Barbara N. Beecher

Barbara N. Beecher of Arvada, Colorado passed away peacefully from natural causes Monday, October 7, 2019 at age 76 in the intensive care unit of Lutheran Medical Center in Wheatridge, Colorado.

Barbara was born September 11, 1943 in Casper, Wyoming to Robert and Nellie Fitzgerald. Her school-age and earlier years with her parents were ones of hardship, deprivation, and moving from one place to another. After leaving their home at age 17, she overcame all obstacles to live a full, happy, and satisfying life. She was multi-talented as demonstrated by artistic, story-telling, and writing abilities. She cherished books, and read hundreds of them. She loved to write, and wrote deeply meaningful books, poems, and ballads which influenced people's lives. For a number of years after her children left home she applied personal experience to counsel homeless teenagers and speak to high school classes and other groups about child abuse.

She loved all of nature, but especially admired the intelligence and capabilities of animals and birds. She loved dogs, wolves, horses, birds, squirrels, rabbits and more. She protected injured baby birds, nursed them back to health, and was delighted when they could finally fly away free and wild. She created a backyard sanctuary for small animals and birds where they could be safe and find food and water.

Barbara made friendships wherever she went and was a good friend herself. She felt concern about people who appeared lonely and downtrodden. She would attempt to brighten the spirit of those who appeared to her to be unhappy, forgotten, unnoticed, or unappreciated. She would approach a person sitting alone and dejected in a restaurant, engage them in conversation, and repeat it over time. Most often, that person would become a friend.

In the spring of 1963 while working in a restaurant in Loveland, Colorado, Barbara served a new customer. She told herself, before knowing anything about him, that she would marry him. He was working at the time on a 5-mile stretch of the then-new I-25 interstate highway east of Loveland. That came true November 25, 1966 when she married Lynn Beecher in a Denver suburb.

They started their lives together in Grand Junction, Colorado, moved to Naturita where they spent their first winter, and then moved to a remote location south of Cimarron in the spring of 1967. Lynn worked to build the Silver Jack Dam and Barbara spent her days riding horses and exploring nature in that area. They were surprised, overjoyed, and somewhat overwhelmed when on September 22, 1967 she gave birth to identical twin sons at Memorial Hospital in Montrose, Colorado. However, the birth was unfortunately several months premature and the babies weighed only 2.3 and 3.2 pounds.ounces. They remained in the hospital for many weeks in incubators under intensive care. When the hospital did release them, the family moved to north Denver and Lynn entered a different line of work.

In spring of 1968 they bought a home in the 3300 block of Osceola Street in Denver where they lived four years. Their final move was to Arvada, Colorado in June, 1972 and they still lived there when Barbara passed away 47 years later after 52 years of marriage, raising a family, and becoming a grandmother. Lynn had retired in March, 1994, enabling them to spend the last 25 years more closely than ever, and during which they were inseparable.

Barbara devoted her life to her family and home. She was the most concerned, caring, loving wife and mother a woman can be. She worked long and hard to create a home of comfort and warmth that is filled with memories. She wanted her children to have something she never had as a child, a permanent secure home where they were loved, could grow happily to adulthood, and to which they could always return. She loved her sons from the time they were born and her hope for them was long, happy, satisfying, and fulfilling lives. They were her continual pride and joy from their birth to her last breath. The most fulfilling and satisfying period in her life was serving as full-time mother to them from birth to start of school. During those happy years she spent every available minute caring for them, reading to them, helping them, teaching them, playing and walking with them, and exposing them to everything she possibly could, delighting in how quickly they learned, grew and developed. She recorded details of what they learned and when; their growth, development, medical issues, and more in a diary for each of them. A low point for her was their leaving home to live on their own, but realized that meant she had accomplished a parent's major goal.

Barbara did not want any kind of ceremony after her passing. She wanted to be remembered as she lived and how she was: open and approachable; honest and direct; witty and charming; a bright smile and kind words; a warm personality with an underlying sense of humor. She, being the center of it, made life wonderful for her family, and she improved it for others who knew her. All will remember her, and she will live on in their hearts.

Barbara is survived by her husband Lynn, their sons James and David, grandson Nicholas, son of David, and her sisters Dona and Kelly who live in Missouri. She is preceded in death by all other members of the Fitzgerald family: father Robert; mother Nellie; brothers Patrick, Andrew, and Billy.

To share a memory of Barbara or leave a message of condolence for her family, please visit the guestbook below.