Barbara Pope Peckham
Barbara lived in Massachusetts as a child, moved to Connecticut, where she lived until she married. After her husband Douglas returned from Korea, they moved to Troy, NY, where they lived until 1962 when he was transferred to Syracuse, NY. In 2001 they moved to Martha’s Vineyard permanently, to the old Victorian house in Oak Bluffs that they had owned since 1971. Her husband, Douglas, is a well-known artist on the island. She attended Vassar College for two years. After marriage she returned to college when the children were small and attended Russell Sage College in Albany nights and, later, Syracuse University, from which she was graduated in l966. During her life she has been Society and Woman’s Page Editor for the New Haven, CT, Journal-Courier for three years and worked for a public radio station and an advertising agency in Albany, NY, writing
radio and television commercials. After graduating from Syracuse, she taught in grade school in Marcellus, NY, for 24 years until retiring in 1990. She received Teacher of the Year Award from the Marcellus, NY, Rotary Club in the 1950s. Barbara is in her church choir and is president of the Unity Club of the Edgartown Federated Church, where she was chair of the Missions Committee for eleven years. She is a past president of the League of Women Voters of Martha’s Vineyard, is secretary of COMSOG and is also secretary of the Oak Bluffs Homemakers Club. For some years she has been a member of the Oak Bluffs Public Library Thursday Writing Group. She is very active in the Pathways Project for the Arts and has published two poetry books, “A Jar of Summer” and “Sing Spring”. She has two sons, Douglas, Jr., and Jonathan, and one daughter, Jennifer Mattea, all living in the Midwest, eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren. She enjoys cooking, preserving, gardening, reading, swimming in the summer, traveling, and, of course, writing.