Barbara Barby Goodman Harding

Barbara Rosalind Harding, a resident Rancho Palos Verdes for over 44 years, passed away on Thursday, January 9th, 2013, of pneumonia at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. She moved here from Illinois in 1968 as a dedicated homemaker. She grew up in New York City after her birth on February 18, 1933, remaining there until her marriage to her husband, Philip A. Harding in 1954. Thereafter she focused her life on raising her 4 children. In addition she occupied her free time with such activities as making jewelry, creating recipes, and library activity.

She is survived by her loving husband, three of her children, Barry Harding, Eileen Curriston, and Rhonda McCammack, and her 4 grandchildren.

Funeral Services will be held Sunday, January 13, 2013 at 11:00am at Groman Eden Mortuary.

She was the most amazing person, woman, mother, mate and friend. Every photo of her told a story and only showed strengths even though she was belabored with many illnesses, too many to repeat here. She persevered through her illnesses. She came out ahead no matter what complication was in front of her as she was strong and the most beautiful person anyone was blessed to know.

One memory is how she always wanted to dress up and look good no matter the day of the week or the pain she was enduring. Another of her passions was to go to the library everyday and make friends with anyone she came in contact with. If you met her for the first time you would see her as a happy, funny, and cute woman with a loud voice. What a colorful lady we were blessed to know in a lifetime.

Family is a very important attribute, as mom put her family first before her needs no matter what was going on and these attributes are gifts she gave to her kids. We are all blessed to have so many/different parts of mom in us. Thanks to mom, life was never boring. The magnitude of her hobbies went from collecting knickknacks, books, magazines, recipes, and making jewelry that made her never bored with life.

She would say the cutest and funny things even though she did not realize that it came out wrong but it made people laugh. She didn't see herself as being cute or funny. She would try to be seen as serious; others saw her adorable instead.

Three years ago, in September of 2009, we went on one of our last vacations together as a family. On the way to San Francisco, we stopped by the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. The tour guide was telling a story about an event that happened beside the gazebo in the lawn, and then asked if the tourists had any questions. After a stretch of silence from the crowd, mom raised her hand and asked, "What's a gazebo?" The tour guide looked at mom with a puzzled expression and stated, "No one ever asked me that before", and admitted, I don't know!". The tourists replaced the awkward silence with a burst of laughter, and even the tour guide himself began to laugh. With just a simple question, mom made the entire tour experience more enjoyable and memorable for everyone in the group, including complete strangers.

Later on in the tour, we entered an area that required all of us to wear hard hats. In the middle of the tour, the tour guide glanced over at mom and laughed, "I've never seen anyone wear a hard hat like that before!" The hard hat that mom wore was put on sideways and incorrectly, but she replied with meaning, "Yep! It's because I have a small head." The tour group broke into laughter again. Although mom wasn't being intentionally funny, she brought laughter and smiles to both her family and a group of complete strangers with incredible ease.

We have too many stories about mom's humor and simple charm but a few more will paint the picture. She would call dad a male chauvinist without understanding the meaning of the phrase whenever she wanted to reprimand him but all she did was make us all laugh. Another way she was funny without realizing it is she would easily get lost while driving her car because she would not use street signs to navigate but used an assortment of indicators such as the yellow house on the right side. One time she got lost driving to her doctors appointment winding up in L.A., over 20 miles from her destination. The result was mom blamed the doctor for being located too far away. Another time is when the family went to the track to jog including our dog, Prissy. Mom complained how she couldn't run yet she ran an entire quarter mile with our dog behind her, complaining all the way. It makes me laugh to think how she said she loved the Grumpy cup she got as a gift from Disney Land. When asked why she liked the cup so much she would say, "because both of us are so Grumpy."

What all this boils down to is mom was childlike and wise at the same time. The smiling faces she made and the funny phrases she spoke could fill a book and what a wonderful book that would be.