Barbara Llewellyn Walters

Born in New Jersey, she was the daughter of Frederick B. Llewellyn and Beatrix Gunther Llewellyn. Her growing up years were in Montclair NJ, and then Summit NJ, with summers at Grand View-on-Hudson, Nyack NY. Her father was a lab director at Bell Labs, whose work on radio amplification contributed to the advance of radar during WWII. Prior to the war, her family had a small cabin cruiser “The Babs” moored at her grandparents home on the Hudson, and took weekend trips up the Hudson, with vacation trips to Montauk and Block Island. The family also took vacation trips by ship to Mexico when she was 8, and to Guatemala when she was 11. Following her graduation from Kent Place School in Summit NJ, she attended Smith College.

She married Joseph M. Walters Jr. in 1948. Upon his graduation from Brown in 1950, they settled in Scarsdale NY where they lived for 21 years, and where they raised their 3 sons. She was a devoted mother, always engaged in and supporting her sons’ activities, and regularly serving as den mother or class mother. Family vacations were in the Poconos of eastern Pennsylvania, and at Cape Cod. During these years she was an avid tennis player, she did regular volunteer work, was a Sunday school teacher, a piano teacher, and sang regularly in the church choir and choral groups. She returned to work when her sons were older, and was the secretary of the Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory of Cornell Medical School in White Plains NY.

She and her husband relocated to Barnstable in 1971, following his suffering kidney failure. Following medical training, she was for 15 years her husband’s home dialysis medical technician. Her husband was part of the first generation ever to survive on maintenance hemodialysis. She was a long-term member of St. Mary’s Church Barnstable, where she sang in the choir, and was part of “the breakfast group” for over 30 years. She was St. Mary’s church secretary for 12 years. Following that position, she joined the faculty of the Cape Cod Conservatory, where she taught beginner and intermediate piano for 20 years. She was part of “the Piano Group” for 35 years, a group that meets monthly, where each member prepares and performs a piano piece each month. She hosted the group regularly at her home for 15 years. She loved time with family and especially cherished her activities with the grandchildren, taking them on field trips and outings. An only child, she stayed close with her cousins, and following her loss of her husband in 1996, she regularly visited cousins in Louisiana and England, and they came for stays in Barnstable. She loved being part of the Barnstable community, and loved joining friends for a swim at the Barnstable Yacht club. She lived her last 12 years with severe hearing and vision impairments.

She is survived by 3 sons, Joseph of Stratford CT, Frederick of Barnstable MA, Clifford of Concord MA, 5 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at St. Mary’s Church Barnstable on Tuesday, May 5th at 10:30 AM. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Perkins Library for the Blind in Watertown, MA, or Broad Reach Hospice in North Chatham, MA.