Barbara Ireland: mother, daughter, wife, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend

Growing up in our house, what I remember most is laughter. Our mom and her friends sitting around the kitchen table cracking each other up while the kids played in another room. And Mom was still sitting around the kitchen table laughing with her friends long after the kids grew up. She never lost her spunk or her sense of humor, and even last week was making the doctors and the nurses laugh. She was always so great with people.

Mom was born and raised in Denver, attended Wash Park Elementary and South High School, and graduated from the University of Denver with a teaching degree (Go Pioneers!). She was part of a sorority, and each of these had their own “houseboy” – a Canadian hockey player on scholarship that worked around the house. All the sorority girls would go to the hockey games to support “their” houseboy, cheering from the balcony under the famous rainbow. Mom didn’t really follow sports, but knew a surprising amount about hockey. DU won the NCAA Men’s Hockey Championship three of the four years Mom was there. Coincidence? I think not.

She taught 2nd grade at Thatcher Elementary. One year she packed a baloney sandwich every day for lunch, and never ate another one again in her life. (I won’t tell you about the martinis at the Campus Lounge when she was in college – suffice it to say, she stopped drinking gin years before she stopped eating baloney sandwiches.) South Denver was her stomping ground, and she talked about making snow angels in the lot next to their house on University Blvd., and going to Bonnie Brae for ice-cream, and walking to the Piggly Wiggly on South Pearl to pick up this or that for her grandma.

The second daughter of Ray and Evelyn Adams, her dad (lacking a son) took her fishing and to baseball games with him – which she loved, mostly because he bought her a bag of peanuts at the game. Her family spent their summers at the cabin our grandpa built in Kittredge. Mom had a horse, Rusty, and she and her friend Peggy would ride into Evergreen to go to the soda fountain. One summer in particular Rusty was getting pretty fat. The vet told her to cut back the feed until one morning her father called to her, “Barbara, you’d better come out here!”. And then she had TWO horses! She named the foal Copper, and eventually broke him by herself. When she was old enough, she sold her horses to buy her first car. She always wanted a Corvette convertible, but her dad talked her into a Thunderbird because it was a 4-seater and she could take her parents out for a drive on Sundays. I don’t think she ever fully got over that. If I had ever won the lottery I would have bought her a Corvette…and a VW Beetle because she always thought they were so cute.

Mom quit teaching and moved to the suburbs when she had kids – two of us, first Mark then Lisa. She was a swim mom and a soccer mom before those terms existed. She was President of Southglenn Gators and ACES swim teams. She ran concessions with her partners-in-crime for both boys’ and girls’ swimming at Arapahoe High School. She was also a pretty good bowler in her own right – playing on a league at Broadway Bowl, which had the coolest daycare ever.

Her kids were her life, and she gave everything to us. She insisted we use proper grammar at the dinner table – you’re finished, not done – or you aren’t excused! When she went to work at a travel agency, she accidentally gave her daughter a love of traveling – which she might have come to regret when her daughter started spending more time out of the country than in it. She loved animals, saving the lives of our cats Casper and Alex by taking them in. She loved flowers, gardening, and took pride in her tomato harvest each year, which she nurtured and fussed over with Corky – her second husband, her best friend, and the love of her life. She joined Corky in his hobby of sporting clays – he was a great shot and she loved to drive Herbie, the golf cart. She missed our step-dad so much that she joined him just six months and nine days after his passing.

Finally, she was a grandmother. She was so proud of her granddaughters and so happy she was able to see them start to become the adults they will eventually be. When Kylie and Jenny helped her plant flowers in the spring, she loved teaching them how to do it. She loved to watch them swim, and join them, her son, and his wife Karen, at the stock show each year. And nothing made her happier than letting them drive Herbie all over the front yard, even when they crashed into the tree – which only happened once…as far as we know.

To our devoted, and much-beloved, mom – we love you, and we will miss you every single day.

For those of you planning to attend the service this Friday, consider wearing blue – mom’s favorite color – rather than black. We think she’d love that.

Provide comfort for the family by planting a tree in memory of Barbara Ann Ireland, please visit our Heartfelt Sympathies Store.