Husband Sedgwick Ward 844-4697
Barbara Ward of Rye died peacefully, after a short illness, at Greenwich Hospital on September 17, 2017. She was 87.
She grew up in the village of Kingsland, Herefordshire, England, and graduated with a degree in English Literature from the University of Birmingham.
In London, she worked for the Fulbright Scholarship Program, supervising and assisting visiting scholars from the United States. In those days she played tennis, and was a forward for the South of England Field Hockey team in regional competitions.
It was on a visit to the United States that she met her future husband, Sedgwick Ward of Wilmington, Delaware. They were married in 1960.
After a short stay in Washington D. C., the couple moved to Brooklyn Heights, where Mrs. Ward was active with the Girl Scouts and the Junior League. She served for a number of years as the secretarial assistant to Msgr. Charles Diviney, the Vicar General of the Brooklyn Diocese.
In 1973, the family, which by then included a daughter and son, moved to Summit, N. J. In 1998, they moved to Rye. From 1968 on they spent summers on Shelter Island, N.Y. where they owned a much beloved home.
Family and, in later years, her five grandchildren were the focus of her life.
For Barbara Ward, tennis held a fascination, both as an active and spectator sport. She sailed on cruises with her husband on Long Island Sound and on the coast of southern New England.
A guiding passion was her love of instrumental, choral, and operatic classical music, as well as drama and ballet. She had been a ballet student in England. She and her husband spent countless evenings at performances in New York. An opera buff, she was a fan of many of the reigning singers and delighted in opening night at the Met.
A love of fine art led her to undertake the definitive biography of Jervis McEntee, a 19th-century Hudson River School painter. The book, which she completed shortly before her death, will be published in the near future.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Ward is survived by her daughter Mary and son-in-law Michael Beran, son Andrew and daughter-in-law Arden, granddaughters Caroline, Sarah, and Lucy Beran and grandsons Christopher and Tucker Ward, as well as by her brother Eric Wall of Chichester, England, sister Sheila Bulbeck of Litchfield, England, and numerous nephews and nieces.
Donations in her memory may be made to the Cornelia Connelly Center for Education (Holy Child, Connelly Middle School) 220 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10009.
A Mass will be said at Resurrection Church in Rye Monday September 25 at 10 a.m. There will be a graveside service at the Catholic Cemetery on Shelter Island, September 26 at 11 a.m.