Barbara Knapp

is honored with a Brick from Robert K. Knapp.

I met Barbara Troynette McDonald when I was a first-year graduate student, and she, a senior, at Kent State University, in Ohio, our home state. Our meeting was without doubt the best accident which ever befell me. We were married on September 8, 1956, and, after a brief honeymoon, we left our homes and families to go off to Michigan State for doctoral study. Barbara never complained about my taking her away from everyone and everything she knew. Forty-two years later, she still has not complained, and I am eternally grateful for that.

We had four sons, all sources of great pride. They were achievers, athletes, musicians, joiners, and sociable creatures whose religious faith has endured into their own middle age, largely due the example, guidance, and persuasiveness of Barbara. Persuasive? She once talked the president of Emporia State University into renting her a university van to replace the broken-down one her agency was driving to Topeka. Just last night at a dinner meeting of one of her organizations, a member jokingly complained that there was no ice cream on his pie. Barbara disappeared into the kitchen of the Catholic Life Center and soon reappeared with a scoop of ice cream which the cook was not aware existed.

It takes a lot of adjectives to describe Barbara. I have implied "accepting" and "flexible", and have illustrated "persuasive". Next comes "involved". Barbara is past-president of the WSU Dames and of the advisory board of Catholic Charities. She is currently an officer of the Metro Chapter of Serra International, an organization which supports and encourages young people entering religious vocations. There have been other boards, other offices, other committees too numerous to recall. I cannot even do justice to all her current organizational activities.

In 1976 Barbara became parish secretary at St. Paul Parish/Newman Center on the WSU campus. There, she was surrogate mom to a large group of university students, many of whom remain friends of the family. In all, she worked 22 years in various capacities and locales for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, retiring in June, 1998, from her last position as secretary at the Church of the Resurrection. Twenty hours after her retirement party she accepted two volunteer part-time jobs, one at Via Christi-St. Francis campus, and the other with the Board of Directors of the Foster Grandparents Program of Catholic Charities. She is generous with her time, frequently visiting people in hospitals or nursing homes. She seems to have a gift for helping people in crisis. When she is not at a meeting, she gardens, reads, sews, sends E-mails, or works on documents in support of her organizations. I would nominate Barbara for any Greatest Grandmother contest, confident of strong testimony from our six grandchildren.

There is one more adjective to add to his narrative, and that is "resourceful." Earlier in our marriage, Barbara had a knack for inventing desserts. To this day, when our sons and three children visit, their immediate destination is either the cookie jar or their own snack drawer. She once fed seven marooned Boy Scouts (blizzard of '72) for three days on a couple pounds of round steak, some rice, a few potatoes, and some dehydrated Boy Scout meals. Whenever they would become aggressive (in the manner of adolescent boys), she sent them outside to shovel snow. When the roads were cleared, Barbara sent the boys home with freshly-laundered clothing.

As I mull over these few memories, each gives rise to another, and another, too numerous to recount. I hope I have made clear why Barbara T. Knapp is a heroine of mine, and I am pleased for the opportunity to acknowledge this in the Plaza of Heroines.

Submitted by her husband, Robert K. Knapp, associate professor emeritus, WSU Department of Psychology

April 21, 1999 (for Barbara T. Knapp)