Barbara Francis Minton

Barbara LaJoy Francis Minton, 89, stepped over to the other side in Austin, Texas, on October 25, 2024. Barbara will be remembered by her family as an incredibly devoted and loving wife, as well as a loyal and protective mother. Many others will also remember her as a joyful and loving friend that was devoted to her community and charitable causes. Barbara was happy at any time with her family, but she most adored listening to her son Burton play the piano, while her other children and grandchildren danced around the living room with reckless abandon. Despite their valiant and sustained efforts to prove otherwise, her children and grandchildren could do no wrong.

- She will be missed every day from now until we all join her down the road.

Barbara was born on August 19, 1935 in McAlester, Oklahoma. McAlester in those days was a small frontier town developed by commerce through its railroad, coal mining and state penitentiary. As both of Barbara’s parents worked, she spent her summer days swimming and running barefooted around town with her friends. She was a self-proclaimed tomboy that enjoyed foot races, tree climbing and sandlot ball over dress-up and tea parties. In high school, Barbara lettered in track and was a cheerleader and homecoming queen. Most of these years were spent with her dearest and lifelong friend, Lucy Freeman Smith. It is also important to note here, that she loved and adored her baby brother, Richard Francis.

At 17 years old, Barbara travelled with her Aunt Gretna from McAlester to Denton, Texas, to tour the campus of Texas State College for Women and visit Aunt Gretna’s friend, who was also the mother of two young men. On the drive down, Aunt Gretna warned Barbara to “stay away from the older one,” a young and dashing fighter pilot named Roy Minton. Barbara failed to heed any such advice. She met Roy at his mother’s dinner table during that very first visit in 1953. Soon thereafter, Roy was well known to buzz the TSCW campus and other places he thought Barbara might be in his F-86 Sabre Jet. It is hard now to say which one could not resist the other more, but they fell deeply in love and married the minute that Barbara graduated. Barbara had her first child at 21, another at 22 and a third less than a month after her 24th birthday. She then went on to have two more. Roy later loved to inappropriately say with a grin, “I got to where I was scared to pass the girl in the hallway.”

With a baby on each hip and one toddling in front, Barbara managed her growing brood in Austin by getting Roy through law school and on to building a successful law firm. They moved out of the Meadowbrook Housing Project in south Austin and ironically ended up on Meadowbrook Drive in Tarrytown. As their children grew, the sheer number of activities that Barbara managed from Casis to Austin High was daunting. If she wasn’t running kids around in the car and tending to all of their needs, she was working with the PTA, Little League, Settlement Club, Planned Parenthood and Writer’s League of Texas. With little money in the early days, Barbara was resourceful. She learned to weld, took a keen interest in woodworking, and designed and created many of the treasures that adorned the family home. As the years rolled by, the family home on Meadowbrook became a gathering place for kids of all ages, family friends, law partners, clients and politicos. For many, many decades, all manner of folk would come and go through Meadowbrook, announced or not, but always welcome. Barbara would always – without fail – have a country meal on the stove, ice tea on the counter and cold beer in the refrigerator. During the children’s high school and college years, friends would drop by on the way out for the night – and would wind up sitting around with Roy and Barbara instead – eating, drinking and dancing. It was a magical time created by the most loving and joyful woman.

Barbara Minton was a five-foot force. A woman who made it possible for her good husband to become a great father and lawyer and she constantly encouraged her children to be good citizens and look out for the little guy. She collected every single item in the Christmas in City Village from Department 56, hid chocolate bars in her underwear drawer and fired a coach with a poor win-loss to take over one son’s baseball team. Barbara would stand up on the bleachers and ‘whoop’ so loud for her children that her boys would slump their shoulders in the outfield from embarrassment. (With all those boys, one can only imagine how close she was to her only daughter Emily.) And if you walked by her when there was music on, even in the middle of the day, she would grab your arm and start to dance with you. She would not stop until you danced, too. Her heart was irresistible.

Barbara and Roy Minton were a team for the ages. They truly loved their respective roles and loved and supported each other above all – even over their own children. Roy made it abundantly clear to all of his children that Barbara was his girl and that she was not to be tussled with or disrespected. And Barbara returned that allegiance, love and loyalty to Roy in spades. It was a top down arrangement. (And we all fell in-line, under an incredible umbrella of love, compassion and tolerance for mistakes.)

Barbara’s children and grandchildren love her fiercely and with our whole hearts. She is forever our matriarch and leader. Mama loved to say that she “had four bad boys and one perfect girl!” And this remains true to this day.

- Her laughter, love and joy will be missed by us all, forevermore.

Barbara was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Roy Quillin Minton, parents, Harry and Emily Francis, and loving son Franklin Thomas Minton. She leaves behind her brother Richard Francis (wife JoElla) and her children: David Francis Minton (wife Sylvia), Emily Elizabeth Minton Lauderdale (husband Kenneth), Burton Rix Minton (former wife Lisa Minton), and Perry Quillin Minton (wife Zooey Cuilla and former wife Jennifer Minton). Barbara’s grandchildren are Halle Christine Goethal Minton, Katherine Quillin Minton Brindley (husband Sean), David William Carsey, Caroline Quillin Carsey Beaulieu (husband Corey), Charles Burton Carsey, Michael Harrison Minton, Hannah Lee Peacock (husband James), Jackson Thomas Minton, Mary Alison Fiorenza (Perry’s step-daughter), Cameron Cuilla (Perry’s step-son) Lucy Quillin Minton, Luke Cuilla (Perry’s step-son) and Maxwell Thomas Minton; she also has three great-grandchildren: Clarke Quillin Brindley, Hayden Christine Brindley, and Author Ames Beaulieu, as well as several nieces and nephews.

The Minton family would like to thank Barbara’s caregivers, Charity Wegesa and Anne Adams, along with the staff of the Silverado Barton Springs Memory Care Community for the loving care they provided her.

A private memorial service will be held on November 16, 2024. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that those wishing to remember Barbara make a donation to the Writer’s League of Texas in her honor.