, where John taught high school and Barbara was active in the Cambridge Art Association, participating in many juried exhibitions. At this time, Barbara’s preferred medium was pastel, and she excelled at portraiture. Her artwork and photographs frequently featured people and places in Colorado, where John and Barbara spent summers living in the “Mod Lodge,” a trailer set amid aspen trees and beaver dams. Visiting family and friends became well acquainted with Barbara’s melodic “one, two, three,” followed by a camera click.

Shortly after John died in 2002, Barbara moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she had old friends and made new ones at the Vi senior community in Palo Alto. Here she joined a singing group and was a leader in a vibrant community of talented artists. Barbara helped to organize art exhibitions, had several solo shows, and learned to use acrylics for the first time. She was honored with a very well received retrospective of her own work. In 2020, she published the award-winning surreal art book, Fooling with Mother Nature (A Small Book with Big Ideas) in order to educate children about environmental concerns.

Barbara was predeceased by her parents, her husband, and her older sister, Patricia O’Neil Fender (Bill) and is survived by her sister Anne O’Neil Dauer (Art), nephews Willie Fender and Christopher Dauer, nieces Susan Handwerk and Lesley Dauer, step-children Edie Parker and Caleb Ross, and many loving step-grandchildren and grand nieces and nephews. Barbara was adored for her art projects with younger relatives, kindness, charm, whimsical imagination, and quirky sense of humor.

A celebration of Barbara’s life will be held in the early summer.