Blanche Barney

Barney, Blanche Blanche Geraldine Thompson Barney, the widow of a "Greatest Generation Soldier, passed away on Saturday, August 20, 2011 at the age of 103. She was preceded in death by her husband of fifty years, Colonel Robert S. Barney, USAF, and by her youngest son Peter Bruce Thompson Barney. She is survived by sons Robert Knight Barney of London Ontario and David Ellsworth Barney of Albuquerque. She is also survived by ten grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, five great-great grandchildren, and numerous sons and daughters-in-law. Blanche Barney was born on November 21, 1907, in Malden, Massachusetts, to parents whose lineage included the youngest member of the Mayflower��?�s voyage to the New World in 1620, and a soldier��?�s service in the American Revolution. She was educated in Malden��?�s public schools and, at the age of sixteen, at the New England Conservatory of Music, at that time under the youthful directorship of Arthur Fiedler, who later became the celebrated conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. During a noteworthy career as a piano soloist in Boston and in greater New England, she was influenced by the teaching presence at the Conservatory of noted composers and pianists Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jan Paderewski. Paralleling her career as a pianist was her unique mastery of the trumpet and cornet at an early age, which, ultimately, led not only to her historic inclusion as the first and only girl in Malden High School��?�s marching band, but to her role as band-leader of one of the nation��?�s earliest high school marching bands as well. Footnoting her musical career was her teaching of piano to hundreds of beginning and advanced students. Her only disappointment in this regard was with her twin sons, who were much more interested in baseball than mastering octaves. Her professional performance career ended with her marriage to Lt. Robert S. Barney, a 1930 graduate of Norwich University, the nation��?�s oldest private military college. Her subsequent life was that of a military wife, a life which included her husband��?�s various postings in the United States and overseas. Throughout her life, she was a voracious reader, and in her latter years a volunteer worker for the American Cancer Society, as well as a constant source of awe and inspiration to her continually expanding family. As the mother of three boys, she brought to them an understanding and appreciation for the virtues incumbent with raising an American family as well as a love for music, underscored by their enduring memory of dark nights during The Great Depression when she magically produced her high school trumpet and summoned them to the radio on Lone Ranger nights with that urgent trumpet call from William Tell, and on other nights settled them down to sleep on the quieting strains of "Taps, the military��?�s traditional call to rest. Her final years were spent in residence in Albuquerque, New Mexico and at the family��?�s summer home on Newfound Lake in Bristol, New Hampshire. Loved and admired by all who knew her, she set the bar for grace, humor, and zest for life. A celebration of her life will be held in November on the occasion of what would have been her 104th birthday. Her remains will be interred at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Westport, Massachusetts. Blanche's care has been entrusted to: Daniels Family Funeral Services
7601 Wyoming Blvd NE
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87109
505-821-0010