Stephen Edward Barber passed away on July 17, 2023, in his home.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, October 7 at 1:00pm at the Band Shell in Pioneer Park, 421 Nimrod Street, Nevada City CA, rain or shine.
Steve was born on February 26, 1945, in Berkeley, California to Philip and Winifred Barber. The youngest of three boys, he was described as a good boy, if not a good Scout, a badge he proudly upheld his whole life. While other young men aspired to reach the pinnacle of Eagle Scout, Steve (aka Grub) and fellow members of Den 10 of the Cub Scouts earned a name for themselves as the least accomplished, least awarded, least disciplined and diligent, most unruly group of the Pack, with Steve as one of the ringleaders. One member swears that, without Grub’s guidance, there is so much he would never have learned, like what happens when you lift some dry ice from a picknicker’s cooler and toss it in a stream: it’s spectacular! Nor would he have ever known that it was possible to recite the entire Pledge of Allegiance on the breath of a single belch!
Depending on who you talked to, Steve had better luck with sports. At 5’8” in elementary school, he ruled on the dirt basketball courts of his neighborhood and the asphalt courts of Hillside. Another passion at which he excelled was baseball, seizing every opportunity to demonstrate his prowess in the game with family on the large grassy playing field at Lake Anza in Tilden Park, or by hitting apple windfall at the family ranch in Willits, and when playing the position of catcher in school. Steve was popular in junior high and high school, at one point being elected class president. While quiet and a bit shy at times, friends remember him as having the greatest personality and the friendliest smile and kind words for and about his friends, gratefully acknowledge him as having helped them to get through those commonly hard times, and oft describe him as one of the Good Boys and a joy to be around.
Because Steve’s father was a distributor for Columbia Records, music had an impact on the family, most especially on Steve, whose passions for classical and jazz were stoked and love for the trombone was born. Developing into an amazing musician, his ability to wail and whisper on the bone was legendary. Despite all too frequent exposure to junior high orchestral music that typically required counting something like 127 measures rest for every 2 bars trombone played, he went on to play and compete with the Berkeley High Marching Band, eventually matriculating to Santa Clara University, where he earned a teaching credential.
During these years, Steve could be seen driving around town on nothing but the chassis with engine and wheels of his Model-T Ford before Berkeley police ruled it unroadworthy. Perhaps because he was a baby born while his father was out to sea as a member of the U.S. Merchant Marines in the last days of World War II, because he was raised on his mother’s poetry and prose, herself a Wadsworth and direct descendent of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, because of the classical music he listened to, played and composed, or the backpacking trips he took into the Sierra Nevada with his family, when the Vietnam War draft came along, he served stateside as a Conscientious Objector, teaching Head Start for three summers in the Deep South.
In 1970, he moved to Nevada County and began teaching as a reading specialist at Lyman Gilmore Middle School. His job lasted a year, but the connection he felt with the school’s infamous namesake spawned a lifelong passion for aeronautics, generally, and for this pioneer, specifically. Interviewing Gilmore’s relatives and acquaintances across the Western U.S. and acquiring hundreds of documents and photographs in the process, he did everything in his power to discern whether the Nevada County resident could have achieved flight at the airfield, now school site, before the Wright Brothers. In solidarity with an eclectic historical figure, short on family with money and the capacity for self-promotion, Steve gave regular lectures to the Nevada County Historical Society and aeronautical clubs, and published an article that, along with his lifetime’s worth of documentation, he hoped would posthumously become a published book.
Deciding that teaching in a formal setting was not for him, but that Nevada County’s history and trees were, Steve continued to play trombone, locally with Wally Brook’s Swing Tones and the Jim Lowe Trio, as well as in salsa bands, classical trombone choirs and symphonies, across the region. He also found a job he truly loved, working in the woods, cutting up trees and logs for firewood, claiming: “Pine is fine. Cedar is neater. Fir for sure. I’m stoked on Oak. I moan for Madrone. Manzanita is good for Aunt Rita.”
Warming homes for decades with the largest cords and cheapest prices around, Steve’s forest products also warmed one heart when he sold a tree, and threw in a bonus, to a girl who was a sucker for all things Christmas in December of 1988. A few years later, Steve married Paula at the Miners’ Foundry in Nevada City, with 300 candles, 200 guests, and Don Baggett’s Concert Choir, joined by a handful of brave friends and family who were given sheet music to learn ahead of time for the occasion. When Paula entered the building, eager to see her groom in the crisp clean white dress shirt she had planned for him, she found her woodsman instead, beaming at the altar in a plaid flannel of his own choosing. When she emptied the pockets of his jacket, later that night, they were full of napkins stuffed with food from the wedding, a habit that stayed with this slow eater who liked to savor his food and save some to add to one of his famous ‘scrambles’ at a later time. Steve also made sure to always have chocolate in his pocket with which to punctuate every meal.
Food, music, sports, photography, nature and Paula were his passion until his two sons came along and put everything else into perspective. To be fair, he almost missed witnessing the births of both, Samuel because the NBA basketball playoffs were on air and Josiah because of a quick trip to McDonald’s to get a Big Breakfast, but he thankfully was never made to compromise. These two extraordinary young men by anyone’s standards grew to be both good boys and scouts, embracing food, music, sports, photography and nature, thanks to a Dad who made sure to be around to inspire it all.
Before cancer got a hold of him, Steve spent as much time as he could in the great outdoors, returning again and again to the Eastern Sierra Nevada, hiking much of the John Muir Trail, many of its mountain passes and summiting Mt. Whitney, oftentimes with family and friends, but just as often alone, always hanging out longer than planned at the crystalline pothole lakes he encountered, sharing pocket food with the critters he adored. One would have been tempted to peg him as a pagan if not for his love of sports, because God is most certainly at work in the Warriors and Giants. Or you might peg him as a dodger were it not for the ways he showed up to do the jobs that no one else wanted to do. You might try to peg him, but you would be missing so much.
Steve regularly wrote letters in longhand on beautiful notecards and sent them via snail mail. He brought calm and comfort to fellow cancer patients during otherwise chaotic times, sharing his journey and his crystal bowls. He was kind and curious and marveled at the energy and abundance of the Earth and soil. Unlike those of us who dream visual images, he dreamed in music. He had a presentation, an affect, a physical style, more distinctive than most. A truly nice man who hurt no one and touched everyone, to say that Steve was one of a kind would be to put it mildly. The world provided no mold large enough to encompass his 6’4” frame, nor dictionary with words bold enough to describe his largesse, his heart, his humor, his soul. In conversation, you oftentimes found yourself in search of a Cosmic interpreter to help you understand him, but the world fell away, if you let it, when he spoke to you, because you always had his full attention.
The most direct way to commune with Esteban is through Music and Nature. In the warmth of a campfire, through the wind in the pines, on every mountain trail, he is with us.
Surviving Steve are Wife Paula Barber, Sons Samuel Barber and Josiah Barber, Brother Philip Barber, Sisters Katie Claire Shido and Molly Martin, Mother-in-Law Donna Schmoyer, Sisters-in-Law Rosa Barber, Curry Barber and Karena Laubinger, Brother-in-Law Paul Johnstone, Nephews Michael Barber, Juan Barber, Emmit Johnstone, Andrew Sachen and Jessie Wagenet, Nieces Isabella Johnstone, Elsa Johnstone and Katie Sachen, and Cousins Peter van Gilluwe, Jeanette Blixt, Robert Barber, Jr. and Bruce Balderson.
Steve is proceeded in death by Father Philip Barber, Mother Winifred van Gilluwe Barber, Step-Mother Mya Barber, Brother David Barber, Fathers-in-Law Paul Laubinger and Paul Schmoyer, Sister-in-Law Cathy Laubinger, and Cousins George Barber and James (Butch) Barber, along with far too many friends as family to mention.
Memorial Contributions may be made to the Sierra Club in Steve’s honor. Thank you.
