Barbara Conner

life story

Wife, Mother, Nana

After a battle with cancer and then hospice care for several months, Barbara has finally found peace and is reunited with her husband of almost 53 years, Rickey Conner, and her mother Ruth (Little), father Aaron Batty, and brother Bill Batty.

She leaves behind her sister June and brother Jim, daughter Cindy, sons Steve and Dave, grandsons Conner, JD, and Tom, and granddaughter Deborah.

A celebration of life for both Barbara and Rickey will be held later in the fall when all of the grandchildren can participate.

More to come later.

We Lost Mom Last Night

From my Facebook post on 5/6/21:

We lost Mom last night. I am so sad but also grateful and relieved that she has peace now. I could imagine that Dad (Rick Conner) was telling her, "Aw geez, honey, let's get going, Barb!" And that he helped her not to be afraid and to let go. For that, I realize only now that perhaps losing Dad first was best after all. Still painful, but sweet too, to think of them hand-in-hand walking away from us into their next great adventure together.

My mother was a classic beauty with an untameable fire in her. She was Queen of her domain and she loved fiercely, especially her grandbabies! She was a nurse for almost 30 years but her favorite job was "Nana" and she was the best.

Mom was born in 1948 in Palo Alto, CA where she met my dad and married him at age 19. A different time! They had me, my brother Steven Conner and my brother David Conner in the next six years. In 1977, Dad moved us to Minnesota where Mom had to learn to be a farmwife over the next 8 years. It did not work. She was much happier back in town when they moved to Hastings, MN where they lived for the next 35+ years.

Mom went to nursing school after moving to Hastings and was top of her class. I was always so proud of her for that! She was a great nurse at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis for over 27 years and loved helping veterans healing from battle wounds of all kinds. I would put Dad in that category too, come to think of it. He would tell people with great pride that his wife was his nurse, and his medical team always had to run anything by Mom.

After Mom retired, her garden got a lot of attention and it showed. The gazebo in her garden was the center of our family celebrations for many years. Mom always made celebrations special and was especially fond of a good food fight, to the delight of us children and the horror of my father. I am planning a family celebration of life sometime this summer, and I expect we will have a whopper of a proper food fight in her honor.

All my love, Mom. I wish you peace at last.